You will now be able to book assets and rooms – not just event tickets. There are many uses for this feature, including room booking, hot desking, booking out office space, sports halls or event assets such as equipment or even people!
Here is a quick rundown on the new feature: what it is and how it can help you.
Why use Asset Booking?
Asset booking enables users to be able to book and organise more than just events. It will allow users to book any ‘asset’ – whether it be a room, a physical piece of equipment or an hour of someone’s time.
For example, Asset Booking would be used well for booking stands at conferences.
How does Asset Booking work?
The asset booking feature allows customers to book out any asset for a fee, dependent on how long the asset is used.
An organiser can use the asset booking feature to book:
Buildings
Meeting rooms
Hot desks
Conference rooms
Equipment
Or anything else that needs a booking system
As this feature is built on top of our event ticketing platform (although there are a few differences, such as pricing structure), all other functionality you get from our ticketing platform will work with the asset booking functionality.
This means that the owner of the assets available to book can:
Refund and cancel orders
Embed their asset booking page into their own website using a widget
See the list of people who have rented the asset in a convenient CSV
Manage orders
Accept payments by invoice
Apply discount codes
Include memberships
The asset management button can be found in the “Utilities” menu in the left-hand sidebar from the dashboard. Then use the “Create New Asset” button to begin.
When creating an asset booking page, the experience will be very similar to creating an event but with some notable differences:
Some options are missing – you can’t set the event category, use tickets or use the reserve/waiting list.
You can set the “type” of available asset, which will change the wording when the asset is referenced.
When setting the dates that the asset is available, you can add dates in bulk by clicking “add time slots in bulk” under the date entry fields. This is a new feature to make adding time slots and dates easier and more efficient.
When creating the asset booking, the venue search can be used as it would when creating an event, along with adding a description.
There is a “payment options” section to allow customers to pay by invoice or not. Please get in touch with our support team if you wish to have Pay By Invoice added to your asset booking.
Unlike our event platform, where the pricing is based on tickets, the pricing is set by the amount of time being booked in, and how much it will cost is specified by the asset’s owner.
For example:
A 30-minute time slot will be charged £6
A 1-hour time slot will be charged for £10
This is how the prices can be set when an asset is booked for a time slot.
When a customer places a booking for a specified time slot, the price is calculated to give the customer the cheapest possible rate for longer amounts of time.
As an example using the rates above:
A 2.5 hour time slot will be calculated as (2 x 1 hour) + (1 x 30-minute) slot = £25 rather than 5 x 30-minute slots = £30.
Please note that the paid rates are subject to a booking fee that will be worked out using the same pricing structure as our fees on tickets.
At the end of the asset creation page, images can be added along with any terms and conditions, privacy policies and refund policies.
When a customer is booking a time slot, they will see all available time slots throughout the date parameters that they have set and then continue to select the time slots they wish to book.
Once a customer is happy with their selection and clicks “checkout”, they will continue through the purchasing process as if buying a ticket. However, they will not be asked to provide a “ticket holder name” for each time slot booked if more than 1 is selected.
How does it affect you (the planner)?
As previously mentioned, this feature would be handy if you run events like conferences or trade shows where stands can be booked out for certain lengths of time and still needing to sell visitor tickets.
The uses for this are huge and can be used depending on your needs. Examples being room booking, hot desking, booking out office space, sports halls or event assets such as equipment or even people.
Our goal is to make your life easier as an organiser: we aim to build these features to get you selling tickets for your events as soon as possible and as smoothly as possible.
So this a brief guide on how to use our new Asset Booking feature and why it would be useful to you as an organiser!
For more advice on features both new and old, check out our help desk.
When organising events and selling tickets, we all know that some refunds can be inevitable and unavoidable. We also understand how frustrating it can be when you need the funds from ticket sales to help with cash flow and pay for your event expenses.
This is why we’ve created a new feature for you – Partial Refunds.
You can now select which attendees from a specific order need a refund, as well as having the choice to issue a full refund or a partial refund.
This is useful for situations such as a price drop or issuing cancellation fees.
To get started on issuing a partial refund:
Access the “View All Orders” page from your dashboard and select “Refund Order” on the order you wish to issue a partial refund to by using the green arrow icon on the order.
From here, you’ll be able to see a pop-up.
By default, the popup is set up for a full refund, and all tickets will be selected at their full purchase amount. The selected ticket will be cancelled if you proceed with the refund without making changes.
If you wish to issue a partial refund, you’ll need to deselect the tickets that will not be included in the partial refund using the left-hand checkboxes.
If you would like the tickets to be cancelled and make them invalid at your event, select “Yes” on the “Cancel” drop-down. Otherwise, select “No”, and the ticket will still be valid at your event but refunded/partially refunded anyway.
Now you can adjust the amount to be refunded from each ticket.
The total amount will adjust to how much is being refunded as a whole. This amount includes booking fees and tax. Please note: the minimum amount that can be refunded is 0.50 in all currencies.
When you’re happy with the amount of the partial refund(s), you need to submit a reason for the refund to continue. You can choose if you wish to notify the attendee of the partial refund via email or not.
If you wish to leave an internal note on order for yourself, you can leave a note on order. This could be a reason for the refund, such as a price change on the ticket purchased.
When you’re happy with all of the information, click “refund”, and the refund will be complete. The ticket price will adjust automatically to reflect your revenue amounts on your dashboard.
Any fully refunded and cancelled tickets will be removed from your guest list CSV, so this will need to be downloaded again to ensure the changes are reflected in the final list.
Please note: Refunds can take 5 to 10 working days to reach the attendee’s bank account, but most take place immediately.
The Chestnut Appeal, based in Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, has been at the forefront of raising awareness about prostate cancer, as well as other male cancers such as testicular and penile cancer, across the South West since 1999.
They believe it is essential to get more men talking about their health and being more open to taking action when they feel something might be wrong. These cancers can be quite treatable when caught soon enough, but, there can be a lack of support around men’s health that can mean these cancers can have devastating effects.
We spoke to David Squires from The Chestnut Appeal to tell us all about his fundraising events and how Helm Tickets has helped grow them.
Can you tell us about your events and how you came to run them?
“Back in 2011 we wondered about holding a swim in aid of the charity. Open Water swimming was just taking off and the creation of ‘groups’ on Facebook had started to attract lots of interest. After a meeting with the safety team, who were then housed on an industrial estate in deepest Cornwall, we set about launching the 2011 Burgh Island Swim.
I’m not sure how the word spread, but it did and before we knew it we had people signing up from across the UK. And so, on 4th September 2011, 125 swimmers took to the waters off the South Devon coast and completed the 1 mile swim around Burgh Island. The money raised through that swim back in 2011 topped the £25,000 mark. Needless to say, we haven’t looked back since and now run a series of swims across the summer from Burgh Island to St Michael’s Mount.”
The Chestnut Appeal swims are subject to weather and have been rescheduled before. To help our organisers, what are your top tips for handling the challenge of postponing an event?
“The summer of 2018 will be long remembered for the heatwave, but it also brought some unseasonable weather which caused both the St Michael’s Mount swim and the Burgh Island swim to be rescheduled.
We keep an eye on the weather and sea conditions in the run-up to a swim and keep in constant touch with our safety team if things are looking like we might have to postpone. As an event organiser it’s really important to remember you can’t control the weather. It can be a headache having to postpone an event but you really do have to think ‘safety first’.
It’s something to bear in mind when you set the date for the event that you have a reserve date. Ideally, you would want to have this date set beforehand so if you do have to postpone then you have a new date to offer the participants. We also offer the participants an option of if they can’t make the new date that they transfer to a different swim or even transfer to the following year.”
What strategies does the charity have for ensuring repeat attendance and simultaneously reaching new audiences?
“As for attracting a new audience, we haven’t really got a strategy but rely on word of mouth. There was a cluster of people signing up for the first swim in 2011 who came from Buckinghamshire. How and why we never found out, but to this day we still get swimmers and new swimmers from Bucks.”
How were you managing your tickets before you began using Helm?
“It was just a case of asking people to send in a cheque for registration. It was only 7 years ago but it was very different. Everything back then was pretty much done via letter and the post.“
What made you switch to Helm Tickets? And, How has Helm changed the way you manage your events?
“When Jon approached us with the idea of online ticketing in 2015 we jumped at the chance and year on year it has made the whole process smoother to manage and easier for the participant. Even back in 2015 people were resistant to registering online and we were still taking paper registrations., Now in 2018 it’s 100% online registrations.”
What are your top tips for organising charity fundraising events?
“Do something you enjoy. I’ve been swimming all my life. Jumping into the water where and when possible. So organising a swim makes great sense. Don’t over-elaborate. Keep it simple. If it’s a swim, make sure that it’s safe – it’s fun and it’s a challenge. A football tournament – it’s about the Football. you don’t need bouncy castles and face painting! “
Thanks to David speaking to us and choosing Helm Tickets! Check out his upcoming events over at The Chestnut Appeal website.
If you’d like to be featured in Organiser Spotlight or you’d like more information about Helm Tickets, get in touch and check out our other blogs in the meantime!
After all the excess of Christmas and looking ahead to the New Year, many of us will have the New Year’s resolution to improve our fitness or to shift a few extra pounds. This is the perfect opportunity to amp up your marketing for your class ready for January.
2018 saw a huge rise in the number of yoga classes available, from Hot Yoga to Goat Yoga. In the UK, “yoga” was one of Google’s most searched-for words in 2016, while the yoga and Pilates business brings in £812m a year, and rising.
Yet many yoga classes still face the issue of bringing in new clients and not knowing where to start in marketing their businesses. Drawing people into your class over others is now incredibly competitive. Due to this increase in demand, there is now so much choice for consumers to pick from.
Here are a few strategies to promote your yoga class:
UNDERSTAND YOUR STUDENTS
The best way to resonate with your students is to understand what really matters to them. So do as much research as possible into what they want and what they are looking to gain from attending your class. From this position, you will know where to place yourself against any competitors and discover what your USP (unique selling point) is.
By crafting a focused message that reflects the views of your students or potential students, you will be creating a bond with them that will bring longevity to the relationship. It will be these more targeted messages that will differentiate your classes from others in your local area.
It is also worth cross-selling your classes with other classes you may offer. Introduce students and potential students to other classes you feel they may enjoy. For example, if you have had a Hatha Yoga class that has been successful, maybe work out why that class is so popular from your students and then use that information to push, for example, an Ashtanga Yoga class to those looking for more of a challenge or a step up. If your students are looking to join the latest trends in yoga, why not look into offering more of the novelty yoga classes that are trending on various social media, or hosting a one-off novelty yoga event to introduce customers to your classes.
DEFINING YOUR BRAND
Once you have a good understanding of your audience you can channel that knowledge into your brand. Defining what you are early on will help you keep your message and ethos consistent. Is your brand focused on beginners getting into their yoga practice? Or are they experienced yogis looking to develop their practice further? It will be this definition that will make your class stand out from the rest. Use the information gained from your students to really hone in on what makes your classes unique.
An effective way of defining your brand is to have a website built which explains everything about your classes, as well as having beautiful visuals created to coincide with it. It should be a visual representation of your class, reflecting its look and feel. It should also perform in converting visitors to students. By using plenty of ‘calls to action’ (‘sign up’, ‘enrol here’, etc.) it should direct them into converting themselves from visitor to your site to a potential student. Being explicit in how you wish to convey yourself to potential students, create a clear marketing message about who you are and what your brand has to offer.
MAKE THE MOST OF SOCIAL MEDIA
With the understanding of your audience, you can now concentrate your efforts into various social media channels. For Yoga, Instagram is about to become your new best friend. Yoga is growing exponentially on Instagram with accounts like Yoga Girl boasting over 2.1 million followers. Rachel Brathen (Yoga Girl) is the perfect example of how to harness the power of Instagram to advance yourself within yoga. She defined her audience early on and has spent the last few years building a loyal following, keeping on brand, but, at the same time maintaining authenticity. Yoga is a beautiful art form and Instagram is the perfect platform to share visual content. If you are looking to share something with more depth, look at sharing on Facebook and then cross-promoting it on Instagram.
Here are a few tips on how to share effectively on social media:
Create custom content. Instagram is mainly viewed on mobile devices, therefore, keep your content short and sweet with plenty of eye-catching imagery and video
Social Media gurus Hubspot recommend the perfect post on Facebook being around 40 characters despite the 63,206 character limit, and Instagram hitting the sweet spot at around 125 characters
Don’t forget to create a killer bio on all your social media platforms, include links to special offers or a sign-up page. Your Facebook banner is also a great place to promote, so keep that in mind when creating an amazing profile page
Eco-awareness has boomed in the last few years. With the catastrophic levels of plastic pollution and greenhouses gasses, businesses of all levels, from small startups to huge corporations, are now taking it upon themselves to be more eco-conscious in how they direct business and events. Environmentally friendly consumers appreciate when businesses go the extra mile to help save the environment.
Events provide the perfect opportunity to showcase how your business participates in the rising wave of the environmentally aware. Here are a few top tips in planning your event to be more eco-friendly:
CONSIDER ECO-FRIENDLY VENUES
One of the best ways to show your potential attendees you are planning an eco-friendly event is hosting it in an eco-friendly venue. By using these alternatives, they are compliant in reducing fossil fuels and decreasing environmental damage. Some venues offer Biomass Boilers, thermal insulation, natural ventilation and gathering rainwater.The EU’s Future Cities project is an initiative to help promote livable and climate-proof cities. An example beingCambridge Living Future Community Eco-Village, built with the purpose of sustainability. An increasing number of venues and buildings are adapting to reduce future environmental harm and deal with climate change.
RECYCLING
Creating a clear and simple recycling scheme is a great way to encourage your attendees to take the green option. Making it as easy and accessible as possible by having multiple recycling bins listing what can and can’t be recycled reiterates your green policy to your attendees. An increasing number of events like Boardmasters Festivalin Cornwall are taking on a ‘Green Team’ to aid in keeping the festival as clean and green as possible!
TECHNOLOGY
Paper is often used at events because it is cheap and easy to dispose of. However, paper waste accounts for a significant amount of wastage at events, and in the modern world, it’s increasingly unnecessary.If you have the opportunity, make tablets available during your event with all the details needed about the event. Use them to replace sign-in sheets or email marketing sheets. Alternatively, prior to the event inform guests about event details by sharing attachments for attendees to access on mobile or tablet.Send tickets digitally so they are accessible via mobile and use QR codes to avoid printing off tickets.
FOOD AND DRINK
If you plan to supply attendees with food and drink during the event, consider using biodegradable and recyclable packaging. It will make a huge impact on the volume of waste produced during the event. Deposit schemes for reusable cups are another great way to reduce waste as attendees are more likely to return them at the end of the event instead of just disposing of them.Over-catering is also another huge issue when it comes to arranging events. It is estimated that around “⅓ of all food waste” produced or lost comes from the global events industry. Food into landfill is a major cause of landfill methane emissions and is a global greenhouse gas contributor.Estimate the volume of food required by considering the number of attendees, the type of event, and the timetable of activities and always double-check dietary requirements before the event. That way, you should be able to limit the amount of food wastage during the event.
CREATE INCENTIVES
Reward your attendees for their green efforts! Offer a car-sharing scheme, offer priority to those using e-tickets for parking and entrance to the event. You can always offer discounted tickets to the event or to the next event to those attendees who have used QR codes, for example, or another green initiative. And finally, offering prize draws and free ticket prizes can always incentivise attendees to go green! It is unnecessary to take on every one of these green initiatives; however, if more events take on just one of these ideas, it will help the events industry reduce its impact on the environment and provide another incentive for your guests to attend your event!
