Event Planners and Organizers: How to Get Those RSVP's to Actually Show Up at Your Event

If you're in charge of luncheons, seminars, trainings, referral groups or leads clubs, you know that getting people to show up is the hard part. Never mind that "showing up is 90% of success." You are competing against family, work, fatigue and the precious leisure time that we're all left with at the end of the day. Your members and audience RSVP with the best of intentions. They even pay in advance and put it on their calendar. But there are so many ways that they can go astray the day of.

After hosting more than 1,200 events over the last 7 years, I've learned a few things about getting people to show up. Here are a number of tried and true strategies that have worked for me:

Charge and Refund
This works well if you've got an event that you want to put on for free, but you need to have a firm idea of how many are coming. Or you've got limited space and you want to make sure the real go-getters get those spots. Charge a small amount that must be paid in advance to secure a seat. Then refund their money when they show up at the door. Call it a "Refundable Seat Deposit" and make sure they understand that they have to attend to get it back. Anyone who doesn't show up forfeits their deposit and you have a little bit to offset expenses.

Reminder Phone Calls
You can sit down and make them yourself, hire a virtual executive assistant, get your mature kids to do it, or even use an automated phone messaging service. However you do it, a personal reminder call will increase your attendance. Emails can be ignored or lost in the shuffle, but a voice on the other end of the phone or in the message queue makes a bigger impact.

Guilt
If you're serving lunch or paying for a room, remind your attendees that you as the organizer get charged whether they show up or not. Nothing like laying a small guilt trip on someone to get them to stay committed. If they have to cancel, at least they can do it with enough time for you to make adjustments. An amendment to this is to let them know that there are no refunds, but they can send someone else in their place. It's always important to have "buns in seats" even if they weren't the original person.

These are a few of the strategies I have used over the years. When you add them to other ideas like building momentum and delivering more than promised, your events will be anticipated and well-attended.