As the days get longer and brighter, the demand for live events is building. New data reveals that consumers are buying tickets at a rate we haven’t seen since before the pandemic. The proof is in the numbers.

Since the start of 2022:

✔Tickets sales for entertainment events are up 176% in NYC and 127% in LA

✔Ticket sales for food and drink events are up 158% in NYC and 141% in LA

✔Ticket sales for concerts are up 100% in NYC and Boston

✔Ticket sales for health and wellness events are up 179% in Houston

The above is just a snapshot that reflects national trends.

If you’ve been waiting for the right time to kick off and explore that new event idea, now is the time to act on the attendee demand that’s sweeping the nation. Whether you are holing a small dinner or a full-fledged party or musical event, now is the time!

If you are the member of your Lodge, or in the district, that is responsible for creating and running events there are a few things to remember:

• Plan your event far enough in the future that you can assure you will have a good pool of potential attendees and not run events on the same day at the same time as your neighbor Lodges. This takes communication with the Masters & Wardens of the Lodges in the area (District).
• Once you have a plan and are set, begin promoting your event at least 2 or 3 months ahead of time.
• Selling tickets is a Lodge decision on how much and how many to expect to get the planned budget right. We have found that if tickets are to be sold and pre-paid ahead of the event, when the event nears it’s a cinch to adjust the budget accordingly to for the number of attendees. As opposed to just pay at the door. We all know RSVP is a four-letter word to Masons.
• Promote your event as widely as possible and keep up with it, send reminders and updates periodically.

The Suffolk Masonic District and the LIPMA have teamed up to bring Hiram’s Tickets to all the Lodges and appendant bodies in the area. You can sell tickets to your Lodge or appendant body event right from the suffolkmasons.com website event pages. There is a cost as the system is a professionally coded and implemented software suite. The cost is minimal, just $1.00 per ticket sold.  So, what do you get for your $1.00/ticket price?

• No messing with online merchant accounts, LIPMA will process all PayPal, Venmo, Credit/Debit Cards for you. The Credit Debit fee is passed onto the buyer, so the Lodge or organization does not absorb that fee.
• Automatic payouts the day of the event to a personal or business PayPal account (minus the $1.00/ticket LIPMA fee).
• You have total control of the event from creation to updates. Logon to suffolkmasons.com and click “My Events” on the top menu and add your Lodge or Organization event, dates, times, add images, etc.
• Add tickets, how much, then they go on sale, when to end the sale.
• Add a ticket image to make sure the buyer knows which event it’s for.
• Email promotion to over 500 emails addresses in our DB, growing daily. Includes announcement, ticket promotion, reminders and an after event thank you note.
• 24/7 access to your attendee list and sales reports
• Online check-in via the website (attendees report) or via iOS or Android smartphone app (request the phone app code from the admins prior to your event).
• The attendees list contains a valid guest list for future event promotion.

A representative from LIPMA can come and explain more if requested.

Let’s get those events listed. At the very least you should enter your event on the Suffolk District BAND and this calendar is sync’d with the suffolkmasons.com website calendar so it will be listed tickets or no tickets and there is never a cost to add non-ticketed events. In fact, you can create RSVPs as well and there’s no fee on that either.

If you would like more information, you can check out this post for more detail -> Introducing Suffolk Masonic events tickets powered by LIPMA