Hello Ed,
Welcome to New Zealand! I am based in Melbourne, Australia and have been promoting events online since 2001.
My main platform has been Eventbrite – but, it is US owned and doesn’t have the same privacy rules as exist for Humanitix and possibly Try Booking.
I see Humanitix as a good quality offering as they also provide Google results for your events – which can be very helpful for public events like Open Days.
However, if you have a theatre with allocated seating, I believe Try Booking is a good option for that and low processing fees.
I would also like to suggest that you consider LinkedIn Events.
If you put them on your School LinkedIn page, anyone who says they are going can invite 1,000 of their Connections per week to attend – so the reach can be excellent, and you can also have a back catalogue visible to viewers of your page, BUT, I do NOT recommend it for paid events because even if you contact people, they won’t book and pay – so I would suggest it is only suitable for larger unpaid events (like Open Days).
Make sure when you load it up that you include a link to your Privacy Policy as that will allow you to download a list of registration details (including email) and it is free.
Ultimately, here is the order I would suggest for a free event
1) Publish on your school website (at least four weeks out)
2) Publish on any online ticketing platform you choose
3) Publish on your social media as an event (Like LinkedIn or Facebook)
4) Publish as a post on your social media (at least four weeks out)
5) Publish a reminder post on your social media (one week out)
6) Contact everyone who has registered and ask them to invite other people they know to attend (one week out)
7) Collect all the details of everyone who has registered and send them a calendar invitation via email/text (one week out)
8) On the day before, contact all registrations to remind them that the event is tomorrow (via email/text)
9) After the event, thank everyone for registering a provide a summary, slides, recording etc if it exists
10) Share the details of the event on your social media as a post and again, thank people for coming (could also link to a post on your website about the event and on that, include a link to your next event)
I hope that helps!
Sue Ellson in Melbourne
