Conversation

Protip for event organizers: A waitlist for an event is also a maybe list. If spots become available and you release tickets, only 1 in 3 waitlisters will take them, the other 2 joined because a waitlist spot is a zero-cost option. So a waitlist of 15 is really only 5 deep.
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Eg: refactorcamp ticket is $95. I might allow people to bid up to $10. If top WL bid is $5, and they take a released ticket, they pay $90. If they decline, we get the $5 less EB commission. Point isn’t to get more $ for event budget (which is nice) but separate wants and maybes.
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Can also set a lower limit >0 to further weight ‘definitely want’ over ‘maybe’. Tunable knob. Also helps factor in things like: locals are more likely to be able to actually exercise a waitlist option late since last-minute out-of-town travel can be costly.
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Hmm, you could even get clever and let organizers offer >1x offset of ticket price from option price. So if you bought a $5 waitlist spot, you get $10 taken off ticket price as reward for both being flexible and helping fill a spot, and for risking the $. Clear the market.
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It really is inefficient when an event is oversubscribed but still not full because no way to sort WL by interest/ability to make it. There’s spots and people wanting to go, but they don’t match up because someone who can’t go was ahead on WL and took up a 24h response cycle.
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You can even give people probabilities of getting a ticket based on cancelation rate analytics and WL position. For eg I know from experience that refactor camp usually has ~8% cancellation, so I expect 8 spots to open up if I have 100. First 8 WL are nearly certain to get in.
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Of course the alternative is to oversell like airlines but I don’t think events want to bump people who bought tickets unless it’s like movies with later showings. Heh, I’ve pretty much fleshed this feature out. And it’s a top line revenue booster too.
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