Host Guides
The craft of running great events.Playbooks for the parts nobody teaches.
Getting people to show up. Pricing without guessing. Sponsors for small rooms. Each guide is a working playbook for hosts who run real events — written to be used, not skimmed.
Start with the plan
Fill the room
Turn first visits into return visits
A practical return-visit plan, a fair 90-day cohort calculation, and reporting checks before switching community platforms.
Get people to actually show up
A big share of free RSVPs never show up. The fix is craft, not luck — pricing as a commitment device, a reminder ladder that respects people, and social gravity.
Promote an event without an ad budget
Owned audience first, the personal invite that beats any broadcast, borrowed rooms, and a realistic 3-week arc — promote for commitment, not clicks.
Build an event email list
Social reach is rented; the list is owned. Capture at the ticket, grow it in the room, and only send emails worth opening.
Write an invitation people say yes to
Not 27 interchangeable templates. The five-part anatomy of an invite that gets the yes, a voice that matches your night, the invite–nudge–last-call sequence, and the reminder that turns an RSVP into a body in the room.
Make the money work
Price your event tickets
Your price filters who comes, funds the experience, and tells people what the night is worth. Anchor on value, build the three-tier ladder, raise honestly.
Sell event tickets online
The marketplace-vs-own-page decision, the real fee math, checkout that converts, and the buyer list you own — plus the U-shaped sales arc.
Understand Eventbrite fees
The effective rate is a curve, not a number — 24.5% on a $10 ticket, 8.4% on a $100 one. The verified math, who pays what, and the calculator to run your own.
Find the lowest fee on a $25 ticket
Every fee on one ticket, card processing included, for every major platform, dated and linked to each company’s own pricing page.
Switch from Eventbrite without losing attendees
Measure how many buyers Eventbrite’s marketplace really brings you, move your list with permission, and cut over a recurring series without a gap.
Pay promoters commission
Design the rate from your margin, pick the payout rail that tracks every sale, and handle the W-9/1099 part nobody explains — without a spreadsheet or a Venmo run.
Get sponsors for a small event
You are not selling logos — you are selling a room a sponsor cannot assemble themselves. Package it, pitch it in one paragraph, earn the renewal.
Build a paid community
Shape a member promise, choose dues or tickets, and test platform fit, repeat attendance and new-member discovery before moving.
Start a paid event series
One good night is not a business yet. Validate with a paid first edition, fix the cadence, and build the audience that carries between events.
Run the format
Start a social club
Pick one premise and a cadence you can hold, gather your first ten members, and decide between dues and per-event tickets with a small-club budget.
Run a supper club
Release a small number of seats so regulars book first, work out what fees cost on 20 seats at $95, and choose a booking tool.
Run a tech meetup that scales
Two short talks and a protected hallway — the format that holds from 20 people to 200. Source speakers from the room; scale the ops, not the format.
Plan a networking event people don’t dread
Format over icebreakers — curate the room, kill the cold start, give the night a spine, and make introductions the product.
Pick a corporate event by the job it does
Start from the job, not the activity — eight professional formats matched to what they do (align, belong, deepen relationships, teach), each with how it fails, plus how to design the forced fun out.
For your promoters
Then let the machinery run itself
The guides cover the judgment calls — pricing, cadence, commitment. SocialLoop handles the rest: the event page, the ticket tiers, the reminder emails, the promoter payouts. You stay the creative director.
See how it works