My Live Event Was a Huge Flop!

What can we learn from this?

Hi there,

I hope you had a good week. My week was, errr… interesting.

On Thursday I hosted the third live event for my other Substack publication and it was a humungous flop. No one turned up. Well actually, one hardy soul called Becky clicked into the virtual waiting room and clicked away again before I could admit her. Perhaps she could see that no one else was there. Good escape, Becky, I would have made the same decision.

A live event with zero attendance? Not my best day!

What went wrong?

I did not do a good job of selling the benefits. I should have been working harder to show my subscribers what they would get from a live meet-up. I should have done a better job of selling the sense of camaraderie my subscribers could gain from getting together to chat informally with like-minded professionals.

My audience is geographically diverse. When you have subscribers from all over the world, time zones for live events are a bitch.

My subscribers are busy people. Even when a live event is at a reasonable time of day, my audience (food safety professionals) are usually run off their feet at work and don’t have time to hang out online just for fun. The first live event I had was attended by a self-employed consultant, who showed up at 8:00 am his time before his first job of the day, and a semi-retired advisor from the other side of the world who showed up at 9:00 pm his time with a beer in hand. No one showed up during work hours.

Photo by Adrien Olichon on Unsplash

How did this failure impact me and my publication?

Okay, so this is going to make me sound like I have a heart of stone, but I wasn’t that bothered by the no-shows.

I should have been devastated but I am not. Here’s why:

Live events are an experiment for my publication. I didn’t know if they would work, and I told my subscribers that they would be a one-year experiment for 2023. This means I am not compelled to keep doing them, and I won’t be breaking any sign-up promises if I ditch them next year.

Launching live events actually achieved their main purpose. I know, it’s insane, but they are working even if people aren’t showing up. I launched live events to get more paying subscribers. And it totally worked.

Live events are achieving their main purpose, even with low attendance

Live events boosted my paid sign-ups in a big way. And the benefit has been long-term. I used to get less than one new paying subscriber per week before I launched live events in January 2023. After I launched, that rate went to a consistent one per week. (It’s grown higher since then too 😊).

Seems like people like the idea of live events, even if they don’t want to (or can’t) participate.

It’s worth noting that my live events experiment consists of fifty percent live training sessions and fifty percent virtual meet-ups. Only paying subscribers get access to the training session replays, which is probably the reason for their success.

What can we learn from this?

Selling the benefits of a live event is critical. My copywriting was not good enough. I didn’t show my subscribers how the event could transform them from lonely professionals to feeling like they were part of my community. So they didn’t feel inspired to join.

Knowing your audience is super-helpful. I know my audience well and this helped me to understand why no one showed up. It also helped me realize that live training could be a good offering, which proved correct (and profitable).

Sometimes people just like the idea of getting a benefit even if they don’t end up using it.

Set-backs happen and they can be disappointing - devastating even. But it’s possible to stay positive in the face of failure.

When this huge flop happened, I managed to stay positive by reminding myself why I was trying live events and what they had achieved for me despite the no-shows. I learned what doesn’t work and I know what to concentrate on next year.