How to Get People to Attend an Event*
Save Our Skies VT
Rallies, Protests, & Demonstrations
Public Town Meetings
City Council Meetings
Political Campaign Events
(1) ADVERTISING
- Fliers in high traffic areas.
- Email messages to the entire contact list, but also Personal invitations, in-person or by phone.
- Ad in the classified section of weekly papers (they usually require two weeks’ notice).
- Radio shows – ask them to announce your event.
- Get your friends to invite their friends (and not just by sending an email!).
- One important tip – don’t forget to include date, time, location and contact information in all of your emails and fliers! Too often, people forget one of these and then no one knows where an event is being held. Seriously, it happens all the time. Double check your fliers and emails.
(2) SIGN-UP TO ATTEND & SEND REMINDERS
- Get contact information, including email and phone number, and put it all into a spreadsheet.
- Remember the RULE OF HALVES – Half the people who say they’re going to come don’t end up coming. Half the people who you talk to will say they can’t come. So if you want 30 people at your event, you need to get 60 people to say they’ll come, and talk to 120 people.
- Remind people regularly.
- If the event is a ways off, you can email them once a week to give them updates and ask for help or volunteers. But assume that many people will ignore emails.
- On the day before, make sure to call everyone who signed up and remind them. Get them to say they’ll come three times, and they’ll be much more likely to show up.
(3) EVENT VOLUNTEERS
- Give people tasks for events, because it will make them much more likely to show up.
- Ask someone who you think might not make it to bring some food.
- Ask another person to volunteer to help you sign people in, for example.
(4) CO-SPONSORS
- Ask other organizations to co-sponsor your event.
- Make it a rule that if they co-sponsor, they have to bring ten of their members.
* We are very grateful to the Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC) at St. Michael’s College for generously sharing their advocacy materials with SOS.