From the My Internet Scout Portfolio…

Association of Silicon Valley Brokers: an Eventbrite Defector

ASVB organizes annual banquets, where hundreds of Silicon Valley’s top commercial brokers are in attendance. My Internet Scout helped this organization avoid ticketing service fees with a custom event registration website.

ASVB’s Event Registration Challenge

Introduction

Silicon Valley’s commercial real estate market is renowned for its vibrancy and rapid transformations. Consequently, commercial brokers in this metropolitan region necessitate real-time property information and standardized business practices. In response to this demand, the Association of Silicon Valley Brokers (ASVB) was established to provide market data and establish common practices for commercial real estate brokerages in the region. ASVB comprises esteemed members, including prominent commercial brokerages such as Kidder Mathews, Ritchie Commercial, Cornish & Carey Commercial, Colliers International, Cushman & Wakefield, and CBRE.

ASVB, as part of its mission, arranges and hosts various events exclusively for its members. These well-attended events involve substantial setup costs, attract hundreds of attendees, and require extensive hours for organization and management. Unfortunately, in recent years, ASVB encountered a significant rise in the expenses associated with their major events. Faced with tight budgets, they sought a solution to effectively control expenses and maintain financial stability.

Streamlining Costs & Operations

For ASVB, the employment of temporary staff was something always required during the busiest planning stages of their two largest events, a 500-person banquet in the Winter and a 300-person golf tournament in the Summer. They believed if they could reduce the number of staff members for these events, then event costs would stay in check. They decided to seek out a system that would automate more of their planning tasks and trim labor.

Failure of Eventbrite

ASVB tested the Eventbrite service and the service worked as expected. They were able to plan their events with fewer employees; however, there was a significant drawback. Eventbrite’s ticket processing fees on their events wiped out all savings realized from a reduced staff.

Custom Event Registration Website

ASVB approached My Internet Scout inquiring about the feasibility of developing a customized event website resembling the functionality provided by Eventbrite. Upon reviewing ASVB’s comprehensive list of requirements, we meticulously designed a cost-effective registration solution. ASVB was impressed with our proposed solution and greenlighted the project. Once the event registration website went live, it generated enough revenue to cover the project’s cost within the initial eight months of operation.

Event Website Features Sets

The following is a list of highlights My Internet Scout incorporated into the ASVB event registration website. ASVB’s event website can be viewed at events.asvb.org.

Multiple Events are Listed

Although ASVB’s Awards Banquet and Golf tournaments are the largest of their yearly events, they also periodically schedule educational seminars and open houses. Within the event registration portal, we ensured that if there are multiple event registrations open at the same time, an attendee has the ability to pick from a list of events.

Paypal Integration

ASVB’s business Paypal account was integrated into the ticket purchase process. By using Paypal, visitors know they are using a merchant services company they can trust. We also made certain that if an attendee doesn’t have a Paypal account, a major credit card can be used instead.

Coupon Codes and Group Rates

When we first met ASVB, they had been giving discounted ticket rates to event sponsors and to those who purchased groups of tickets. We integrated this practice into the ticketing system in the form of special coupon codes and volume discounts.

Automatic Halting of Ticket Sales

ASVB’s event venues have different locations. Each location has a maximum capacity of attendees. The ticket registration system is set up to automatically end the sale of tickets based on thresholds such as a venue capacity or reservation end dates.

Administrative Data for Event Managers

To help streamline the operations of the event coordinator, back-end administration controls are in place. Event planners have the ability to download the most current information on items such as, the latest list of attendees and their guests, attendee contact information and who used coupon codes.

Screenshots From ASVB’s Event Website

(Click image to Zoom)

List of ASVB events

Multiple events are listed with an image and summary.

ASVB Event Description page

Details of each event are presented with a map.

ASVB Event Shopping Cart

Ticket check-out summary.

Event Admin control panel

Backend administration of each event.