Ask any experienced organiser when their tickets sell and they will describe the same shape: a small spike at announcement, a long flat middle that feels like failure, and then a steep climb in the last few days before the event.
The flat middle causes more panic than it should. The final climb is real and predictable, and how much of it you capture depends almost entirely on what you send in that window.
Why it happens
People do not register early because there is no cost to waiting. Registering three weeks out and registering three days out get you the same seat at the same price. Deciding is effort, so it gets deferred until the deadline makes it urgent.
This is not apathy, and it is not a sign your event is failing. It is how people behave with any decision that has a deadline.
The sequence
Three emails in the final week. Each has one job.
Seven days out: the reminder
Short. States the date, the time, the venue, and what they will get. Does not open with an apology for emailing. Does not repeat the entire event description. The subject line names the event and the timeframe, so somebody scanning an inbox can place it instantly.
Forty-eight hours out: the reason to decide now
This is the email that does the heaviest lifting, and it needs a genuine reason. Early pricing closing, a capacity number that is real, catering headcount being confirmed, or a session that is already full. If you have no honest reason, use the deadline itself: registration closes at a stated time, and that is when it closes.
Day of, or the evening before: the last call
The shortest email you will send. Two lines and a link. A meaningful number of registrations come from this one, and organisers skip it more often than any other because it feels like nagging. It is not. People who were going to attend and had not yet registered are grateful for it.
Segment before you send
Sending all three to your whole list is the fastest way to lose subscribers. At minimum, split into three groups.
- Already registered. Remove them. Nothing damages trust faster than being pushed to buy something you already bought.
- Opened but did not register. Your warmest group. They get the full sequence.
- Never opened. Try a different subject line and send once, not three times.
Pair it with retargeting
The same 72 hours is when your retargeting budget earns the most. People who visited the ticket page and did not buy are, at this point, deciding. A modest budget aimed only at them during the final three days routinely outperforms the same money spent on cold traffic earlier in the campaign.
Email and retargeting reach overlapping but different groups. Running both is not duplication.
Then send the one nobody sends
After the event, write to everybody who attended and everybody who registered and did not show. Thank them, share anything worth sharing, and mention the next date if you have one.
This email is the cheapest marketing available to a recurring organiser, and most never send it. It is what makes the next event cheaper to fill than this one.
Related.
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What to do when you have 200 subscribers and need 100 attendees, and why paid social is not always the first answer.
TikTok for event promotion: when it beats Meta
The event types where TikTok reliably produces a lower cost per registration, and the ones where it does not.
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