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How Much are Organisers Charging for Virtual Events?


We’ve previously written about the different ways you can show value when selling tickets to your virtual events. What we didn’t cover however, was the question of how much organisers are charging for virtual events. Today, we’re going to share some research we’ve recently done on that very subject.

For our sample (of 60 virtual events) we looked at events in the tech industry, specifically summits and conferences. We didn’t include stand-alone workshops, courses, or bootcamps. We figured that adding in too many event formats would create too broad a set of variables (e.g. numbers of tickets available, etc.) that may adversely affect the accuracy of our results.

Despite this, the events we’d narrowed our scope to ran a wide gamut when it came to their ticket prices; from single to quadruple digits per attendee.

However, the average ticket price for an online event in the tech space, as per our findings, is 170 USD. (All $ symbols in this post reflect USD.)

If we break that down, below we’ve shared what percentage of the events we analysed were charging within specific price brackets:

Chart showing percentage of sample events charging different price points. More than 50% charge $150 or lower per ticket.
Chart showing percentage of sample events charging different price points. More than 50% charge $150 or lower per ticket.
Cost per ticket Percentage of sample
<$50 24
$50-$99 20
$100-$149 20
$150-$199 7
$200-$299 10
$300-$399 7
$400-$499 5
$500+ 7

From the above, we can gather that pricing virtual events and physical events at least have one thing in common: different organisers put different values on the experiences they’re providing.

This may seem obvious, but the truth is that there is no one golden number to assign to your tickets that will work universally.

On the bright side, it’s reassuring to see that organisers aren’t under-selling themselves by giving into the notion that online events aren’t worth participants’ money. On the contrary, a vast swathe of online shows and events are recognising that creating cash flow for a sustainable virtual, physical or hybrid event series is important for providing future value to attendees.

Hopefully this sheds some light on what you can charge for your online events, or will at least lead you towards the ballpark. We’ll be continuing to research trends in the pivot to virtual in the events industry going forward, and we hope we’ll get to continue exploring the new-normal with you.