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  5. How to grow your event audience

How to grow your event audience

6 minute read • Last updated: 25 February 2025

Every event has a unique group of people who will be most likely to attend – your target audience. This audience can be segmented by demographics, geography, behaviour or interest among other things.

Asking the following questions will help identify your target markets, which will inform what channels to use and where to focus your marketing efforts.

  • What kind of person will enjoy your event?  
  • Who do you want to engage with and attract?  
  • Where can you reach your target and wider audience?   
  • What motivates them ie what are their hobbies, interests, passions etc? 

In this article:

  • Understanding primary and secondary audiences
  • Identify and engage with your target audience
  • Target market examples
  • Learn from an existing audience
  • Expand your audience

Understanding primary and secondary audiences

It’s important to focus your marketing efforts strategically – having primary and secondary target audiences will help you shape your marketing efforts and budget. You will likely have better success this way than just trying to attract everyone.  

Your primary audience is people whose demographic, geography, behaviours and interests very clearly align with your event.  

Example of primary audience for a local literary festival  

  • 25-to-50-year-olds from your local area  
  • people who have purchased tickets before  
  • people who have a passion for reading, who are eager to engage with authors, discover new books, are interested in literature talks and events, storytelling and learning  

Your secondary audience is people who match some of the same traits as your primary audience or overlap in some way but perhaps haven’t attended or engaged with your event in the past.  

Example of secondary audience  

  • people within the same age group as your main audience in your wider regional area  
  • people who have the same interests as your main audience ie cinema or broader cultural interests  
  • people who are from outside your local area but have an interest in literature or broader cultural offerings 
  • visitors to the area looking for memorable experiences unique to the location

It is important to remember that the characteristics of your primary and secondary audiences might grow and change over time as your event develops.  

Identify and engage with your target audience

Audience at 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships

© 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships

Consideratons to make

There are four simple considerations when identifying a target audience for your event: 

  • who this audience is  
  • where they come from   
  • how you will communicate with them 
  • what you will communicate with them 

You will likely have ideas already on who your target audience is but it’s important to clarify your audience and think about how you might be able to reach them. 

Who this audience is

Consider some of the following groups or categories of people and whether they might attend your event:  

  • special interest and/or community groups  
  • relevant clubs and/or schools and other organisations
  • specific age groups  eg 18 to 25 / 65+ 
  • socio-economic and/or ethnic groups  
  • families and/or couples  
  • tourists and/or locals  
  • future sponsors, the media, stakeholders, people of influence, social media influencers/content creators etc.   

Your event will likely appeal to a number of these categories. Each individual audience member will likely fall into multiple categories as well.  

If your event is more niche, your potential audience (although often highly engaged and passionate about the subject matter) may be more limited. For example:  

  • festivals focused on a particular genre eg world music, silent films etc.  
  • farming or rural events eg sheepdog trials, ploughing competitions etc.  
  • sporting events for unique disciplines eg curling, surfing etc.  

It will be up to your judgement which of these is a primary and secondary market i.e. those you are most confident in persuading to attend your event and those that will be harder to reach.

For events with smaller budgets, the sensible decision may be to largely focus this money on attracting your primary market. 

An audience at an indoor event

Oran Mor

Where they come from

For each entry in the “who” category, you should try to identify where they might come from:  

  • the local community  
  • the wider region  
  • Scotland  
  • UK  
  • Europe  
  • rest of the world   

This will likely depend on the type of event you are organising, the size, your profile (if any) with each of these different markets and the breadth of appeal for your event.  

You will need to make some decisions on which of these will be primary or secondary markets. For smaller events, it may be best to keep your focus narrow to help maximise the impact of your resources ie time, effort, budget etc.   

How you will communicate with them

How best to reach these people will very much depend on what budget you have and how much resource you have to generate interest in your event. But you also need to consider where you’re most likely to find each audience. 

There is no exact science to marketing and there will be some trial and error but as you learn more about your audience and your event, your marketing efforts will become more focused and cost effective. 

Options might include:  

  • organic social media activity and paid campaigns  
  • posters and leaflets in the local area  
  • press releases distributed to local and national publications  
  • inclusion in online listings such as VisitScotland.com, The List or a local “what’s on” site
  • community outreach/engagement – builds awareness, connection/ trust, leverages word of mouth etc.  

For events with bigger budgets the opportunities could also extend to newspaper, radio, billboards, television etc.

You can also think about how you may be able to secure free exposure in return for ticket giveaways eg a ticket competition with a media partner.

Two women take a selfie outdoors at a music festival

Visitors enjoy TRNSMT Festival

© VisitScotland / Luigi Di Pasquale

What you will communicate with them

There will be some overarching messages that will appeal to all of your potential audiences. However, it is important to think about what messages you will need for different audiences, locations and/or channels.

Some considerations might be:

  • New elements you are bringing to your event that show primary audiences there is more to see ie a cultural programme as part of a sporting event or a new stage at a music festival.
  • Well-known or celebrity names appearing at your event who might appeal to secondary audiences.
  • Information on travel partners for audiences who have to travel ie transport deals or information on bus / train options from relevant locations.
  • Engaging content on social media ie behind-the-scenes videos or social media posts from performers / athletes that are interesting and don't push sales too aggressively.

Check out our information on unique selling points for more ideas.

Target market examples

After identifying a viable primary and secondary audience, you should do some more research into these people, and where you might find them online so that you can focus your marketing efforts. 

Check out these examples of target markets to help you think about your own event and the best way to identify and communicate with your potential audience.

  • Existing attendees

    Where: all across the UK  

    How:

    • Engaging content such as video, behind the scenes detail etc. on social media channels to keep followers engaged.  
    • Regular news updates on your website to keep the content fresh for regular visitors.
    • Early booking offers or similar to your email database of past attendees.  
  • Families (primary market)

    Where: local community and wider region

    How:

    • Advertising or editorial in magazines available at nurseries , schools, community, arts and sports centres etc.  
    • Posters/leaflets at community venues running family activity, children’s classes etc.  
    • Information through local authority mailing lists and channels.  
  • Special interest (secondary market)

    Where: throughout UK and Europe

    How:

    • Paid social media advertising targeted at specific audiences ie Facebook groups.  
    • Advertising at other related or similar events.   
    • Advertising in specialist print magazines. 

Learn from an existing audience

Once you have established your event and have a viable audience identified, you can begin learning more from this audience and grow it further. Continue to focus on the who, where and how of your audience so you can focus your marketing efforts more effectively.  

The Royal Mile during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

© VisitScotland/Kenny Lam

Your existing audience is your most important and valuable asset so you need to ensure that you are constantly building and utilising your audience database. This can be achieved through:  

  • collecting customer data through ticket purchases  
  • pro-active data capture on the ground at your event or purchase points  
  • active and engaging social media presence  

By examining information about your current audience (where they live, what they enjoy, what promotional messages they respond to, their family status etc.) you can begin to identify ways to reach out to others within that audience group.  

Your existing audience can also be useful ambassadors for your event. They are important in spreading positive word-of-mouth and should be nurtured so that they will return.

Find out how to use analytics to track your audience.

Expand your audience

Audiences with shared interests

The best way to expand your audience is to look for potential new customers with shared interests to your existing customers.

For example, if you organise a small food festival with a predominantly local audience, you could look at ways to reach cafes, restaurants, markets and other similar businesses in your town to grow this local audience.  

Audiences from further afield

As you gain more exposure for your event, perhaps then consider promoting it to an audience from further afield if the local options have been exhausted.  

For instance, using the same food festival example – if your event doesn’t yet have a national profile or brand that people recognise and trust, you might struggle to persuade visitors from further afield at significant cost to them. Instead, perhaps focus on the closest large town where people are more likely to try a short day trip to your event at little expense.  

What else does your event have to offer?

Also consider what different elements your event has. If you run a music festival, the primary audience will be music fans. However, if this music festival has interesting independent food suppliers or a local brewery running the bar, perhaps a secondary audience is foodies looking for a good day out who might consider your music festival.  

Budget considerations

Any attempt to find a new audience should be done with your budget limitations in mind. Remember to concentrate on what you know about your existing and ‘potential new audiences’. Don’t spend valuable time and money trying to convert groups that your research and experience tell you may be indifferent or unlikely to attend.   

The more you understand about your current and potential audiences, the more sophisticated you can become in using different techniques to target specific groups.  

There is always an element of risk and trial and error with marketing to new audiences but a good understanding will come with good data collection and good analytics. It will also come with time.  

Explore more guidance and support on creating a responsible and successful event.

Marketing an event

Marketing an event has some key differences to general business marketing. Everything should be done with the event date in mind, making sure to share key information at the right time and to the right audience(s).

Marketing and communications for events

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