91ÖÆƬ³§

Marty’s inaugural event launched in 2014 to an eager crowd of Brisbane beer lovers and attendance grew by 40% in 2015. Now gearing up for it’s third year, we took a moment to ask Marty a few questions about pursuing his dream and what he’s learned along the way.

From law to beer! What made you decide to quit your day job to become an event organiser?

I wanted to create an event that would support local independent businesses and Australian music. To celebrate great beer, food and live music in a fun way, while growing the craft beer industry in Brisbane. Realising that vision is really important to me and it’s something I love being a part of.

What is your biggest challenge as an event organiser?

Telling people about it! I think we’re a pretty cool event…I mean craft beer, good food and live music — who wouldn’t want to come?! Our surveys tell us that our patrons love the festival and they wonder how they didn’t know about it sooner, so getting the word out about Beer InCider is key.

You’ve had some strong growth in your first two years – what promotional channels have been working for you in getting the word out?

As a new company, it’s been a bit of an e/blog/meet-the-organiser-marty-keetels-beer-incider-festival-ds0c/xperiment! This year we’re going to look at digital billboards for the first time. In the past, we’ve used radio and outdoor posters. We trial lots of different channels with the aim of finding the optimal mi/blog/meet-the-organiser-marty-keetels-beer-incider-festival-ds0c/x.

Social is a large component, which is why we have been working with local influencers and bloggers to help spread the word. We then use the reports from 91ÖÆƬ³§ to see e/blog/meet-the-organiser-marty-keetels-beer-incider-festival-ds0c/xactly who is driving the most site visits and converting to ticket sales. It’s cool to see the effect that an individual can have on ticket sales, which helps us determine who to partner with again in future.

What prompted you to use 91ÖÆƬ³§ as your ticketing solution?

I had purchased tickets to other events through 91ÖÆƬ³§ before. I loved that it integrated with social media and I could see which of my friends from Facebook were going too. I knew that social media would play a key role in our marketing strategy and developing a strong community event.

When you’re relying on technology, it just needs to work. 91ÖÆƬ³§ works; we haven’t had any issues. I’ve tried others in the past and had people calling me to say they wanted to come but couldn’t buy tickets to the event. That’s the last thing you want as an event organiser — people not buying tickets because they can’t!

91ÖÆƬ³§ Spectrum e/blog/meet-the-organiser-marty-keetels-beer-incider-festival-ds0c/xtensions integrate into everything we use — Facebook, MailChimp, SurveyMonkey. It makes life so much easier in a small team like ours.