Using EventBrite with Classes

See HOWTO Teach a Class at i3Detroit for current information.

Using EventBrite with Classes

This document is meant for teachers/trainers. This document is authored by TerryW and will reflect some of my opinions on running classes as a teacher.

What is EventBrite

EventBrite is a commercial online ticketing service. The people who use EventBrite are:

• Consumers - i.e. people who want to attend the event as students or audience.
• Merchants - i.e. the people who are putting on the event, such as i3 trainers/teachers or people creating events for profit. For i3detroit there are two sets of people in the Merchant class: teachers and the VP Classes given HERE

EventBrite will publicize your event both to the general public, who cruise EventBrite looking for fun things to do, or potentential students that you send to your EventBrite event page from your advertising/promotion of your event.

EventBrite allows the merchant to create an "event page" which lists all the information about your event:

• What
• When
• Where
• How Much $$

Although EventBrite allows free events, it also allows paid ticket events and will collect $$ from the customers and process credit cards and such. If your event is a paid event, it will make a payout to the merchant about 2-4 weeks after the event.

EventBrite will also provide post-event customer analysis.

Why EventBrite

EventBrite is useful for many things to an i3detroit teacher.

• EventBrite allows a pre-event written list of who is coming to your event

• • This is useful to allow the teacher to contact their students prior to class. It also allows you to see how many people are coming. This is very useful if nobody has signed up. There is no need for a teach to waste an evening and a trip if no one is going to attend. Also if a low enrollment or bad weather requires that you cancel a class, you have a list of emails to contact.

• It manages expectations in the i3 student pool for training.

• • Some of the popular equipment at i3 requires training for authorization and many more require training for the equipment to be useful. There is always demand for training on popular tools, especially with new members, who are not steeped in the ways of i3. Instead of allowing "on-demand" requests by the student for training, I like to have explicit times scheduled for training. It gives the new students some structure to grasp. Some (but not all) new members find that a structured framework gives them easier access to how things get done at i3. Therefore I can say "I give a training class for the XXX almost every month, see the calendar for times" which for some newbies is a more useful way to give a handle on how to engage training.

• • I have in the past found that some newbies become frustrated about their inability to get trained on equipment and make posts such as "I have been trying to get trained on the XXX for the last three months. I give up!!" I find that if I can say "I give a XXX training class almost every month. In the past 90 days I have given 3 of them. I don't see that you have signed up for any. In what way were they not useful to you?" shows the newbies other than the original poster (viewing newbies) that are reading this discussion that the unhappy newbie is an outlier and that i3 volunteers are making a concerted effort to provide training. It also once again publicizes a structured way to obtain training that the viewing newbie can publicly see. If my post shows 3 classes with 6 seats per class, the newbie can see 18 opportunities to train. I find that more comforting to some viewing newbies than a post of "You should have talked to the trainers to get training." which can devolve into a he said/she said quickly in which the viewing newbie has no publicly recorded information on which to base an opinion on i3's ability to train. I feel that it is always important to manage expectations in others. I find that most hard feelings come from mismatched expectations between two parties. i3 is an all volunteer organization and nobody wants to distress another member. They are only giving their time because they find it pleasurable.

• • If a newbie can see that there were 18 training seats in the past 90 days (or some other figure) they can be comfortable with an estimate of how long it will take them to become trained, given their own schedule. Without an idea how many seats(i.e. training opportunities) were available in the last 90 days, it becomes almost impossible to make an estimate of how long training will take for the individual newbie, which is frustrating to many and allows them to set their own expectations without any information, which usually means that i3 will fail to meet their expectations. One of the constant battles I see at i3 is that the newbie wants to know "how long it will take me to become authorized/trained on XXX equipment". I find trainers are very reluctant to give numeric information to set newbie expectations. Again, this is an all volunteer organization and we should not be ashamed of how long training takes. We should not avoid the question.

• EventBrite is an additional method of publicizing classes to the general public.

• • I have found from personal experience that non-member classes get a surprising amount of attendees from those people regularly patrolling EventBrite for entertainment.

• EventBrite provides an easy way to process fund for $$ classes.

• EventBrite provides a MAXIMUM SEAT constraint to the teacher, if needed.

• • Some classes have a maximum number of students allowed because of mechanical/logistical constraints. EventBrite, through ticketing, provides an easy way to handle this, even for free classes.

• EventBrite provides a historical record of how many students used the class.

• • This is especially useful when a teacher is deciding how to allocate their time.

How EventBrite - Begin

To list your class on EventBrite, fill out the form below, clip and paste and send as email to the VP -Classes HERE

NAME OF CLASS:

DATE OF CLASS:

TIME/DURATION OF CLASS:

LOCATION OF CLASS:

COST OF CLASS:

MAXIMUM SEATS [write N/A if not applic.]:

PHOTO TO BE USED (Attach to email)

DESCRIPTION:

• include max seat if any
• include registration deadline if any
• include items to bring to class
• include age limit/parent required if public
• include if Member Only or General Public Welcome
• Include if materials are included in $$
• List if class is required for authorization

VP will email you back a link to EventBrite event page. Use this in your promotion of the event and in the i3 calendar.

How EventBrite - Prior to Class

• Monitor how many people are coming.
• Do you need to announce cancellation?
• Do you need to pre-buy a certain quantity of materials/tools?

How EventBrite - After Class

• Post internally how well attended your class was.
• Insure $$ gets into i3 bank account (talk to VP-Classes)
• See VP for any reimbursements