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This month, Paulie and Kanyinsola headed to London for this year’s TPC ½ conference. Joined by Farnham Maltings’ Jodi Bailey, Kanyinsola also took to the stage to discuss “The Encore Sale: Driving Revenue After the First Purchase”, sharing Farnham Maltings’ journey to boosting their pre-dining sales using our Event Hub feature, as well as exploring wider upselling trends we’ve noticed within the Ticketsolve Community. If you weren’t able to attend the conference, don’t worry - read on to discover Kanyinsola and Jodi's key takeaways.
The Challenge: When ‘Extra Revenue’ Becomes Extra Work
Like many venues, Farnham Maltings wanted to increase secondary spend, upselling pre-show dining from their Riverside Cafe to those attending for a show. But their early attempts were, as Jodi put it, “manually linking chaos”: creating separate “shows" for meals, juggling spreadsheets, and managing confused customers wasn’t sustainable. Moreover, it stressed staff, overwhelmed kitchens, and led to clunky booking experiences.
Jodi’s advice (which we wholeheartedly agree with!) was: “If your part-time box office team needs a flowchart to explain it…it’s too complicated!”
The New Approach: Simplicity That Works
Using Ticketsolve’s Event Hub, Jodi and her team added pre-show dining into the existing flow of their booking journey, meaning no separate links and no back-and-forth. Customers can add dining in one click, and those who don’t are automatically prompted later. The impact was immediate: orders flowed straight to the kitchen with zero confusion, there was less training time needed for part-time staff and customers loved the convenience.
The numbers tell a story of success too: with 6.55% revenue increase, 19.57% more orders, and 17.07% more unique diners.
What Changed: The Café Became Part of the Night Out
Of course real transformation wasn’t just about numbers, it was also about experience.
The Riverside Café went from being an optional extra to being part of the evening with customers now able to plan their whole night (meal, drinks, and show) in one seamless journey.
The Bigger Picture: Sector-Wide Shifts
Zooming out, this story fits a bigger trend that we're seeing across the Ticketsolve Community. Venues are rethinking what happens after the ticket sale, and it’s paying off. Dining and drinks remain the top-performing upsells, but other add-ons like parking, merchandise, and programmes are also proving powerful when offered at the right moment. Customers achieving the most success are those upselling to key audiences. For example older audiences might love a pre-theatre meal, while younger groups respond better to pre-ordered drinks.
Some key examples from our venues:
- De Montfort Hall simplified parking passes by bundling them directly into the ticket journey
- Komedia Bath introduced interval drink pre-orders to cut queues
- Cromer Pier combined dining and souvenir bundles for their Christmas shows
What to keep in mind
Whatever you choose to upsell, our suggestions are as follows:
- Timing is key: Offer at the right moment in the journey
- Make sure it’s relevant: Match the offer to the audience and event
- Keep it simple: Make it easy to say yes (and easy to say no)
