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.
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!”
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.
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.
Some key examples from our venues:
Whatever you choose to upsell, our suggestions are as follows: