Every Show Can't Sell Out. Here's How to Make Soft Nights Pay Anyway.

Let's get the uncomfortable part out of the way. Not every show is going to sell out.

Scott Owens has spent 20 years getting people off their couches with DoStuff, the company behind Do512, Do312, DoNYC, and city guides in 22 markets. Even he isn't pretending otherwise: "Every show can't sell out, sadly. If it could, we would love that."

So here's the better question. What do you do with the tickets that were never going to move?

At our latest Make More Money session, Opendate's Andrew Jensen sat down with Scott to talk about filling soft nights, turning one-time guests into regulars, and the new Opendate x DoStuff partnership that pays venues to do both. Here's what you can steal from it.

TL;DR

• An empty spot makes you $0. A person in that spot buys drinks and merch, and might come back with a paid ticket.
• Comp with a plan. Release pairs early to people who weren't going to buy anyway, then top up as the show gets closer.
• Curation beats discounts. Fans will take a chance on something new when someone they trust picks it for them.
• Get paid for it. Opendate venues can opt in to DoMORE and earn a referral fee for every free trial that starts on their ticket confirmation page.

1. Empty spots don't buy drinks

Every independent room knows the math. A soft night still costs you staff, production, and the guarantee. The bar can only do so much when the room is half full.

DoStuff built its DoMORE membership after the pandemic around that exact problem. As Scott put it, a venue owner would "much rather have people in there spending money at the bar, merch, et cetera."

Papering a room isn't new. The difference is who gets the paper. Handing tickets out on a street corner gets you whoever walked by. Handing them to someone who asked to go out more, and told you what they like, gets you people who actually show up.

Try this: Look back at last month's calendar and flag every show that finished under cap. That's your unsold inventory. Now look ahead and mark the dates that feel like those. Those are your comp candidates, and you know who they are today, not the day before doors.

2. Comp early, comp in pairs, top up later

Most venues comp at the last minute, when it's too late for those tickets to do anything but fill space. Scott's advice is to flip the timing.

Put a few tickets out early in the show cycle. When someone claims a pair weeks out, they start telling friends, and some of those friends buy. Scott described exactly that kind of text: "Dude, you should buy tickets since me and Barbara are going." That's a comp generating paid sales.

Then, as the show gets closer and you have a clearer read on the final count, add more if you want bodies in the room.

Two rules make this work. Everything goes out in pairs, because pairs get more people out the door. And the tickets go to people who weren't buying anyway. "We're not trying to displace a ticket buyer," Scott said. "This is somebody that is not going to buy a ticket."

Try this: For any show your gut says will land short, release a small allocation of pairs at announce. Set a reminder two weeks out to check the count and top it up.

3. Build the going-out habit

Opendate got its name from a simple idea. If a venue could fill one more open date a month, it could change the whole business. DoMORE runs on the same logic from the fan side. Get someone out one more time a month and the whole scene does better.

Scott shared a note from a DoMORE member in Indianapolis that says it better than we can:

"I got tickets a year ago to see Shadowgrass. Not normally my thing, or so I thought, but it was the best option in what you sent me that month. So we went, and it was so good that tonight we spent 30 bucks a piece on tickets plus drinks to go see them again."

That's a free ticket that turned into a paying fan. It only happens if you can reach that person again.

Try this: Treat every comp like a lead. Get the guest's info into your marketing tools, tag what they came to see, and send them the next show that looks like it. One retargeting email is cheaper than one more Instagram ad.

4. Novelty is a selling point. Use it.

Here's one that surprised the DoStuff team. Younger members claim theater tickets at really high rates. Music is still the core of the program (about 60% of it), but a play in someone's monthly drop gets snapped up. One member's take: "I've never been to the theater, but I'll go. I'll pretend I'm cultured."

Scott's theory is that a play feels like a safer bet than a punk band at a club they've never been to. People already know what a concert feels like. Something unknown has a pull.

Andrew pointed out the flip side: discovery fatigue. Fans have so many options that they freeze up. What they're missing is curation, someone they trust saying "go to this one."

Try this: Write your listings for the person who has never heard of the act. Skip the press-kit bio and tell them what the night feels like and who will love it. And get the show into the system early with as much detail as you have. Scott said results depend on how early a show lands in their system and how much info they have to market it.

5. Target by mindset, not just age

DoMORE has about 80,000 active and trialing members, and Scott thinks of them as a psychographic, not a demographic. They're curious people who want to go out more and need "a kick in the pants." Most are 21 to 35, there's a solid group from 35 to 45, and a surprising number are older.

DoStuff targets on genre, stated interests, past behavior, and even connected Spotify accounts. They also do what Scott calls anti-targeting. If a member lives in Chicago without a car and can't get to the suburbs, they never see suburban offers.

Try this: Audit your own email segments. Are you sending your suburban amphitheater shows to people who live downtown with no car? Cut the sends that can't convert. Nobody's coming to a show they can't get to.

How the Opendate x DoStuff integration works

Here's the whole thing, start to finish:

1. Opt in. Any venue or promoter on Opendate can turn it on.
2. Fans see the offer. After someone buys a ticket, their order confirmation page offers a free trial of DoMORE, DoStuff's $7-a-month membership that gets members at least one pair of tickets a month.
3. You get paid. Your venue earns a referral fee for every new trial that starts from your confirmation page.
4. Allocate your soft dates. In DoStuff's partner portal, you'll see your upcoming dates and set how many pairs to release. When your allocation fills, they'll ask if you want to add more. You can add more any time.
5. Fans show up. Claimed tickets come to you as a guest list, or as real tickets created in Opendate. Either way, they walk in like anybody else.

DoStuff's local team in each market will sit down with you to make sure you're using it right. Bonus: if you're on Opendate, your events already show up on DoStuff's city guides.

Venues in Dallas, Boston, and Indianapolis are already using it, and DoMORE is live in 18 markets.

Scott was refreshingly blunt about why DoStuff wants to do it this way: "We would much rather spend the marketing dollars that we have putting that into the ecosystem rather than paying Meta."

What's coming next

The next phase makes it even easier. You'll be able to allocate DoMORE tickets right from Opendate instead of jumping into a separate portal. Tickets will be issued automatically when a member claims them, so there's no guest list to manage and no comps to enter by hand. And the claimer's info will flow into Opendate, so you can use your marketing tools to bring them back and create more Shadowgrass converts.

Turn it on

Scott summed up the goal for both companies: help "make every night profitable." The more people going out, the better every room does.

Already on Opendate? Reach out to your Client Success rep and ask to opt in to DoMORE. It takes one conversation, and your next soft night starts paying you back.

Not on Opendate yet? Book a demo and we'll show you how booking, ticketing, marketing, and partnerships like this one work together.