Momentus Elite allows you to track the attendance at your events, both for planning and reporting purposes. Because of different types of venues and different types of events, we have multiple ways to track attendance. We recommend analyzing what you need from your attendance numbers and deciding on the best practice for your venue.
You are able to track attendance:
Event Attendance
You are able to track the estimated as well as the actual attendance for your event as a whole. This can be accessed on both the Event Details Overview tab...
...and the calendar Summary Slider Info tab.
Event attendance is used for high-level reporting of the overall event. As a best practice, we recommend that you enter an overall event attendance number, regardless of the type of event or venue.
If you have simple events without multiple functions or performances, this may be the only attendance tracking you need to do. Single-day events would simply have their attendance logged. For multi-day events, you could track either distinct attendees or track the number of people in the building each day. Thus if you had a three-day conference with the same 500 people attending each day, perhaps the event attendance is 500. But if you have a three-day consumer show with 500 people attending each day, the overall attendance could be 1500. The important thing is to decide on how your venue will track this information and enter it consistently.
Some notes:
- If you have an event with multiple functions or performances, the attendance for each one is tracked at the function/performance level. We do not automatically roll the sum of all function attendances into this field, since the same people could attend multiple functions.
- Because the event estimated attendance can be displayed on the calendar, the estimated attendance field can be used to let staff know how many attendees you expect in the building. Live Entertainment venues have used this field to display approximately how many attendees they expect at each performance.
For instructions on how to add event attendance, see Add Estimated and Actual Attendance to an Event.
Booked Space Attendance
Attendance can also be added to each booked space on an event. This tracks attendance per room per day.
As a best practice, we recommend using this attendance on multi-day events where a detailed space proposal needs to be created (usually conference/convention business). The booked space attendance is entered prior to creating the agreement and can flow into the contract or proposal for the venue’s client to see how space use meshes with their event schedule / RFP, helping demonstrate that the venue understands the event’s needs. When used in conjunction with the booked space room setup, there's even more value (for example, a U-Shape setup for 30 people).
Additionally, these numbers can be used for occupancy/utilization reporting, which often needs to look at attendance for specific rooms on a per-day basis.
If your venue doesn’t have the need for a detailed space proposal or occupancy/utilization reporting, these fields can be left blank.
For instructions on adding attendance and room setup to a booked space, please see Edit a Single Booked Space on an Event.
Function/Performance Attendance
Attendance can also be set at the function level (including performances). This is used to define the number of people involved in a particular activity rather than the number involved in an entire event.
Function Attendance
Functions have three attendance fields: Agreed Attendance (AGR), Expected Attendance (EXP), and Guaranteed Attendance (GTD). How are each of these used?
- Agreed Attendance (AGR): This term comes from the hotel industry where a certain number of people/attendees are “agreed” upon, which drives the attendance for event planning moving forwards. You can think of it as the expected attendance at time of the agreement. This number flows in from the booked spaces attendance when you create the function via a placeholder. It is subject to change since it is entered very far out from the actual event date. In most situations, event managers don’t need to enter any value in this field.
- Expected Attendance (EXP): This is the expected attendance for functions (both F&B and non-F&B), typically the number that the venue should prepare for for each function. This is determined by the event manager and client while planning the event, and may be revised as information is made available. This is the most commonly used function level attendance field.
- Guaranteed Attendance (GTD): Guaranteed attendance is used for F&B functions, usually determined several days (48-72 hours) before the event. This is the minimum that the client is liable for in terms of F&B expenses, even if no one actually shows up. This value can also be tied to item quantity. For example, if you would like a certain number of bottles of water per attendee or a notepad per attendee you are able to set the item's quantity as a number per attendee. When the GTD attendance is added, the item's quantity will update.
As a best practice, we recommend that any venue doing function scheduling and detailing should utilize the function attendance, particularly Expected attendance. Agreed and Guaranteed can be used if they fit the use cases outlined above. Unused attendance fields can be hidden on the detailing page and in the function mass editor via a custom view (see Create a Custom Detailing Tab View for more information).
Performance Attendance
Performances are functions which have been flagged as a performance. This means that in addition to the three attendance fields discussed above, they have additional attendance and ticket count fields on the Live Entertainment tab. These are used to track and report on actual attendance and ticket sales.
Our recommended best practices for performances are:
- Use the Expected Attendance (EXP) field on the function for planning purposes.
- Use the Live Entertainment Attendance field(s) to track the drop count/tickets scanned at each performance.
- You are able to create custom attendance fields if you would like a more detailed breakdown of actual figures. See Manage Attendance Types for more information on creating attendance types.
- Per Cap revenue is calculated by dividing each revenue type by the total attendance. If this is a metric you would like to track, you would add actual attendance to one or more attendance fields.
- Use the Live Entertainment Ticket Count fields to track tickets issued (both tickets sold and comps). The ticket count fields are based on the ticket scaling added for the event.
- If your venue reports event attendance across a mix of event types, add an overall event attendance value to the event actual attendance field (see above).
For more information about configuring your live entertainment event to track performance data, please see Configure Post-Show Reports and Ticket Scaling.