Hello!
I recently took over managing a new global event program that hosts conferences in EMEA, APAC & the Americas. While the conferences in EMEA & the Americas are well established, the presence in APAC (Tokyo & Shanghai) is relatively new.
For the inaugural conferences in Tokyo and Shanghai (2019) we offered free admission to our customers. These are one-day user conferences that include a full day of sessions as well as lunch & a seated dinner. Our colleagues in the host cities were adamant that no one would attend our conference if we charged a fee. They said it was not culturally appropriate to pay to attend conferences in Tokyo and Shanghai. Long story short - we did not charge a fee and we had a 40% no show rate which is what you expect with a free event.
We are now planning our second annual conference for both cities and we want to revisit the idea of charging a small fee ($50-$100) to reduce our no show rate.
My question: Has anyone had positive or negative experiences in charging fees for conferences in Tokyo/Shanghai? I'd love to get a third parties perspective/experience before we go to contract with another venue and start planning for 2020.
Any insight is very helpful!
#ExecutingStrategicMeetingsManagement------------------------------
Morgan Scalzo
Global Event Manager
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