Have you ever ever needed to problem your self to be taught a brand new scary talent? Ultra Events provides on a regular basis individuals the chance to enroll in eight weeks of free coaching to be taught boxing, MMA combating, or stand-up comedy — after which carry out their new talent on an enormous stage, at a glamorous occasion, in entrance of as many as 1,000 individuals.
Extremely Occasions has a novel person journey: Individuals signal on for eight weeks of free coaching to organize them for his or her last occasion, whether or not that’s a boxing match, an MMA battle, or a stand-up comedy efficiency. After that eight weeks is up, contributors are requested to decide to promoting a minimum of 10 tickets to family and friends to return out and watch their occasion dwell.
The UK-based firm launched in 2009 with Extremely White Collar Boxing in Derby, UK as their first occasion. Quick-forward a decade, and Extremely Occasions entered the ecommerce world, promoting tickets on-line through their web site for the primary time in October 2019. Ashley Gordon, Technical Operations Supervisor at Extremely Occasions, helped them arrange a Woo retailer. As a self-taught developer who realized WooCommerce for enjoyable a couple of years earlier than, he selected Woo for its simplicity, and his personal familiarity with it.
Initially, about six months previous to that first sale on their web site, Extremely Occasions started their foray into on-line gross sales utilizing Eventbrite. Nonetheless, their service was insufficient and cost-prohibitive. Switching to Woo allowed them to considerably improve and tailor their website. “With the assistance of assorted plugins like Tickera, we have been capable of stand up and working pretty rapidly,” Ashley says. “It was a sliding scale transfer, beginning with our smaller occasions and testing the setup, earlier than shifting every little thing over.”
At this time, their enterprise has seen great year-over-year development in gross sales, together with tripling their gross sales after COVID-19, and seeing as much as 60 orders per second throughout peak promoting durations. A hundred percent of tickets are bought via their Woo retailer.
Industries: Occasions, Sports activities
Key merchandise: WooCommerce
Key outcomes:
- Constantly sees double-digit YoY development in gross sales.
- Elevated gross sales by 500% in 4 years.
- Processes as much as 60 orders per second throughout peak occasion durations.
- Has raised greater than £37 million for charity.
Different merchandise used:
Extremely Occasions’ gross sales have grown significantly since they launched their on-line retailer in 2019. After the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the in-person-events business, inflicting their gross sales to dip, Extremely Occasions bounced again — with flying colours. Their gross sales practically tripled between 2020 and 2023, after which doubled once more the next yr. In 2024, their gross sales jumped up once more, marking a powerful 500% leap from their pre-pandemic beginnings.
Although tickets to their occasions promote themselves in a way, because the contributors are liable for getting tickets bought, Ashley says Extremely’s advertising and marketing efforts deal with growing signal ups for this system itself, and supporting contributors via these eight weeks with top-tier customer support. They promote this system throughout their social-media channels and use Google Adverts to develop consciousness. Moreover, they’ve prioritized the person expertise by guaranteeing guests to their web site can simply discover occasion tickets and make a purchase order with out friction.
In accordance with Ashley, the rationale for Extremely’s development is essentially due to this emphasis on the shopper expertise. He additionally credit their improve in occasions throughout their three manufacturers. They’ve added greater than 350 extra occasions since 2022 alone. Additionally they upped their ante by changing into ISO licensed to make sure they adhere to a set of strict requirements throughout all of their occasions. Extremely Occasions is one in every of few occasions firms within the UK to carry this certification.
At this time, throughout peak occasion durations, Extremely’s web site will see as many as 60 orders per second. This can be a enormous feat, however elevated site visitors doesn’t come with out its personal challenges. To mitigate among the pressure on their web site throughout these high-traffic occasions, they not too long ago launched a digital ready room system that permits as much as 20 customers a minute onto the location for a most of 250 classes. Introducing this restrict is win-win: It retains prices low for Extremely, and ensures the person expertise doesn’t should endure. Fairly than being met with a sluggish website or server errors when attempting to make a purchase order, prospects enter a queue with a place quantity and an estimated wait time. Bonus: It offers Extremely the chance to market to a captive viewers whereas they wait.
“The dimensions of the person base and group imply that it doesn’t matter what undertaking you’re engaged on, chances are high there may be another person that has carried out the identical. Must you want any assist alongside the construct of your tasks, it makes it very straightforward to seek out.” — Ashley Gordon
Ashley describes himself as firmly “Staff Woo.” Ever since studying WooCommerce, Ashley doesn’t think about using every other ecommerce platform. “Any new undertaking I work on, my first thought is, ‘Can I obtain this utilizing WordPress and WooCommerce?’”
One of many greatest positives to creating with Woo is the built-in group, able to step in and help one another.
“The dimensions of the person base and group imply that it doesn’t matter what undertaking you’re engaged on, chances are high there may be another person that has carried out the identical. Must you want any assist alongside the construct of your tasks, it makes it very straightforward to seek out,” Ashley says.
For them, success seems to be like persevering with to develop their enterprise and improve sign-ups to their packages. It additionally means their prospects are given a easy journey via this system, and their family and friends should buy tickets with ease. “All of that is made potential because of WordPress and WooCommerce making life as a developer a lot simpler, and the good help on supply,” he says.
To this point, since Extremely Occasions started in 2009, they’ve raised greater than £37 million for charity.
Extremely Occasions prioritizes charitable donations and makes use of them as a pillar of their enterprise mannequin. The truth is, they use their donations as a key indicator for his or her success and development.
Charitable fundraising is a part of the settlement contributors decide to when signing up for this system. Along with selling ticket gross sales all through their eight-week journey, contributors are additionally requested to fundraise for a charity of their selection.
Extremely Occasions is at the moment working occasions within the UK and, as of 2023, Canada — however they’ve huge plans to launch into new markets and extra cities sooner or later. Their present growth plans embrace the US and Australia. “We’re taking these steps to type of actually unfold out internationally,” Ashley says.
They’ve simply began promoting tickets for his or her new occasions in Canada, at the moment in English, however taking a look at providing the choice for Canadian French as a translation. In 2023, they hosted their first Canadian occasion in Calgary and grew to fifteen Canadian cities working greater than 30 occasions a yr.
As they proceed to develop their Woo retailer, they’ve plans to launch a multisite resolution custom-made for his or her worldwide audiences. This plan would imply particular person websites for every forex on supply: GBP, CAD, USD, and EUR.
They’ve been creating a second launch of their ticketing platform. In accordance with Ashley, the principle distinction is lowering their reliance on third-party plugins and doing plenty of {custom} growth work. For instance, they’ve dealt with the entire {custom} ticketing, distributors, charges, and stats utilizing custom-built options.
For Extremely Occasions and Woo, the longer term is {custom}.
“I really like Woo and WordPress. I believe it’s nice and I’ve actually loved creating in it.” — Ashley Gordon
Sydney is a social media supervisor (her colleagues may even say a social media sorceress) and esteemed gif curator at Woo. When not crafting joyful content material, she enjoys spending time together with her rescue pups and moonlighting as a keyboardist and vocalist in a rock band.
