TLDR: WATCH THE VIDEO (click above)
It’s party time! 🥳 In this teardown, we’ll ask: “Why are all the cool kids creating their events on Partiful instead of Eventbrite or Paperless Post?”
3 things you’ll learn from watching this:
How Partiful’s UX/UI makes it look easier
How Partiful gives you clout as a host
Why Partiful (probably) gets better event attendance
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👂 Transcript:
Okay, let's get ready to party. So today we're going to be talking about Partiful. The cool kids who are planning events are not using paperless posts. They are not using Eventbrite. They are using Partiful. And so we will discuss the three reasons why this may be true. The first one, it's just easier. We'll go over the UX/UI that gets people to think that it's easier. The second is it makes me look good. So there's potentially a status game going on here. Partiful is going to make me look like a better party planner. And the third, which I'm delighted to tell you Partiful probably delivers on, is the promise that you want as an event organizer, which is to get more people to show up to your event. And so I would argue they just do it better.
So let's jump in and how we're going to figure out why Partiful feels easier is actually first by looking at Eventbrite. So Eventbrite is your classic event where you say “Create an event.” Got it. Great, let's do that. Okay, so this is the basic info. We're going to put in a “Spa Day” today. So I'm already signed in, so I don't even have to sign in. It prefills. This is very nice. It prefills these things. Location. It could search for a venue. We'll just say “Here.” Great. Okay. We could have a reserved seating date and time. We'll just say “Single event.” We'll go with “Here.” Okay, prefill 7:00-10:00, can do that. So the defaults here are very nice. We're going to say “Save and continue.” Okay, great. And now, interesting, I have a lot more to go here.
So Eventbrite, as you can see, it’s “Basic Info,” “Details,” “Tickets,” and “Publish.” This is very nice. It's just a little long. And so let's see how Partiful handles this. So for Partiful, we're going to do the same thing. We'll click “New event,” continue editing. No, we'll show you what a new one looks like. Okay, so this is it. I don't have four tabs and filling out information. This is the only thing I have to do to set up my event. Oh my gosh, this is so easy. So when we're thinking about sign-up flows, there's kind of a new trend to separate things out onto each page. So you get like one, you get a username and then you click “Continue.” And then you get your password. Like most UI/UX things, there's no one answer for things.
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And this obviously feels easier than what Eventbrite has done, which is really separate out all of the pieces onto different pages and make you click “Continue.” This. We're going to do “Spa Day.” Oh my gosh. So good. Date and time. Actually, this small UX difference is very nice as well. It just feels like an easier event picker. Great. Place and time. I love that it's hidden before the RSVP. No one wants the lurkers to go. That's great. “Unlimited spots.” I'm sure Eventbrite has this, but how fun. “Enable waitlist.” Very nice. “Cost per person.” And this is also interesting. They're basically using the platform that I'm going to use, which is Venmo, to collect money. So if they didn't do this, I would have to add my bank account into Partiful and ask others to do the same.
And there'd be some level of friction here. And they're eliminating that by using platforms we're already on. Of course, this probably is a revenue opportunity missed. And at some point they're going to add their own payment platform. But until then, “Custom link” or “Text description,” again, feels very easy. Wonderful. And we're going to end. The second thing that Partiful does a little bit better than Eventbrite – we'll start with Partiful this time, it truly is a party year. So I could have a theme. We'll pick the theme as this. It quickly changes. I could have an effect. We have dogs flying. And of course, I could search for images and let's go with like, “Spa day.” That's perfect. Okay, so now I have dogs flying. I feel like we lost our little effect here. We'll have something different. Okay. Theme.
Oh, yeah. There we are. There it is. Don't I look like a fun person? Oh, my gosh. So here we go. I'm going to save the draft now. By the way, I love that it says “Save.” It's not that we're going to publish immediately. I still get to review, right? And so here's how it looks. Very quickly. I'm published versus in Eventbrite. Super heavy. I would have to go through all these things and then click “Publish.” All these features are likely nice for the 10% of event planners who need them. So it does seem like Eventbrite has the features that would get somebody who is running a lot of events to probably choose Eventbrite. The problem is that most of us are not.
Most of us may do one or two events every year and we just want a place to hang out with our friends. So let's try to see how Eventbrite makes me look good. We'll click “Design with Canva.” Very nice. I've already searched for templates for this. So we'll see if we'll do it again. Spa Day. Great. Not as fun. Interesting. Not as fun. Okay, we'll do this one. Okay. And if I want to remove the watermark, it's going to cost me. So a free feature with Eventbrite or with Partiful is to make me look good. And the paid feature with Eventbrite is to make me look good, which is going to be challenging for your novice event planners. So we will again switch over to Partiful.
And if I'm going to publish this event, which I'm not going to do right away, I'm nervous. I'm nervous if I publish, my friends will find out, and so in general, when you have other people on a platform, you want to reduce the uncertainty of the big action. And so if I were Partiful, I’d probably let me know that this won't notify people and what will actually happen. But at some level, what does happen when you get invited to an event? So let's just go back to the events that I've been invited to. So I've been invited to this “Crepes and connection” thing. And so what if I just want to say, look, I'm going. Actually, I don't know who this is, but let's say I'm going. Okay, great. So now I can post a comment. Wonderful, we'll do this. Excited to attend.
I still don't know who it is, but okay, continue. “Phone number for event updates.” So this is the third reason that Partiful is executing better than Eventbrite, which is that they're not going through my email. They're hitting me up on the SMS. And so what that means is that I get to get texted reminders about my upcoming event. The event hosts get to text me reminders. And when you get this reminder, it's not like an Eventbrite reminder. It feels like, “Oh my God, this is so cool. Why don't I plan an event with Partiful?” So when we think about viral loops, events are pretty viral in and of themselves because you basically get to advertise to the attendees that you're using this event planning software. An Eventbrite may have done that in the beginning and that's probably how they got some growth as well.
But right now Partiful is using this to their advantage or saying, we're not doing email. Sure, you could probably have a setting for email, but we're focusing on the phone, which I would probably argue has a little bit more staying power in a user's mind or mental model of who it is. It relates more to friendship, which is you’re texting people. And I'm going to guess it's probably higher attendance rate. So I'll give you guys my phone number, we'll see what happens. Great. My response is recorded successfully. Now I am a little confused that I've gone to other events with Partiful, so why don't they already have my phone number?
So in probably a future world, you could imagine that all I have to say is I'm going and I'm not going to have to give over my phone number anymore, but I am going to just have Partiful make sure that I'm going to get the event updates. Now, of course, as behavioral scientists, what we should be concerned about is a default of this is not to add to calendar. I have to take that action myself. If we were purely designing this for getting people to go to events, we would get them to sign up for the text message, we get them to add to calendar. That would all be automatic. As soon as they say “I'm going.” And for Eventbrite, they're kicking me emails still.
I'm sure there's a way that hosts could text you, but that doesn't seem to be the default or the norm anymore. And same with Paperless Post. So if I were to sum up the “crepes and connection” philosophy here, it's that, number one, you’ve got to make the perception of work less. And Partiful did that with a really interesting, fun, one-page event creation. They also made me look good in front of my friends by having it be fun and interesting. Memes and guests, flying dogs all over the place. And third, a viral loop acknowledgment, which is they get free advertising for getting my friends here if they're an event platform and they're taking advantage of it by texting my friends and saying, “This is from Partiful.” So a very interesting and obvious way, come on Eventbrite, take advantage of this.
And it seems like maybe not even that defensible. Like, could Eventbrite just launch a text platform now and really push the envelope on this kind of channel unlock, and probably guys know that Eventbrite's name in and of itself is not where the cool kids are going to be anymore and there probably also was a timing component of Partiful was just right time right place to really take some of the cake or the crepe if you will.
Questions about your product? Email kristen@irrationallabs.com.
3 Ways Partiful is Beating Eventbrite at Event Marketing