If you’re a promoter and have ever thought of using Ticketmaster but recoiled at the size of the “convenience” fees they would be charging your customers, and their lack of a sharing attitude concerning attendees, then Eventbrite might be a solution for you.

Eventbrite has been described as a “Long tail ticketing company.” In other words, they are attempting to make a little bit of money off many small events, rather than a lot of money off only large events. Of course, they are betting that all those small events will add up to large profits in the end, and they may be right.

If you want to read all about the company and it’s business model, Wired magazine has a nice article posted.

In summary, here are a few reasons Eventbrite may be right for your small, or even large, bluegrass event.

Eventbrite will share more information with you (the promoter) than will Ticketmaster. You’ll get to see more info about who is attending your event, and you’ll be able to use their tools to follow trends with both ticketing and traffic to the event’s registration page. They call the reports Event Intelligence, and they look nice.

You can let people purchase tickets using a credit card. If you don’t have this capability already, Eventbrite provides it for you.

Their fees are small. They charge 2.5% of the ticket price + $0.99 per ticket, with a maximum charge of $9.99 per ticket. That’s very favorable compared to Ticketmaster’s fees.

Their platform includes a very comprehensive list of features, including: custom survey questions for ticket purchasers, refund tools, ability to print attendee check-in list and name badges, integration with google checkout, integration with paypal, event affiliate programs, promotional tools, comprehensive reporting, and multiple ticket types (early bird, discounts, etc.).

And here’s a bonus for you. If your event is free, you can still use Eventbrite . . . free of charge, for your event registration. The free use of the engine includes everything, no holds barred. You have access to all the tools, analytics, everything. You can’t argue with that!

I can see Eventbrite being useful for everyone promoting a show from a house concert all the way to a full festival.