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An Evening with Psychic Medium Jeffrey Wands

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On Saturday, November 5th, Riverhead Lodge #645 Free & Accepted Masons will host “An Evening with Psychic Medium Jeffrey Wands” in the Lodge collation room.  General Admission tickets are only $40.00 per person and open to All.  Each attendee will receive a complimentary glass of wine or beer with admission.

Doors open at 6:00 pm with Mr. Wands taking center stage at approximately 7:00 pm.

This is a great event and Mr. Wands is always quite engaging with the audience.

Tickets may be purchased online here at SuffolkMasons.com

Tickets can also be purchased via mail by contacting Terry Maccarrone at (631)-334-3698.

The venue is handicapped accessible.

Riverhead Lodge is located at 1246 Roanoke Avenue in Riverhead, immediately south of the Rte. 58 traffic circle. The entrance is at the rear of the building.

Call with questions.

New feature added! Promoter!

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Some may have noticed emails send to you from the Suffolk Masonic District Website in recent weeks. In addition, or as a companion to the new ticketing system, we have added a new software suite called Promoter. Promoter has a hook into the suffolkmasons.com events calendar and will setup and deploy event announcements, reminders, ticket sales and almost any kind of email about ongoing or upcoming events.

This service is provided by LIPMA. When creating an event, especially a ticketed event, you can request that a Promoter email campaign be setup for your event. The campaign consists of 4-6 emails sent on a schedule. the 1st will be either an event announcement or a ticket sales announcement. As ticket sales progress additional emails will be sent as event reminders and updates to your event. This feature help promote as the names suggests as well as drive ticket sales for your Lodge or group event. All you need to do is send an email to the webmaster@suffolkmasons.com with the details of your event and that you are requesting a campaign be mounted for the event.

Some advice when it comes to promoting an event. Please post your event as soon as you can. the more time on the site to promote the better. Also make sure you add a flyer or some graphics to the event to make it eye catching to anyone looking. price your tickets, accordingly, always keeping the ticket fees and CC/Debit card fees that will be attached in mind.

We hope you will take advantage of this service and increase your event attendance and fundraising for your Lodge or concordant body.

If you would like to know what Promoter can do can click here -> Promoter | The Events Calendar

 

Demand for Events has taken off!

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As the days get longer and brighter, the demand for live events is building. New data reveals that consumers are buying tickets at a rate we haven’t seen since before the pandemic. The proof is in the numbers.

Since the start of 2022:

✔Tickets sales for entertainment events are up 176% in NYC and 127% in LA

✔Ticket sales for food and drink events are up 158% in NYC and 141% in LA

✔Ticket sales for concerts are up 100% in NYC and Boston

✔Ticket sales for health and wellness events are up 179% in Houston

The above is just a snapshot that reflects national trends.

If you’ve been waiting for the right time to kick off and explore that new event idea, now is the time to act on the attendee demand that’s sweeping the nation. Whether you are holing a small dinner or a full-fledged party or musical event, now is the time!

If you are the member of your Lodge, or in the district, that is responsible for creating and running events there are a few things to remember:

  • Plan your event far enough in the future that you can assure you will have a good pool of potential attendees and not run events on the same day at the same time as your neighbor Lodges. This takes communication with the Masters & Wardens of the Lodges in the area (District).
  • Once you have a plan and are set, begin promoting your event at least 2 or 3 months ahead of time.
  • Selling tickets is a Lodge decision on how much and how many to expect to get the planned budget right. We have found that if tickets are to be sold and pre-paid ahead of the event, when the event nears it’s a cinch to adjust the budget accordingly to for the number of attendees. As opposed to just pay at the door. We all know RSVP is a four-letter word to Masons.
  • Promote your event as widely as possible and keep up with it, send reminders and updates periodically.

The Suffolk Masonic District and the LIPMA have teamed up to bring Hiram’s Tickets to all the Lodges and appendant bodies in the area. You can sell tickets to your Lodge or appendant body event right from the suffolkmasons.com website event pages. There is a cost as the system is a professionally coded and implemented software suite. The cost is minimal, just $1.00 per ticket sold.  So, what do you get for your $1.00/ticket price?

  • No messing with online merchant accounts, LIPMA will process all PayPal, Venmo, Credit/Debit Cards for you. The Credit Debit fee is passed onto the buyer, so the Lodge or organization does not absorb that fee.
  • Automatic payouts the day of the event to a personal or business PayPal account (minus the $1.00/ticket LIPMA fee).
  • You have total control of the event from creation to updates. Logon to suffolkmasons.com and click “My Events” on the top menu and add your Lodge or Organization event, dates, times, add images, etc.
  • Add tickets, how much, then they go on sale, when to end the sale.
  • Add a ticket image to make sure the buyer knows which event it’s for.
  • Email promotion to over 500 emails addresses in our DB, growing daily. Includes announcement, ticket promotion, reminders and an after event thank you note.
  • 24/7 access to your attendee list and sales reports
  • Online check-in via the website (attendees report) or via iOS or Android smartphone app (request the phone app code from the admins prior to your event).
  • The attendees list contains a valid guest list for future event promotion.

A representative from LIPMA can come and explain more if requested.

Let’s get those events listed. At the very least you should enter your event on the Suffolk District BAND and this calendar is sync’d with the suffolkmasons.com website calendar so it will be listed tickets or no tickets and there is never a cost to add non-ticketed events. In fact, you can create RSVPs as well and there’s no fee on that either.

If you would like more information, you can check out this post for more detail -> Introducing Suffolk Masonic events tickets powered by LIPMA

Introducing Suffolk Masonic Events & Tickets Powered by lipma

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The internet is a wonderful thing sometimes. Growing up in the 70s through 90s if we needed information we went to the library or looked it up in your home encyclopedia, etc. Nowadays we hold the sum of human knowledge in the palm of our hands.

I remember getting tickets to see Van Halen 1984 at Madison Square Garden and I still remember getting the paper ticket in my hands. Luckily my cousin was an executive assistant to one of the owners of the Garden at that time, so the tickets were relatively easy to get. Convincing my parents I was old enough to join my cousins and older brother at the concert, not so much.

Over the past year or so the executive board has been discussing how to give back to the district and not just host a once a year summer soirée. (Hint we may make the Holiday Gala a yearly event as well).

As the plans for the Holiday Gala were being finalized we decided that the tickets would be sold online and we’d give the ability to pay for them with Credit/Debit Card, Venmo or PayPal. The point was we wanted the members of the LIPMA who run the event to actually be able to enjoy themselves at the event and not spend half the event collecting tickets, checking in guests and counting money or checks. So we opted for a 100% prepaid ticket model. So far it’s exceeded expectations.

With the results of that effort working exceptionally well for the event and LIPMA, we saw and opportunity to offer this same tech and convenience to the Lodges, members and appendant bodies in an around the Suffolk Masonic District.

So we expanded the use of the Events calendar and tickets you saw in action with the LIPMA Holiday Gala to the Suffolkmasons.com website and set it so any registered member can add events and create tickets for their event, whether is be a Lodge fundraiser or a District wide event.

So what do you need to do this? Simple you must register with the website and be approved. Once you create a login on the suffolkmasons.com website you will be able to create events with all the details you will need, who, what, where and when. To create a paid ticket you or your Lodge or organization will need a PayPal registered email address. If you have a PayPal email you would know. The Community events & Tickets will employ some interesting technology. It will include split payments and PayPal payouts. This is why you will need a PayPal related email to collect fund via PayPal, Venmo or Credit/Debit Card. So if you have an PayPal account already your all set. If not it’s a 2 minute setup with PayPal. No merchant (Credit Card Processor) account needed. LIPMA will complete the payments on the ‘day of’ your event, all the funds collected, minus the ticket fee, are then paid to the supplied PayPal email/account. Sorry at this point only PayPal is support by the software.

So what are a few of the pros and cons to this method of selling tickets with Suffolk Masonic Events & Tickets?

Pros

  • Get Paid in advance for events
  • Get better RSVPs/headcounts
  • no need to distribute paper tickets
  • generate online reports for sales and attendees
  • leverage social media and other avenues to promote and sell tickets
  • Check in guests with a smartphone (iPhone/Android) with a app.

Cons

  • Slight added cost to tickets and your event
  • There may be more but I can’t find any.

As you can see there is a definite benefit to selling your event tickets online. So what’s the downside? Well the software that runs the system is not ‘inexpensive’. So we have implemented a ticket fee which we believe was fair to all. So when you create tickets, the fee is subtracted from the total. It will most likely be $1.00 per ticket. Plus the merchant (credit Debit Card) processing fee, which is currently 3.7% + 0.49 per transaction. This must be taken into account when creating tickets for your event. So if you expect to collect $25/per person for your event, you would need to create tickets for about $28.00 to recoup ~$25.00 after fees are collected.

A Zoom or in person instruction will be announced to walk anyone interested in learning how to navigate and add events & tickets and get paid for the tickets. We sincerely hope that the members of the District will use and take advantage of the system and actually enjoy the events that they plan. Or those who have the online knowledge, jump right it and start creating events and tickets.

On the day of your event one or a few members with smartphones scan QR codes at the door to check in your guests and verify attendance and generate reports.

Payouts: Well due to several factors, one being refunds or reversals, LIPMA will hold all funds collected until the day of the event. On the day of the event the orders will be ‘Completed” and the funds processed. within 24 hours PayPal will send payouts to the supplied PayPal email for the event organizer (the person who and set the tickets and supplied the PayPal Email) minus the $1.00/ ticket fee and merchant fees. Since we are adding these fees at checkout the consumer is paying these fees as part of the ticket price. So the event organizer will get their price per ticket and LIPMA generates the funds to make the system self sustaining. Everybody wins.

A detailed step-by-step guide will be posted in the File Manager which is also added to the suffolkmasons.com under “Your Account” which cannot be accessed until after you register and login.

One of the most useful added features of Suffolk Masons Event Tickets is the ability to check-in attendees to your events via QR code. These scannable codes are generated automatically for all ticket purchases or reservations, and each code references a unique URL that can be used to quickly check-in guests without needing to manually access your attendees list.

Event Tickets Plus App

Our Event Tickets Plus App is the easiest and fastest way to check-in your attendees directly from your Android or iOS device without the need to log in to your site. Simply install and connect to your site using an API key and start scanning your tickets.

Download the app from:

Once you have registered, created an event, created a ticket with a PayPal associated email and the event is approved, your off to the races. Each person that purchases a ticket or RSVP’s to your event, you will receive and email notification (the organizer)). You can go onto the system anytime and check attendees and sales, export, print or email your reports.

The day of your event, there is nothing for your to do really but enjoy. The orders will be processed to complete and the batch payout will run and send the payment to the supplied email. Its that simple.