What I Learned Emailing 358 Event Organizers

By Francis Antobre, founder of EventCobby

Last week I did something old-fashioned: I emailed 358 event organizers. Not a growth hack, not an automated drip sequence — a personal email to universities, student organizations, venues, theaters, festivals, and comedy clubs across the US and Canada, introducing EventCobby.

About 28% opened the first batch. Here's what the experience taught me about the state of local events in 2026.

1. Organizers are tired of fee math

The single strongest reaction wasn't to any feature — it was to pricing. "Free to list, pay a small fee only when you sell" is a sentence every organizer understands instantly, because they've all done the other math. They know what $1.79 per ticket plus percentages does to a $15 ticket. They've watched platforms take their cut while adding nothing to the event itself. Pricing isn't a feature; it's the whole conversation.

2. Printed tickets are a real, unmet need

I expected digital-first responses. Instead, a surprising number of organizers lit up at printed tickets. Theaters with season subscribers who don't do smartphones. Festivals that sell at the gate. Fundraisers that table on campus. An entire segment of the events world has been told their workflow is outdated — and they're still doing it anyway, with spreadsheets and cash boxes, because no modern tool respects it.

3. Universities are the most open door

Student organizations replied faster and with more curiosity than anyone else. Makes sense: they run frequent events, have tiny budgets, and feel platform fees most painfully. They're also the organizers most likely to try something new — no procurement process, no "we've always used X." If you're building for local events, start with campuses.

4. Nobody discovers local events well

Ask organizers how attendees find them and you hear the same thing: Instagram, word of mouth, posters. Not ticketing platforms. The discovery promise of the big marketplaces simply doesn't reach the local level — the algorithms serve the biggest events, and everyone else is on their own. There's a massive gap between "list your event" and "help people find it," and it's wide open.

5. Personal beats automated

The emails that got engagement weren't the polished ones — they were the ones that read like a person wrote them. First names, specific event types, no corporate gloss. In a world of automated outreach, sounding human is the differentiator. (It also helps to be offering something genuinely free.)

What I'm doing with this

Every one of these lessons is now shaping EventCobby: pricing that respects small tickets, printed tickets as a core feature, campuses as our beachhead, and discovery built around near me instead of biggest.

358 emails was just the start. The organizers taught me more in a week than months of building did.

If you run events, I'd love to hear what your ticketing headaches are — and you can list your next one free at eventcobby.com.