Guide · Visitor attractions

What events should a visitor attraction run?

Most attractions do not have an attendance problem in August. They have a February problem, a Tuesday problem, and a they-have-already-been problem. Events answer all three, but only if you pick the ones that create a reason to come rather than decorating a visit people were making anyway.

Updated August 2026 · About a 6 minute read

Three different problems, often confused

"We need more events" usually means one of three quite different things, and the answer changes depending on which:

• The shoulder season. January to March, and the wet weeks either side of summer. You need a reason to come at all.
• The midweek trough. You are fine at weekends and empty on a Tuesday. You need a different audience, not a different offer.
• The been-there problem. Local people came once, enjoyed it, and have no reason to return. You need something new rather than something more.

After-hours, the most under-used hour you have

Almost every attraction closes at five, which means the building sits idle during the hours when working adults are actually free.

• Adults-only evenings. A drink, a talk, the site without children. Higher ticket, higher spend, and an audience who would never come on a Saturday.
• Late openings a few times a season, which reach commuters and reframe you as an evening out.
• Torchlight or after-dark tours, where the site itself feels different rather than merely being open later.
• Supper or tasting evenings if you have catering, which is where value per head is highest.

Access rather than activity

The cheapest events to run are usually the ones that sell what you already have but do not normally show.

• Behind the scenes tours. Stores, workshops, roofs, plant rooms. Small groups, high ticket, almost no cost, and they sell out to exactly the people who already like you.
• Curator or keeper talks, which turn expertise you employ anyway into a ticketed hour.
• Early access before general opening, which is worth real money to photographers and enthusiasts.
• Conservation in progress. Work you are doing regardless, framed as something to watch.

These are the highest-margin events an attraction can run, because the asset and the staff exist already.

The seasonal anchors

Two or three big seasonal moments carry the year for most attractions, and both of the obvious ones are capacity problems rather than demand problems:

• A Christmas trail or grotto, which for many sites is now the single biggest fortnight of the year. See planning a Christmas grotto.
• Halloween after dark, which reaches teenagers and adults rather than families, and uses hours you were closed.
• An Easter trail on timed entry, because untimed on Good Friday is a queue.
• Illuminated evenings in winter, which turn a site people think of as a summer visit into a December one.

Midweek and the shoulder season

The hardest gaps, and the ones where audience matters more than programme:

• Schools and colleges, which land precisely on the days you cannot otherwise fill.
• Groups and coach parties, worth pricing and packaging properly rather than handling as enquiries.
• Talks and courses aimed at retired visitors, who are free on a Tuesday and are among the most loyal audiences there is.
• Membership or annual passes, which are not an event but change the maths entirely, because a member visits on a wet Wednesday for no reason at all.

What to stop doing

Worth saying plainly: not every event is worth running. The ones to question are those that cost real staff time during your busiest weeks, when the visitors were coming regardless. School holiday craft tables often fall here. They are pleasant, they are expected, and they rarely add a single visit.

If the same effort went into a February evening opening, it would create attendance rather than decorate it.

Running it

Every one of these is a session with a time, a price and a cap, and the small high-value ones such as behind the scenes tours need hard limits and payment up front. Extras like a drink, a meal or a guidebook are their own ticket types, so you can see afterwards what the evening actually earned.

That is how Hatch works. There are companion pieces on timed entry versus open sessions and cutting no-shows, and more on ticketing for visitor attractions.

Common questions

What events work best for a visitor attraction?

The highest-margin ones sell access rather than activity: behind the scenes tours, curator talks, early access and conservation work in progress. The asset and the staff already exist, the groups are small, the ticket is high, and they sell out to the people who already like you. After-hours adult evenings are the other consistently strong category, because they use hours the building was closed and reach people who cannot come on a Saturday.

How do you get visitors to come back?

Repeat visits need something new rather than something more, which is why access-based events work so well: a behind the scenes tour is a genuinely different visit to the same site. Membership or an annual pass changes the maths more than any single event, because a member will come on a wet Wednesday for no particular reason, and that is exactly the attendance you cannot otherwise buy.

Which events are not worth running?

The ones that consume staff time during your busiest weeks for visitors who were coming anyway. School holiday craft tables are the common example: pleasant, expected, and they rarely create a single additional visit. The same effort spent on a February evening opening creates attendance rather than decorating it.

Written for UK visitor attractions. What fits depends enormously on your site, your staffing and whether you have catering, and an event that transforms one attraction can be a distraction at another.