Welcome to the first newsletter of 2025.
I wish you all a Happy New Year; I hope you are happy, healthy and successful over the next 12 months and beyond.
The Manchester Lit & Phil team is back and refreshed from the break. This month’s focus is on Autumn programme planning and finalising the rest of the 2024/25 season. We are examining how to develop the program. Susan Hilton and Ian Cameron have taken joint leadership of the Program Planning Group. Together, they are investigating what we can change to further develop the program’s appeal.
Looking at the attendance numbers, Manchester-themed events are very popular, as are popular science topics, historical events and the ever-oversubscribed Philosophy Forum.
We have two exciting terms ahead and tickets are selling well. Please look at the upcoming events and book early.
As we drive awareness of our events, we see the popular events selling out quickly. This is a nice problem, but we need help – especially from our members – to ensure as many people as possible who want to attend are offered a place.
When an event sells out, we always talk to the venue to see if we can increase the available seating. We also send out nudges to cancel tickets in case an attendee’s plans have changed since booking their ticket, and we manage the waiting lists too. We aim to accommodate as many attendees as possible to our most popular events, so it is very disappointing when the room is only 80% full on the day. We have reviewed the numbers from last year and the previous term and our no-show rate amongst members is more than 25%.
We all know that life can throw up last minute challenges, meaning we need to change our plans unexpectedly. Cancelling your ticket in advance, if you are no longer able to attend, will really help us maximise the success of our events.
To help Manchester Lit & Phil, we ask all our members to manage their bookings.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to cancelling tickets –
If you have an Eventbrite account:
- Log in to your Eventbrite account using the email address that you booked the tickets with
- Click ‘Tickets’ in the top right corner of the screen
- Click the event that you would like to cancel for
- Click the ‘Cancel Order’ button and confirm your cancellation
- Your booking will then be cancelled and Eventbrite will inform us by email
If you don’t have an Eventbrite account:
- Open the Eventbrite confirmation email for the event
- Find the event title and click on it
- Click View Your Order in the top left corner
- Find the order details and select Cancel Order
- Follow the instructions to complete the cancellation
Thanks in advance for your help with this.
Please send us feedback on events or ideas for future events and themes. Also, remember, bring a friend, talk about us, and interact with our social media posts; all these small things are making a difference.
Thank you for your continuing support and let’s make this a great year for Manchester Lit & Phil.
Peter Wright, President