Who’s actually coming to your event?
That question haunts most Web3 event organizers, especially during busy conference weeks when RSVPs soar and actual turnout plummet, causing all sorts of issues.
It’s a problem I’ve thought a lot about while working at POAP on collectibles for events to gift to those who attend and share in a experience. If you want to take moments, memories, and connections onchain, it starts with knowing who’ll show up in the first place. And what I learned through interviews with organizers and community builders is that solving this comes down to two things:
The tech you use for ticketing, reminders, and event experience
The comms you deploy to make your event feel personal, craveable, and worth showing up for
What follows in this blog post is a breakdown of both what works, what’s missing, and what teams are doing to tighten the gap between RSVP and actual attendance.
Over-RSVP Culture:
Louie (3E Labs): Points out that attendees, especially at large conferences, often RSVP for every session to keep their options open, leading to inflated numbers that rarely match actual turnout.
Kaitlin (CryptoMondays London): Highlights how smaller community events are less affected but still struggle with last-minute cancellations or no-shows.
Cultural Quirks:
Irina (Bright Moments): Shared an experience from events in Japan where RSVP culture is driven by politeness. Unlike over-RSVP patterns in Western contexts, attendees in Japan are far more likely to honour their commitments, resulting in closer-to-accurate attendance predictions.
Impact on Event Logistics:
Jay (Eco): Emphasizes the logistical challenges of unpredictability, including food waste, unused materials, or overcrowding due to misaligned expectations.
Justin (Safary): Notes that uncertainty also affects budget planning, as organizers must account for both under- and over-attendance scenarios.
I found the strongest tech solutions share one thing in common: simplicity. Tools that sync to calendars or send SMS reminders are doing the heavy lifting in turning RSVP into attendance. The key takeaway? The best tech reduces friction and makes the event impossible to forget.
Here’s what some organizers are using today:
Tool | Key Features | Interviewee Feedback |
|---|---|---|
Calendar sync, RSVP management, attendee reminders | "Its simplicity and calendar integration is what prevents no-shows." – Justin (Safary) | |
Text message reminders, attendee tracking | "Timely reminders via SMS help boost attendance rates." – Irina (Bright Moments) | |
Various NFT Ticketing Platforms (Tokenproof, Moongate etc.) | Onchain verification, ownership-based access | Enables transparent and refundable ticketing like at ApeFest. |
Event aggregator, social graph & past touch points | See who else is going and who you’ve met before — event discovery through your network. |
These tools help with the basics but there is room to go further:
Other tools needed to bridge the gap between our digital and physical worlds to support event management
What's missing and we need to see more of:
Nixo highlights the need for decentralized ticketing systems that integrate onchain data, enabling verifiable attendance and perks like staking to unlock post-event rewards e.g. Moongate.
Snax suggests tools to automatically collate attendee-generated content, such as event photos, videos, and social media posts, into a unified archive. This not only strengthens the event’s narrative but also fosters connections among attendees. E.g. POAPs Moments.
Kaitlin advocated for tools that enable real-time attendee feedback and engagement tracking to better tailor event experiences for those done weekly or monthly.
Connections made in-person, connected onchain: Digital connections made during hybrid events allow attendees to continue interacting long after the event ends. Community spaces, NFTs, and POAPs serve as touchpoints for ongoing engagement between brands, communities, and attendees.
For your most important guests, the #1 thing you can do? Reach out personally.
People feel committed and genuinely welcomed when an organizer messages directly saying, “I want you there.” This builds warmth, credibility, and connection before the event even begins.
Here's how organizers are coordinating outreach:
Personal invitations and VIP reach-outs
Louie (3E Labs): Highlights the importance of early VIP outreach, particularly for high-profile events. Personalized invitations sent to key stakeholders, industry leaders, and influencers ensure their attendance and help build credibility.
Justin (Safary): Suggests directly inviting individuals who align with the event’s goals, such as community leaders or potential partners, to create a tailored guest list that drives meaningful engagement.
Timeline: Start VIP outreach 6–8 weeks before the event to allow time for scheduling and confirmations.
Leveraging social proof
Irina (Bright Moments): Uses content from past events to validate the event’s quality. Sharing photos, videos, and testimonials showcases the experience and builds excitement among potential attendees.
Chad (Yuga Labs): Suggests highlighting influencers or prominent figures who will attend the event to attract broader interest. Featuring them in promotional content creates FOMO (fear of missing out) for undecided attendees.
Timeline: Begin sharing past event content 4–6 weeks before the event, ramping up frequency as the date approaches.
Multi-channel promotion
Kaitlin (CryptoMondays London): Advocates for promoting events across multiple channels, including email newsletters, Discord announcements, and social media platforms like LinkedIn. Each channel serves a unique audience segment and maximizes reach.
Snax (PizzaDAO): Recommends leveraging community members to spread the word organically, using grassroots promotion on platforms like X and Telegram group chats.
Timeline: Start multi-channel promotions 4–6 weeks in advance, increasing intensity during the final 2 weeks.
Discoverability through SEO and targeted ads
Justin (Safary): Emphasizes the importance of making events easily discoverable. Use SEO-friendly event titles, detailed descriptions, and consistent branding across platforms like lu.ma and Partiful.
Louie (3E Labs): Suggests targeted ads on LinkedIn or Twitter to reach specific demographics, particularly for professional or niche events.
Timeline: Optimize listings and ads 6–8 weeks before the event to ensure discoverability.
Let’s bring it all to life.
Across our interviews, we heard from organizers and platform builders tackling the RSVP-to-attendance challenge head-on—with smart use of tech, thoughtful outreach, and deep understanding of their communities.
Here’s how it looks when theory meets practice:
The Challenge
In the dynamic and ever-growing Web3 space, individuals often struggle to identify which events to prioritize, especially when aiming to connect with their existing networks or expand into new ones. Katie and team recognized that many attendees missed valuable opportunities simply because they weren’t aware of where their network would be or which events aligned with their goals.
Sero, a leading community platform, saw an opportunity to address this gap by creating tools enabling people to not only directly invite the network, but easily review RSVPs because each attendee has a profile where their social profiles are linked, pulling from Telegram, X and Google Calendar, the data is used to show events mutual connections are attending to guide users toward the most relevant events while reinforcing the platform’s belief in the unique value of in-person events for building lasting relationships.
The Solution: Network-Driven Event Recommendations
Katie and the Serotonin team developed a platform feature that leverages network insights to guide individuals toward events most likely to help them grow their professional and personal connections.
The Challenge
ApeFest attracts a global NFT audience, but free ticketing created a persistent problem: attendees would RSVP but not show up, leading to poor accuracy, wasted resources, and underwhelming vibes. At its worst, accuracy hit as low as 30%.
The Solution: Refundable NFT Ticketing
For ApeFest the past few years, attendees have now paid $169 per ticket ($269 for a plus-one) and received a refund if they showed up. If they didn’t? Yuga kept the fee. This approach, paired with NFT ticketing and Tokenproof validation, changed the game.
The Challenge
Decentraland is a social virtual world built around community, creativity, and shared experiences. The Decentraland Foundation focuses on hosting events that are meaningful, interactive, and keep people coming back—while partnering with brands that share the same vision.
The challenge isn’t just attracting attendees but creating events that feel interactive, rewarding, and valuable to participants, where the community feels like active contributors rather than just spectators. Many brands enter virtual spaces with a one-way marketing approach, but the Decentraland Foundation is committed to designing events and partnerships that foster real connection and participation.
Whether you’re filling a villa, a metaverse plaza, or a side event during a major conference, turning RSVPs into real people showing up and staying engaged starts with the basics: tech that reminds them, and outreach that makes them feel wanted.
In my next post: How to Turn Small Talk Into Something That Sticks, we dive into the art of designing events that actually spark connections not just small talk. Because the real alpha isn’t just who shows up, it’s what happens between them once they’re there.
Jye Sandiford
Event Discovery Based on Network Data:
Sero uses network analysis to show users where their contacts or professional peers are planning to attend. This allows attendees to prioritize events where meaningful connections are likely.
Personalized Recommendations:
The platform provides tailored suggestions for events based on users’ interests, professional goals, and past engagement history, ensuring relevance.
Emphasis on IRL Connections:
Guided by Sero belief in the transformative power of in-person interactions, the platform highlights IRL events and their potential to foster deep, trust-based connections.
Integration with Social Tools:
Sero integrates with social media and communication platforms such as Calendar, X, LinkedIn and Farcaster to enable seamless coordination with network members attending the same event.
Users can see who else is attending and reach out pre-event to schedule meetups or collaborations.
The Impact
More Targeted Attendance:
Attendees report greater satisfaction by choosing events that align with their goals and networks, maximizing the value of their participation.
Strengthened Relationships:
By encouraging attendees to prioritize events with their network, Sero helps deepen existing relationships and spark new collaborations.
Recognition of IRL Event Value:
The platform reinforces the importance of face-to-face interactions in building meaningful connections, countering the impersonal nature of purely online engagements.
Improved Event ROI:
Attendees who use Sero’s tools are better prepared and more likely to achieve personal or professional outcomes from their event participation.
Takeaway
Sero focus on network-driven event discovery highlights the power of leveraging data to help individuals make smarter decisions about where to invest their time. Guided by their pro-IRL philosophy, Katie and the Sero team are setting a new standard for meaningful engagement in the Web3 event space.
Key Features:
Attendance Commitment: A price tag made people think twice before flaking.
Refund on Arrival: Attendees got their money back at check-in, keeping it community-first.
Seamless Verification: Using Tokenproof, the team ensured tickets were secure and easy to manage.
The Impact
Attendance Accuracy: Jumped from 30% to over 85%.
Better Logistics: Yuga could plan food, space, and flow with confidence
Community Goodwill: Attendees appreciated a fair and flexible system
Replicable Model: A blueprint for how to make Web3 events more dependable
Takeaway
ApeFest’s refundable model proved that putting a little money on the line can drive huge improvements in turnout. Chad’s team delivered a smoother, more predictable, and more satisfying experience for everyone.
Rather than relying on traditional event structures, the Decentraland Foundation team focused on creating interactive, immersive experiences that encouraged participation and exploration. Instead of passive attendance, events were designed to make users feel like active contributors.
Leveraging the flexibility of the social virtual world, the team introduced interactive challenges, quests, and creative collaborations that wouldn’t be possible in physical settings.
Kim emphasizes, “There are no limitations to creativity in virtual worlds.”
By embracing this openness, Decentraland’s events have become spaces where attendees can engage with the experience and also shape it.
Key Strategies
Interactive Challenges & Incentives:
Events include quests, open calls, creative competitions, live parties, and collaborative experiences that encourage exploration and deeper engagement.
Attendees often earn digital assets—Wearables, Emotes and Badges —giving them a lasting connection to the event and a reason to return.
Expanding Access for Global Audiences:
Decentraland provides a way for people who can’t attend physical events to still participate in a meaningful way. Instead of just mirroring IRL events, virtual activations serve as standalone experiences for a global audience.
For example, the Metaverse Music Festival gives people who may not have access to big in-person festivals, or who can’t attend crowded events for various reasons, a way to enjoy a multi-day music experience with friends. The Australian Open experience in Decentraland extended the tournament’s reach beyond the physical stadium, allowing the community to join in with virtual tennis games. Mountain Dew’s esports activation connected and rewarded fans who participated, even if they couldn’t attend the live, in-person watch party.
3. Creating Immersive, One-of-a-Kind Experiences:
Decentraland’s social virtual world allows for unique experiences that aren’t possible in physical settings. When speaking to brands looking to activate, Kim talks about the opportunity to create events that are visually and interactively distinct creating custom environments that align with their brand, building Wearables and Emotes for avatars that feel unique to them, and including interactive elements to enhance engagement and build lifelong fandom.
A great example of a brand that really leaned into what works best in Decentraland is the Doritos Super Bowl activation. Decentraland became a playful extension of their multi-channel “Try Another Angle” Super Bowl campaign. The activation included:
A Doritos chip-themed parkour challenge
A beat-making station using bag and crunch sounds to create sound tracks
Exclusive orange-glow Wearables inspired by Doritos dust
Three days of giveaways with prizes focused on community interests: custom gaming PCs, a CloneX by RTFKT, and a Meebits by Larva Labs, totaling $25,000 in prizes for the Decentraland community.
Community influencers participating in social content to spread awareness about the 3 day event encouraging people to jump in and participate.
The community-focused approach to events has helped transform how event hosts engage users and create lasting value that goes beyond the event experience:
Increased Engagement: The average in-world engagement time is 45 minutes, showing that attendees actively participate when events offer meaningful experiences.
Stronger Community Connections: Interactive events in Decentraland bring people together in ways that feel genuine. Many users first join after hearing about an event, but they stay because of the connections they make and the experiences they enjoy. Events are the most organic and powerful way to show what Decentraland offers. They give people a reason to explore and a way to meet others who share their interests. When those connections happen, people don’t just visit—they become part of the community.
Showcasing What’s Possible in Virtual Worlds: By designing events that prioritize participation and interaction, Decentraland continues to demonstrate how virtual experiences can drive real engagement and friendships beyond just marketing activations.
For Decentraland, a great event means more than just attendance. It’s about creating real connections, fostering engagement, and making sure people walk away with something valuable (even if that means a fun night out with new friends). Whether it’s through interactive experiences, community-driven moments, or rewards that carry meaning beyond the event itself, the focus is always on creating something real and worth coming back to.
Decentraland’s 2025 event strategy brings even more ways for users to connect and explore. Alongside major annual events like Metaverse Fashion Week, Art Week, and Music Festival, new experiences will be introduced to make the platform feel more alive, social, and dynamic year-round. So far this year, events like Metaverse Fashion Week, Decentraland Prom, and Game Night transformed existing plazas into high-energy gathering spots with games, music, and opportunities to meet new people. Decentraland Career Quest focused on professional growth in virtual worlds, helping users discover new opportunities in Web3.
A brand-new series of Trail events will highlight Decentraland’s open-world design, linking venues and attractions across Genesis City to encourage the community to explore and discover new spaces. The Builder Talent Trail, Live Music Trail, and Live Festive Trail will give creators, performers, and LAND owners a space to showcase their work while introducing users to new corners of the world they may not have explored before.
This approach is setting a new bar for virtual events. Instead of being just another marketing activation, these experiences are proving that social virtual worlds can be spaces where people build real relationships, discover new communities, and feel like they’re part of something bigger.
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