An event teaser video is not a shortened aftermovie from last year. It answers one question: why should I buy a ticket right now. Below you will find a week by week teaser campaign schedule, four formats that actually work for us in production, and a budget that a mid sized conference can afford.
Key takeaways
- Start the teaser campaign eight weeks out, not two. The first video sells early bird tickets, the last one sells the remaining seats.
- According to Eventbrite research among UK attendees, 29 % of people buy tickets for cultural events on the day itself or the day before. Never let the campaign end a week early.
- Four formats do the job: an announcement teaser (15 to 20 seconds), a speaker teaser (30 to 45 seconds), a programme teaser (45 to 60 seconds) and an urgency cut (10 seconds).
- Wistia analysed over 13 million videos and 79 million hours of viewing data in its State of Video 2026 report and confirmed that the shorter the video, the more of it people finish.
- A full series for a conference of up to 500 people costs between 1 800 and 3 500 euros with us. Shoot the speaker teasers alongside another production day and you can stay under a thousand.
- The most expensive mistake is one big video three days before the event. By then the decided crowd already has tickets and the undecided needed to hear from you much earlier.
What is an event teaser video and how is it different from an aftermovie?
A teaser sells a ticket to something that has not happened yet. An aftermovie sells next year's edition of something that already happened. It sounds like a detail, but it changes the entire edit.
An aftermovie rests on proof: a full room, applause, the faces of people who were actually there. A teaser has no proof at all, because nothing has taken place. So it has to rest on a promise and on specifics: who is speaking, what the visitor walks away with, when and where it happens. Feel free to use footage from last year, but as evidence of atmosphere, not as the main content. If all you remember afterwards is that it looked like a nice party, the teaser did not do its job.
Keep asking one question in the edit: what will make the viewer click buy? If the answer is not there in the first five seconds, cut again. We wrote about how the aftermovie differs in purpose and budget in our piece on the event aftermovie.
When should you start a teaser campaign before an event?
Eight weeks out, even when it feels far too early. People block the date in their calendar long before they buy a ticket, and the teaser is the only piece of content that can trigger that calendar block.
This is the schedule we use for conferences and corporate events:
- Eight weeks out: the announcement teaser. Date, venue, one sentence about the topic. The goal is to open early bird sales and collect the first registrations from people who would have come anyway.
- Six weeks out: the first two speaker teasers. A speaker says on camera what they will cover. Nothing more. These usually get the best click through rate, because people buy a specific human, not an abstract event.
- Four weeks out: the programme teaser. Show the shape of the day, the venue, the catering, the networking. This is where you convince the person who has to ask their manager for a day off.
- Two weeks out: the remaining speaker teasers plus the first urgency cut with the deadline for the discounted price.
- The final seven days: ten second cuts, one every other day, with a countdown and a link straight to checkout.
That last point is the one organisers underestimate. Eventbrite research among UK attendees found that 29 % of people buy tickets for cultural events on the day or the day before, and for non music festivals 41 % buy at the door. You can dig through the full breakdown in Eventbrite's data on when people buy event tickets. If your campaign stops a week before the doors open, you have skipped the part of your audience that decides last.
Which event teaser video ideas actually sell tickets?
Short, single purpose ones. Each of these four formats answers a different objection in the viewer's head, which is exactly why you should not merge them into one big video.
- Announcement teaser, 15 to 20 seconds. Answers "when and where". Graphics, two or three atmospheric shots, the date filling the screen. It needs no spoken word, so you can have it ready on the day sales open.
- Speaker teaser, 30 to 45 seconds. Answers "why this one". One person, one idea, no introduction block. You can shoot five of them in a single morning if you gather the speakers in one place.
- Programme teaser, 45 to 60 seconds. Answers "what will I be doing all day". This is the only format where a longer runtime is fine, because the people watching are already considering a ticket.
- Urgency cut, 10 seconds. Answers "why today". It is a recut of existing material with one line about the deadline or the last remaining seats. Nothing gets shot for it.
Why so short? Wistia analysed over 13 million videos and 79 million hours of viewing data for its State of Video 2026 report, and the conclusion is blunt: the shorter the video, the higher the completion rate. With a teaser that matters twice as much, because your call to action sits at the end. If half your viewers leave a one minute video at second thirty, half of them never saw the ask.
The video above is about cutting film trailers rather than events, but the principle is identical and nobody explains it better. A trailer and a teaser both get three seconds to make a viewer decide they want to be there. Watch how they handle sound and pacing and your event videos will improve faster than after reading ten event marketing articles.
How much does an event teaser campaign cost?
A full series for a conference of up to 500 people runs from 1 800 to 3 500 euros with us. The spread comes down to one thing: whether a separate shoot day is needed for the speaker teasers.
- Announcement teaser from existing footage: 250 to 450 euros. If you have last year's aftermovie, it is editor and designer time only.
- Speaker teasers, five pieces from one shoot day: 1 200 to 2 000 euros including question prep, camera, sound, lighting and the edit. The per piece price drops with volume, because the day itself is the expensive part.
- Programme teaser: 400 to 800 euros when shot on the day of the venue walkthrough.
- Urgency cuts, three pieces: 150 to 300 euros in total, pure post production.
- Vertical versions for Instagram and TikTok: add 15 to 20 % on top of the edit. Do not treat it as an extra, on social a teaser now lives mostly in portrait.
The single biggest saving: shoot the speaker teasers on the same day you take photos for the event website, or when the speakers are already on site for a walkthrough. One extra logistics day costs more than the whole edit.
When will a teaser video not help?
When you have nobody to show it to. This is the part you rarely hear from a production studio, and it matters most.
A teaser is content, not a channel. With no mailing list, no following and no paid budget, the video reaches two hundred people, half of them your own colleagues. We lived through this on a smaller client event. The work was solid, the client spent nothing on promotion, and ticket sales did not move. The video was not the problem. The problem was that we had not sat down over the media budget before we started shooting. We ask about it in the first meeting now.
A teaser is also the wrong spend when the event is internal and attendance is mandatory, when the programme is still shifting two weeks out (you will film a teaser with a speaker who cancels) or when your entire communication budget is under a thousand euros. In that last case, put the money into a solid key visual and three good photographs instead of a video that will look cheap.
How do you connect the teaser to ticket sales?
So that one click separates the video from checkout. It sounds obvious, and it is the step that breaks most often.
- Give every video its own UTM tag, otherwise you will never learn which format sold. Speaker teasers routinely beat the most expensive video in the campaign.
- Link straight to the purchase page, not to the event homepage. Create a separate link for each video format.
- The first three seconds have to work without sound. Captions are part of the edit, not an add on.
- Build a retargeting audience from everyone who watched at least half of a video. Serve the final week urgency cut mainly to them.
- Plan for what comes after the event. Teaser material can be reused in the aftermovie and in the conference video, so ask for the full resolution rushes, not just the finished exports.
Frequently asked questions about event teaser videos
How long should an event teaser video be?
Between 10 and 60 seconds depending on the format. An announcement teaser works in 15 seconds, a programme teaser can run a minute. Past the minute mark completion drops sharply and only a minority of viewers ever reach the call to action.
Can a teaser be built from last year's footage?
Yes, and it is the cheapest way to get the first video of the campaign out. The condition is that the material is no more than two years old and matches the current visual identity of the event. Footage ages faster than you think, mostly because of clothing and visible technology.
How many videos should a teaser campaign include?
For a conference of up to 500 people, plan for six to eight pieces across eight weeks. Fewer than four does not create enough touchpoints, more than ten for a single event usually just drains the budget.
Is a teaser worth it for a free event?
Yes, if you are fighting for registrations and for turnout. Free events tend to suffer from registered people who never show up, and a teaser in the final week works as a reminder of why they signed up in the first place.
If you are planning a conference or a corporate event and want to walk through the shooting schedule and the budget together, write to us through the contact form. We will also tell you when we think a teaser makes no sense in your case. You can see how we run projects like this in our video production section.
