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Fast event growth requires communication that can keep up — or things can get messy.
ThriftCon experienced this firsthand. As the premier vintage clothing and collectibles convention in the US grew from a single Denver event to 10 major cities (welcoming 60,000+ guests and 1,500 vendors annually), their communication had to evolve.
"We had no way to contact everyone all at once or to inform them of important information without bulky emails or messy Instagram DMs," says ThriftCon's Brian Frederick.
Enter Event SMS: professional communication at scale
The team knew they needed a solution — communication that could handle their scale, reach their audience where they actually paid attention, and keep everything organised behind the scenes.
"We really just wanted to present the experience more professionally and be organised on the backend," Frederick explained.
Initially, cost brought them to ClickSend. But once the ThriftCon team started exploring what ClickSend could actually do, they realised they'd found something more valuable than a budget-friendly SMS tool.
"We stuck around after learning about how to integrate it with other features like SignNow and Typeform,” says Frederick.The ability to connect their communication directly to the tools they were already using — forms, contracts, surveys — meant they could build automated workflows instead of manually chasing people down.
How ThriftCon uses SMS day-to-day
For ThriftCon, SMS isn't just a broadcast tool — it's woven into how they run their events.
When they gather customer or vendor contact data, they build targeted lists in ClickSend. From there, they can instantly reach whoever needs specific information, when they need it.
Here's how:
Ticket sales announcements - When tickets go on sale for the next city, bulk sending means thousands of potential attendees get notified at once.
Survey responses - A quick text with a Typeform link gets feedback rolling in to improve the experience. And with two-way messaging (and free inbound replies), people can respond directly with questions or feedback.
Vendor coordination - Vendors get critical setup information before an event, with all the details they need to have their most successful day possible — no digging through email threads or missed DMs.
The key is meeting their audience where they already are. "Both our guests and vendors tend to be part of younger generations, which means they're pretty much never checking emails, just their phones," Frederick explained.
The results: faster, cleaner, more professional
Since switching to ClickSend, the results have been clear. Admin time is down. Response times are faster. The backend stays clean and easy to track.
"It gives us the opportunity to reach out to tens of thousands of people instantly," Frederick shared. "It keeps our events super organised and everyone up to date on important info."
The impact shows up across the operation. Vendors get setup information when they need it, leading to smoother event days. Attendees don't miss ticket drops or critical updates. And the team isn't hunting through scattered DM threads trying to figure out who saw what.
The takeaway
For other event managers considering SMS, Frederick's advice is clear:
"Because of the varied use of social platforms and clunkiness of emails, texting is the only way you're going to get messages through to everyone — or as close to everyone as possible. Once you understand that and learn about integrations, it's simple to take events to the next level."
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