How to promote an event in Kathmandu

1. Make the poster do one job

The poster is the only thing every channel will carry, so it has to work as a 1080×1350 image on a phone, at a glance. Five things, big: the name of the night, the day and date, the venue, the price (or “free”), and where to get in — a ticket link or “at the door”. Everything else is small. The most common failures in Kathmandu posters are a missing year, a venue with no area (“Thamel” helps, “Kathmandu” does not), and a price only in the caption.

2. List it where the city looks for plans

Kathmandu searches Google for what is on — “events in kathmandu this weekend”, “concert tonight”, the venue name — and Kata Jaam pages are what comes up. The app is what people check when they are deciding what to do on Friday. A listing is free and takes a few minutes: drop the poster and the form fills itself. How listing works.

What the listing does that Instagram cannot:

• A page that stays findable after the post scrolls away — Google indexes it, and it carries the ticket link.
• A “save” that becomes a push notification on the day: the people who were interested get reminded.
• An event chat where people ask “what time do doors open?” and find others to go with.
• One update from you that reaches everyone who saved or RSVP'd, every crew, and pins in the chat.

3. Post as a collab, not alone

Instagram is where Kathmandu discovers nights, but a post on one account reaches that one account's followers. Invite the venue and the artists as collaborators on the post: it appears on every grid at once and every collaborator's followers see it in their feed. Tag the venue in the image too. A collab post routinely reaches three to four times what the same post does alone.

• One feed post with the poster, two weeks out. Collab with the venue + headline act.
• Stories every few days, not every day: line-up reveal, a clip from last time, “tickets on sale”, “tomorrow”.
• A reel if you have footage from a previous edition — it is the only format that reaches non-followers at scale.
• Put the Kata Jaam link or your ticket link in the bio and in a story sticker. A caption link is not tappable.

4. The groups your audience already sits in

Kathmandu runs on WhatsApp, Viber and Messenger groups: college batches, office groups, the hiking group, the salsa class, the futsal team. One forward with the poster and the link does more than an ad. Ask three friends to forward it into their groups; write the two-line message for them so it takes zero effort.

5. Use the venue's channels

The venue wants the night to sell as much as you do. Ask for: a story on the venue account, the poster on their board and table tents for the week before, and a mention to their regulars. Venues with a page on Kata Jaam get your event on it automatically.

6. Give people a way to commit

A person who has done something small — saved, RSVP'd, bought — is far more likely to show up than one who double-tapped. For a free night, take free RSVPs with your own questions: you get a guest list and they get a reminder. For a paid night, sell tickets where the buyer gets a QR code and you keep face value. Either way, put the link everywhere the poster goes.

A two-week timeline

When to pay

After the free channels are done, not instead of them. Two things are worth money in Kathmandu:

1. Boosting the post that already works. NPR 500–2,000 a day on the collab post, targeted to Kathmandu Valley plus one interest, for the last five days. Boost a post that has real engagement; an ad on a dead post buys nothing.
2. Placement where people are already deciding. A featured weekend on the Kata Jaam Home rail, an Instagram spotlight post with you tagged, or the promo popup — priced per placement, see pricing.

What does not work

• Posting the same poster five times. Post once, then post things people have not seen: a clip, a line-up, a face.
• “Link in bio” with no link in bio.
• A different date on the poster, the caption and the ticket page. Pick one; fix it everywhere.
• Announcing the day before. Kathmandu plans the weekend on Wednesday and Thursday.
• Buying followers or reach. The people who turn up follow the venue and the artists, not a number.

One more: the update is the reminder

The single most under-used move is a message, the day before, to everyone who said they were interested. On Kata Jaam that is one post from the portal: it goes by push, by email to people without the app, into every crew going together, and pins in the event chat.