Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Lexington Opera House is one of Kentucky's premier performing arts centers and cultural destinations. This venue currently serves about 85,000 patrons annually. It offers something for everyone: from ballet, opera, children's productions, and family shows to comedy, music, and Broadway productions.

Challenge: After a worldwide, pandemic-driven shut down for nearly two years, the curtain began to rise for touring Broadway shows in Summer 2021. Amidst the international resurgence for the performing arts industry, Lexington Opera confirmed a robust roster of world-renowned Broadway productions such as Hairspray, CHICAGO, and Waitress. To support their epic comeback, they knew they needed to leverage top-tier digital marketing.

So, Lexington Opera House rehired Bauer Entertainment Marketing (BEM) for a second consecutive year based on our history of helping them grow their fans, sales, and profit. Our primary focus was promoting their season ticket sales, offering fans the opportunity to attend a package of shows at a discounted price.

Solution: With just two short weeks remaining before the campaign needed to launch, BEM quickly got to work. We collaborated with the venue staff to establish promotional assets for their six-month series of Broadway shows. The ad creative we developed included logos, graphics, and videos uniquely branded for Facebook, Instagram, and Google.

Our team of expert advertisers then planned, created, and launched the Season Tickets ad campaign with two main objectives in mind: increase awareness and boost sales conversions. Our approach included informing potential customers that they could get the best seats for the lowest price possible. By emphasizing the benefits of purchasing tickets now instead of waiting, we helped generate a substantial increase in conversions.

Additionally, we worked with the management team from each Broadway show to gain advertising access to their social media followers. By targeting their existing fans, we increased our reach among those with the highest potential interest in purchasing tickets.

Results: Our Season Tickets ad campaign yielded 678k impressions and reached 112k potential ticket buyers. Notably, Google Ads had a 14% average click-through rate (vs. industry average of 0.90%) and delivered 9.7k clicks to buy tickets. In just the first two weeks of our campaign, we helped sell the equivalent of 63% of the total sales for the prior year’s Season Tickets campaign. Ultimately, BEM delivered an estimated 12.2X return on Lexington Opera House’s advertising spend. Happy fans, happy venue!

Looking to level-up your digital ad campaigns? We got you! Contact BEM today.