Great article. I’m the lead producer of 11 to Midnight, a commercial dance show currently playing Off-Broadway at the Orpheum through the end of the month.
We had an 18-week run and, over the course of it, changed advertising agencies, press reps, and several other key members of our marketing team based on a series of experiments and results we were seeing in real time. In short, the only things that meaningfully moved the needle for ticket sales were organic social and stunt casting.
As may be intuitively obvious, people want to see a show with buzz — something that feels cool, current, and like other people are talking about it. By contrast, a heavy ad spend can signal the opposite: that a show has available inventory it needs to move. In that sense, certain kinds of paid advertising can unintentionally tell audiences that the show is not a hot ticket.
I’ve used Meta advertising across several shows and tours and saw a sharp drop-off in effectiveness sometime around 2021–2022. I’ve also never fully understood the case for Google search ads for live performance, though many agencies strongly encouraged us to use them.
Also, please tell Chaikelson I say hi — I was in the MFA program about a decade ago!
Great article. I’m the lead producer of 11 to Midnight, a commercial dance show currently playing Off-Broadway at the Orpheum through the end of the month.
We had an 18-week run and, over the course of it, changed advertising agencies, press reps, and several other key members of our marketing team based on a series of experiments and results we were seeing in real time. In short, the only things that meaningfully moved the needle for ticket sales were organic social and stunt casting.
As may be intuitively obvious, people want to see a show with buzz — something that feels cool, current, and like other people are talking about it. By contrast, a heavy ad spend can signal the opposite: that a show has available inventory it needs to move. In that sense, certain kinds of paid advertising can unintentionally tell audiences that the show is not a hot ticket.
I’ve used Meta advertising across several shows and tours and saw a sharp drop-off in effectiveness sometime around 2021–2022. I’ve also never fully understood the case for Google search ads for live performance, though many agencies strongly encouraged us to use them.
Also, please tell Chaikelson I say hi — I was in the MFA program about a decade ago!
Oh snap, also tell Aidan and Ashley I say hi too! I was the lead on Beyond Babel - so we have some dancing in common!