Key Stats
- Ticketmaster’s marketing solutions drove nearly 40% of 2024-25 ticket revenue.
- “Me + 3” sales nearly doubled Year over Year.
- Promoted Ads drove 5% of total season ticket sales across 53 performances, delivering an 11X ROAS.
Alberta Ballet & Ticketmaster: A Strategic Marketing Partnership
Alberta Ballet, one of Canada’s premier dance companies, partnered with Ticketmaster during the 2024-25 season to reach new audiences, optimize demand, and exceed ambitious ticket sales goals.
Building on strong results from previous seasons, Alberta Ballet nearly doubled its investment with Ticketmaster. While many patrons are loyal repeat buyers, expanding reach to new audiences remained critical for long-term growth. Ticketmaster’s marketing solutions drove nearly 40% of total season ticket revenue, delivering consistent results across 53-performances and establishing a foundation for continued success.
Challenge: Navigating Ambitious Sales Goals Across Markets
Alberta Ballet performs at two venues — the Northern and Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditoriums in Edmonton and Calgary — presenting seven productions each season across both markets.
With a lean marketing team, driving demand across all performances required an efficient, scalable approach. Alberta Ballet needed a partner to help engage high-intent buyers, reach new audiences and deliver measurable results throughout the entire season.
Solution: A Full-Season, Data-Driven Marketing Strategy
Alberta Ballet partnered with Ticketmaster, as an extension of its internal marketing staff, to design a comprehensive, full-season strategy aligned to the organization’s goals. The approach focused on visibility, ticket sales optimization, and patron engagement across every stage of the purchase journey.
Key strategies included:
- Exclusive Audience Targeting: Leveraging Ticketmaster’s proprietary audience segments across email, paid social, programmatic display and Promoted Ads.
- Integrated Products and Services: Combining Managed Service capabilities such as email and programmatic advertising with automated solutions like SEO and distribution partnerships.
- Always-On Visibility: Running campaigns across all seven productions to maintain momentum and capture early demand, and maximize sell-through.
Here’s a closer look at the channels that drove results during the 2024–25 season:
Email Marketing: Driving Engagement and Revenue
Email played a central role in Alberta Ballet’s strategy, promoting presales and special offers while providing patrons with a direct path to purchase.
Presale Emails
Presale campaigns for productions including The Nutcracker, The Wizard of Oz and GRIMM generated more than $9,000 in average revenue per email sent.
Each presale reached an average audience of 49,000 patrons per send, a significant scale for Canadian arts organizations outside major metropolitan markets.
Presale email support was fully integrated into Alberta Ballet’s broader marketing strategy as part of its use of Ticketmaster’s CEN product.
“Me + 3” and Discount Offers
When inventory allowed, Alberta Ballet activated targeted offers such as “Me + 3” (buy three, get one free) and 20% discount codes. The “Me + 3” promotion nearly doubled ticket sales year-over-year, proving the effectiveness of data-informed promotional offers.
Maximizing Reach With Paid Media
Impactful Paid Social Campaigns
Paid social campaigns delivered nearly 4 million impressions and achieved a 5X return on average spend, representing a 1.5x year-over-year increase. A mix of creative formats, including video, helped engage both broad and niche audiences.
Key TIP
When planning a campaign, include generic brand visuals to build consistency across channels, then rotate in production-specific creative closer to opening night. This approach aligns with Ticketmaster’s proven marketing best practices and helps sustain engagement throughout the campaign lifecycle.
Reaching New Fans With Programmatic Display Ads
Programmatic display ads generated 5.7 million impressions, with 38% of tickets purchased by first-time buyers – reinforcing the value of display in audience expansion strategies.
Leveraging New Opportunities With Promoted Ads
For the first time, Alberta Ballet utilized Ticketmaster Promoted Ads, including both Managed Service Spotlight Units, Display Banners and self-serve Listing Units. These high-visibility placements across the Ticketmaster marketplace generated more than 3,300 ticket sales and delivered an 11X ROAS.
Promoted Ads opened up a new way for us to connect with audiences right on Ticketmaster. We were very impressed to see an 11X ROAS and that confirmed just how impactful these placements can be.”
Sevgi Demir
Marketing Director, Alberta Ballet
Results: Measurable Growth Through Collaboration
Through Ticketmaster’s full-funnel, multi-channel marketing strategy, Alberta Ballet surpassed its season goals and achieved measurable growth across key performance indicators:
- Nearly 40% of total ticket revenue driven by Ticketmaster marketing solutions
- Thousands of first-time buyers reached through digital and programmatic channels
- “Me + 3” ticket sales nearly doubled year-over-year
- More than 2,600 orders generated through Ticketmaster media and Promoted Ads.
- Increased traffic and engagement on Alberta Ballet’s Ticketmaster event pages.
The success demonstrates how arts organizations of any size can drive measurable revenue growth by pairing strong strategy with the right marketing channels and an experienced partner.
There’s a reason why we continue to invest and partner with Ticketmaster’s Client Marketing team. Their expertise helps us reach new audiences and exceed our revenue goals year after year. We’re looking forward to elevating our marketing strategy with Ticketmaster again during the 2025-26 season.”
Sevgi Demir
Marketing Director, Alberta Ballet
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