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Industry
Arts & Culture
Goals
The Muny sought to expand its owned audience by growing its marketing database and capturing actionable audience insights to support more targeted, segmented marketing efforts. The initiative aimed to generate awareness, drive subscription and ticket sales, and increase attendance for Hairspray and the 2026 summer season, attracting both new and returning theatergoers. At the same time, the campaign reinforced The Muny's position as a premier cultural destination in St. Louis, offering world-class live theater experiences that bring families, visitors, and the community together.
Results
Through the collaborative sweepstakes campaign, The Muny achieved a 49% opt-in rate and increased marketing email opt-ins by 98% from 2025 to 2026. The campaign generated more than 115,000 impressions, attracted 1,256 entrants, and drove 1,827 total engagements.
Key Product
Sweepstakes
The Solution
A Strategic Sweepstakes Built to Deliver More Than Entries
The Muny partnered with St. Louis Magazine to launch a sweepstakes campaign promoting its 108th season with Hairspray. Entrants had a chance to win four tickets (a $350 total value). The prize was designed to remove the barrier of cost and unfamiliarity, offering a no-risk introduction to The Muny experience—and, in turn, a gateway to discovering the rest of the season's lineup.
Distributed through St. Louis Magazine's newsletters, social media, targeted email audience, and run-of-site digital impression campaign, the sweepstakes reached theater lovers, families, and tourists across the St. Louis region who matched The Muny's prospective attendee profile.
What The Data Revealed
To better understand prospective attendees, The Muny embedded two survey questions designed to capture audience attendance and planning behavior. The contest collected more than 2,400 total responses:
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Theater Habits Skew Loyal: The majority of respondents attend live theater multiple times a year, with a strong secondary group attending once or twice annually.
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Short Planning Windows: Most entrants plan their attendance a few weeks in advance, with a notable share deciding just a few days before a show, suggesting the greatest opportunity to influence ticket purchases lies close to each performance date.
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A Meaningful New Audience: 293 respondents—nearly a quarter of entrants—identified as first-time or infrequent theatergoers, representing a strong opportunity to convert casual interest into repeat attendance.
Why This Matters
These opt-ins represent a highly engaged audience—621 individuals actively raised their hands to hear more from The Muny! Because both the survey questions and the email opt-in were optional, every response reflects genuine, self-selected interest.
The audience insights collected provide The Muny with a stronger understanding of how potential ticket purchasers plan, purchase, and engage with live theater experiences. Most importantly, The Muny can immediately activate this audience, turning contest engagement into long-term audience development.
What To Do With This Information
The Muny added 621 new marketing opt-ins, creating a valuable audience for ongoing customer engagement. By nurturing these leads through a series of targeted email campaigns, The Muny can encourage first-time and infrequent theatergoers to become repeat attendees while using the collected first-party data to deliver more relevant, segmented marketing messages throughout the season.
Ways The Muny could segment their follow-up campaigns:
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637 respondents indicated they plan their attendance a few weeks in advance, reinforcing the value of early-window marketing. The Muny could prioritize email pushes, ticket promotions, and season announcements several weeks ahead of each performance to capture this audience while they're actively planning.
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335 respondents decide only a few days before attending, representing a strong opportunity for last-minute, urgency-driven messaging. This audience is well suited for reminder emails, limited-time ticket offers, and weather- or schedule-dependent promotions timed close to each show date.
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More than half of respondents attend live theater multiple times a year, highlighting a core base of habitual theatergoers. This loyalty presents an opportunity to promote season subscriptions, multi-show packages, and incentives that reward and deepen engagement with repeat attendees.
Ready to partner together?
