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Fraze Pavilion

Fraze Pavilion Ring(o)s In Fans with Facebook Ads

Overview

Fraze Pavilion is southwestern Ohio’s premier amphitheater that opened in 1991.  Named after the inventor of the pop-top beverage can, Ermal Fraze, the 4300-seat outdoor amphitheater hosts the annual season of “Summer’s Best Music Under the Stars,” which brings in many popular artists like Little Big Town, The Avett Brothers, Tony Bennett, Alison Krauss and Ringo Starr.

Challenge

It’s not often a former Beatle comes to Kettering, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. The last time Ringo Starr played at Fraze Pavilion was in 2014 and 2008, before that. This time Ringo returned as the recently knighted “Sir Richard” and was accompanied by his All Starr band. With Ringo and an entire season of artists expected at the Fraze Pavilion, the team wanted to amp up their social presence, drive engagement, and sell more tickets through social media.

The Fraze team consists of three full-time staff running marketing, operations, and ticketing. General Manager Karen Durham books all talent and handles the marketing. Fraze has worked with a single design team for over 20 years to keep branding consistent.

Karen had previously run Facebook Ads but did not have a full plan in place, so she reached out to Rockhouse Partners (RHP), our in-house digital marketing agency, to learn more about RHP’s proven social media strategies.  

Solution

Rockhouse Partners met with the Fraze team and outlined a Facebook Ads plan for the entire Fraze concert season. RHP put a budget toward each artist coming to Fraze Pavilion, including Ringo Starr, Reba McEntire, and new artists that might not have the same draw. With a limited budget, usually under $1,000 for each show, RHP focused on “just announced” and on-sale ads that ran for no more than a few days.  

Defining the Audience

The Rockhouse team first defined the Facebook audience for the artists and venue.  The audience was built based on location (targeting Kettering residents and nearby metropolitan areas that might not be on the artist touring schedule), age range (25 – 65), and similar artist interests. The team then created image-based ads that included a call-to-action, which led to an Etix ticketing page to purchase.  Facebook pixels placed on ticketing links tracked visitors and later became part of a remarketing campaign.

Just Announced: Ringo Starr 

Rockhouse Partners used a combination of just announced and on sale ads that ran for a couple days.  The “just announced” post was an advertisement of the upcoming concert and prompted its Facebook audience to click a link to the Etix ticketing page.  Anyone who had the link had the option to put in their phone number and email address to later receive a pre-sale notification to purchase tickets.  

Rockhouse also utilized dark posting through artist pages and the Fraze Pavilion Facebook page.  Dark posts are newsfeed-style posts that are not actually published to your timeline, but show up to a specific defined audience.  These posts are more personal and can increase ticket sales.  Through The Who and Roger Daltrey Facebook pages, RHP and Fraze generated twice as much in ticket sales as they spent on advertising.

Results

  • Impressions: 41,143
  • Total Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): 67x
  • Cost per engagement: Under 10 cents

“It’s been very helpful to partner and work with Etix to use all your resources especially Rockhouse.  We have not ventured into Rockhouse world since we came on as a client.  It was good to come down and learn about Rockhouse, what they do and what they CAN do.  It was great as we move season to season.”

–Karen Durham,  General Manager, Fraze Pavilion

 

Rockhouse Tips for Facebook Ads

For Facebook ads, the Rockhouse motto is, “Never lead people to a dead end.  Always have a call-to-action.”

 This will ultimately lead to a conversion. The Facebook conversion timeline starts with a person seeing an ad, if they don’t engage right away, Facebook still attributes engagement as long as it’s within the week.

Do not overlap Facebook ads.  Since Fraze had an entire season of artists to promote, RHP had to be meticulous when scheduling posts and make sure they didn’t cannibalize sales from one show to another.

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