A star-studded season launch

Queensland Theatre composes a theatrical love letter with blockbuster 2025 Season

From courtrooms to saloons, outback towns to the corridors of power, Queensland Theatre reignited a love of theatre with its captivating 2025 Season. The state’s premier theatre company will stage eight mainstage productions in 2025, featuring world premieres, award-winning works, big-name artists, Queensland stars and unmissable storytelling.

To help spread the news and excite audiences, Aruga was engaged to support Queensland Theatre’s 2025 Season Launch in September 2024 – delivering a holistic marketing and communications plan that spanned strategy development, media relations, paid social, influencer engagement and stakeholder management.

The results? 140 media clips reaching 3.67M, 3 paid social campaigns reaching 911K+ and increasing website traffic by 15K+ users, and 2 incredible content pieces via engaged influencers. Alongside Queensland Theatre’s incredible marketing efforts, the campaign saw strong sales results and extremely positive sentiment with audiences.

Results

140

media clips

3.67M

potential audience reach

3

paid socials campaigns

911K+

paid social total reach

15K+

paid social total news

$0.51

paid socials average cost-per-clicks

2

influencers engaged

Deliverables

Strategy

Developed and executed a strategic marketing and communications plan, focused on driving widespread awareness and engagement, while pushing season packages and ticket sales

Copywriting

Developed campaign materials for the Queensland Theatre’s 2025 Season Launch, including an announcement media release and alert.

Media Relations

Pitched and secured quality earned media via local, drive and national media, including season announcements, interviews with key creatives and an exclusive photo story.

Paid Socials

Developed paid social strategy spanning three key phases, followed by implementation and optimisation per phase to drive awareness, engagement, and website traffic to push Queensland Theatre 2025 Season.

Influencer Engagements

Supported Queensland Theatre with influencer engagement, contractual negotiation and briefing with top tier influencers.

Winning Tactics

Aruga joined forces with Queensland Theatre to establish and execute a strategic marketing and communications approach for their 2025 Season, from building out a comprehensive on-sale to drive maximum impact upon launch, to working closely on season copy to ensure the brand and shows were set up for success from the outset.

Aruga worked directly with Queensland Theatre’s marketing and ticketing teams to support Season Launch event planning and establish a brand-new component in 2025 – an early bird mechanic for single ticket sales, offering 15% off for 72 hours only. Aruga and Queensland Theatre’s joint efforts in both elements helped drive mass awareness, create FOMO with audiences and set the tone for the incoming season.

Aruga developed a targeted editorial pitch plan, identifying print, online and broadcast media opportunities to spread the word far and wide at launch. The opportunities pitched strategically under embargo to coordinate interviews and features the week leading into launch and beyond, leading to incredible results across key national arts and statewide media.

Aruga developed a paid social strategy that not only focused on results, but also audience acquisition to harness the power of retargeting mid-campaign. Phase 1 saw great success with prospecting via existing and new audiences, while Phase 2 leveraged this to retarget and push the retail component for ticket sale driving.

Aruga worked closely with Queensland Theatre to engage two key influencers for the launch campaign – one to develop owned channel content, and one to interview key talent for videography. This resulted in behind-the-scenes launch content for Queensland Theatre to leverage via their owned platforms, as well as the respective influencers’ platforms to spread awareness with new audiences.