Passing Go: 15% More Ticket Sales on Half the Marketing Spend

MONOPOLY LIFESIZED: Travel Edition is the ultimate immersive gaming experience for all ages, combining competitive gameplay and live entertainment. Inspired by the beloved board game, MONOPOLY LIFESIZED allows teams of visitors to strategize and play until a champion is crowned.

When Blumenthal Arts and Carol Fox & Associates (CF&A) signed on to bring MONOPOLY LIFESIZED: Travel Edition to Charlotte, getting guests through the door over an eight-month run meant treating marketing and ticketing as one connected system, reacting in real time instead of reporting after the fact.

From May 2025 through January 2026, MONOPOLY LIFESIZED sold over 35,000 tickets and ran at nearly 80% capacity at Blume Studios, Blumenthal Arts's newly renovated venue and a first-of-its-kind home for international immersive productions. Building on the momentum the premiere in Denver had already created as the format's first U.S. home, the Charlotte run pushed success even further: ticket sales rose 15%, while marketing spend dropped 50%.

That kind of result, more revenue on less spend, doesn't happen by accident, and it can’t happen when marketing and ticketing operate in separate lanes. We sat down with Todd Rossi of Carol Fox & Associates to talk about how the two came together, and what the partnership between OTS and Blumenthal Arts made possible.

The Denver premiere had already shown that MONOPOLY LIFESIZED could draw a crowd in the U.S. In Charlotte, the job was to build on that early success in a meaningful way. Internally, CF&A set out some lofty goals for the eight-month run.

But hitting a number was never the only goal. For an eight-month, single-location engagement, success also meant keeping the operation running smoothly for the entire run, and making sure the marketing engine and the ticketing system were working off the same real-time data instead of separate reports.

The premiere of MONOPOLY LIFESIZED in Denver proved it was a promising endeavor. CF&A’s job in Charlotte was to take that proof of concept and sharpen it, starting with the media mix.

"We applied a different marketing approach in Charlotte, focusing on more video-oriented mediums such as digital and TV, whereas Denver pursued OOH and radio, which has traditionally not shown great conversion for LBE productions," Todd said.

As part of that video-first approach, the Charlotte run brought in a wider mix of digital content, and creator content in particular stood out as the top performer.

A new media mix only works if you can tell, in near-real time, whether it's working. That's where On The Stage came in, not as a vendor delivering reports after the fact, but as a genuine partner to Blumenthal Arts and CF&A throughout the run.

"Conversion tracking, purchase pacing by performance, and source attribution allowed us to quickly identify which campaigns and creative were producing ticket sales," Todd said. "We regularly shifted spend toward the highest-converting audience segments and creative, while reducing investment in underperforming tactics. Having access to timely data made optimization an ongoing process."

That same flexibility extended to pricing and inventory. As the team learned the Charlotte audience's purchasing patterns, they adjusted pricing tiers, opened up inventory during high-demand stretches, and rolled out promotions during softer ones.

That responsiveness held up throughout the entire eight-month run, not just at the moments that made headlines.

It's also a meaningful improvement for CF&A: an experience like MONOPOLY LIFESIZED depends on tightly scheduled entry windows to manage guest flow and staffing, and OTS meets that need with mobile-first timed entry.

Segmentation played a similar role on the marketing side. The team built audiences around purchase history, abandoned carts, past attendance, geography, and engagement level, then retargeted with tailored creative and messaging.

Asked for the single biggest before-and-after, Todd didn't point to a specific campaign or channel. He pointed to speed.

CF&A's model pairs an experienced marketing agency with a dedicated ticketing partner in OTS, rather than consolidating everything into one all-in-one tool. For Blumenthal Arts, CF&A, and OTS, that meant three parties working in lockstep on a shared goal, instead of one vendor managing everything at arm's length. Todd sees that as a benefit, not a limitation.

"It allows each partner to focus on what they do best," he said. "OTS provides a flexible, customer-friendly ticketing platform with strong reporting and operational tools, while the agency remains focused on strategy, creative, media buying, and campaign optimization. Rather than forcing everything into one platform, it creates accountability and allows best-in-class partners to collaborate."

It's a response he hears often from other venue operators, many of whom assume an all-in-one platform is the safer bet.

Data ownership factors into that calculus too. Owning first-party guest data, Todd said, is what turns a single sold-out run into a long-term audience relationship.

For Carol Fox & Associates, the Charlotte run of MONOPOLY LIFESIZED wasn’t a one-off; it's a new model. Todd says the team plans to carry the same playbook, and the same close partnership with OTS, into future immersive productions.

Founded by Tony Award-Winning Broadway producer Hunter Arnold, On The Stage (OTS) is the innovative technology solution created by theatremakers for theatremakers. The all-in-one technology platform empowers performing arts organizations with the tools and technology to control their own creative destiny. OTS believes that Broadway-caliber tools and technology should be easily accessible to all theatres, regardless of size, budget, or resources. By partnering with OTS, performing arts organizations are empowered to:

• Drive revenue with ticket sales, merchandise, and fundraising
• Save time and money with box office and production tools
• Create a professional experience with show sites, a walk-up app, ticket scanning, show programs, and more…

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