Stage Entertainment

The Client

One of the world’s largest theatre producers and owners, Stage Entertainment (SE) is multi-award winning theatrical production company with offices in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Russia, France, and Italy. Producing beloved titles like The Lion King and Phantom of the Opera as well as original in-house content, SE has played a key role in developing and enhancing the popularity of the musical genre throughout the European Continent. More than seven million visitors attend an SE production each year in one of the company’s 20 theatres in 11 cities.

The Situation

Every performance needs an audience, and SE’s grand productions were no exception. But with mass market wholesalers offering cut-rate ticket prices, it was clear that SE needed to provide customers with a compelling reason to complete their entire journey with the brand by delivering a cohesive, personalized experience that captured their imaginations (and their wallets) from the start.

But SE’s previous sites weren’t able to deliver the same stellar performances that patrons were receiving in their theatres. Each theatre’s site looked, felt, and functioned completely differently than every other’s. Customers were confused and underwhelmed, and understandably so.

The Challenge

Stage Entertainment wanted to create amazing, engaging experiences for its customers while making it easier for its theatres to more effectively manage their online presences—all while keeping their brand intact. They needed to build in enough flexibility and autonomy so that each theatre could customize the sites to the level necessary to reach and interact with their patrons and potential theatre-goers in a way that would captivate them. After all, SE executives reasoned, the teams running the local theatres had insights and expertise about their target audiences and needed the leeway to be able to act on those insights.

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The Solution

Stage Entertainment determined the requirements for a website centralized on a single platform. Using their show Anastasia as its “guinea pig,” Stage Entertainment partnered with Inviqa to develop the proof-of-concept website with Drupal on Acquia Cloud Platform and used Acquia Personalization to help create centralized, consistent digital experiences for SE’s patrons.

The Results

Stage Entertainment and Inviqa launched the Anastasia website in six weeks and the analytics show that the project was successful. Overall, conversions were boosted by an average of 250 percent. In addition, the site saw a 638 percent rise in orders compared with the average, a 57 percent rise in visits, and a 101 percent rise in time on site. The site load time is down by nearly half and the bounce rate is similarly down by nearly half, indicating that visitors are more inclined to stay and spend time on the site.