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How we grew Water Lantern Festival ticket sales 19% on 16% more ad spend, with 11 fewer events

The Challenge

Take over mid-season, then make every channel earn its keep.

Water Lantern Festival is a community event where guests decorate a lantern and release it onto the water at sundown. It runs across the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. TIA took over its marketing in June 2025, mid-season. There was almost no room to plan or test. The program leaned hard on Meta, outsiders could not tell what the night felt like, and social needed an engine.

The Insight

Every ad platform takes credit. Only ticket orders count.

Ad platforms claimed about 10% more purchases than the ticketing system recorded. So we graded every channel on real orders, and built a mix where each channel has its own job: creators and social build the moment, paid media finds the buyers, and the website closes the sale.

Services

Paid Social, Google & Microsoft Ads
Influencer, Organic Social & Content
Programmatic: DOOH, OLV & Audio
Web Design, CRO & Lifecycle

Floating paper lanterns with drawings and candles glowing on calm water at sunsetA couple sharing a quiet moment on the grass at Water Lantern Festival

The strategy

Creators build it. Paid finds it. The site closes it.

We built a full 360 program for Water Lantern Festival. Influencer and organic social told the story. Google, Meta, TikTok and programmatic found the buyers. A relaunched website converted them, and every dollar was judged on real ticket orders.

Our approach:

Relaunched the website in June 2025 with a sticky mobile CTA and optimized event pages

Moved paid media beyond Meta into TikTok, Google, Microsoft Ads and programmatic

Built persona-based creative around four buyer groups, led by Date Night

Ran always-on social and a creator program that shows the night to people who have never been

The Execution

Paid Media: Google, Meta, TikTok & Programmatic

Google Ads grew from a branded-only account into full-funnel search, Performance Max and YouTube. TikTok became a sales channel in October 2025. Programmatic video, audio and billboards added 23M impressions in priority markets and lifted brand search interest about 150% in the campaign window.

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Results:
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  • Google Ads revenue up 447% in 2025, and 57% of Q2 2026 conversion value came from searches that never mention the festival
  • Meta return on ad spend up 55% year over year in Q2 2026, on 28% less spend
  • TikTok return on ad spend rose from 1.65x to 5.49x in one quarter, at under $11 a purchase

Creators & Social

Reactive, trend-aware content and creator partnerships showed the festival to people who had never been. In 2025 the social program earned 573.7M impressions and 127K new followers, up 300% on the year before. In 2026, creators became the breakout format.


Highlights:
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  • Creators hold their TikTok posts until the brand account has posted, so the festival owns the reach
  • 28M influencer impressions from June to December 2025, then 7.4M in Q2 2026 alone, up 225% on Q1
  • All three top posts of Q2 2026 came from creators, led by one at 1.5M impressions

Website & Conversion

In June 2025 we relaunched the website, then kept testing. Comparing the six months before and after launch, sessions grew 137% and conversion rate rose from 3.56% to 5.75%. Better pages did the closing.
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  • Sticky mobile CTA, a conversion audit and optimized event landing pages
  • Early-access and waitlist phase pages, plus a pricing back-end revamp
  • Live sales notifications, social proof and A/B tests on event pages in 2026
  • A Radiant Tour redesign of the home, find-an-event and event pages, plus a Lantern Stories page for guest content

The result: ticket sales grew faster than ad spend in 2026, on a calendar with 11 fewer events than the year before.

Friends lying on the grass together at a Water Lantern Festival event

19%

growth in ticket sales on 16% more ad spend, with 11 fewer events

447%

Google Ads revenue growth in 2025 over 2024

190.4M

social impressions in Q2 2026 alone, up 152% on Q1

61.5%

lift in conversion rate after the site relaunch, from 3.56% to 5.75%

5.49x

TikTok return on ad spend in Q2 2026, up from 1.65x in Q1

28M

influencer impressions from June to December 2025, at a $3.02 CPM

Why it worked

01

Every channel graded on real orders

Ad platforms claimed about 10% more purchases than the ticketing system recorded. Budget moved to what actually sold tickets.

02

Budget followed the buyers

Retargeting grew from 13% to 20% of budget and Meta return on ad spend rose 28%, while programmatic budget moved into TikTok and search.

03

Creative built around real buyers

Four personas shaped the creative, led by Date Night. UGC-style pre-event reels inside sales campaigns returned 16.6x in-platform ROAS on 398 purchases.

04

The site closes what social starts

After the relaunch, conversion rate rose 61.5%. In Q2 2026, orders grew 10.7% year over year on 8.2% more users.