The Venue And The Job

Prohibition Lounge is a cocktail bar in Calgary with a live jazz programme. Two seatings a show, five and eight. Wise Media rebuilt the logo and brand identity from the ground up, built the website, and runs the paid advertising. The brand and the site are what people find. The ads are what fill the room, and a live show is the least forgiving thing to advertise: the inventory expires at showtime and there is no second chance to sell it.

What Runs Behind Every Show

The same structure every time, which is the whole point. Three ad sets per show, one campaign per show, never merged.

• Broad. Calgary, 45 to 65 plus, all genders.
• A one percent lookalike built off actual ticket buyers, not page engagers.
• Warm. Guest list, Instagram engagers and profile visitors. This is where the cheapest tickets come from: the best single ad set in the window ran at $2.84 a ticket.
• Lifetime budget on a thirteen day flight, with a hard stop at showtime. The budget cannot outlive the inventory.
• Sales objective, Purchase event, pixel verified, Advantage+ placements on.

The Finding Worth Naming

The broad audience started at Women 25 to 55, which is where nightlife advertising usually starts. Cost per ticket sat between $12 and $17. Moving it to 45 to 65 plus, all genders, dropped it to $9.98.

That is counterintuitive for a nightlife venue and it is the single most valuable thing in the account, because it is the part that does not appear in any playbook. The audience for a Dean Martin tribute on a Sunday evening is not the audience for a nightclub on a Saturday, and the targeting had been inherited from the second one.

Why It Repeats

Four different acts, Chicago Blues, Ray Charles, Dean Martin and the Roaring 20s, two seatings each, same structure every time, profitable every time. The worst performing show still bought a $33.39 ticket for $24.35, which clears by $9.04 before anyone orders.

Efficiency held while it repeated. CPM ran between $8.84 and $14.65, which is cheap reach in a competitive local market, and frequency stayed between 1.27 and 1.64. That second number is the one operators recognise. Most local event advertisers push frequency past three and burn the same list by the second month, then blame the market. The same audience stays fresh show to show here because nothing is asked of it twice.

What This Does Not Claim

Every figure on this page is paid social performance from the ad account, over one 30 day window. It is ticket sales attributed to the advertising. It is not total attendance, it is not bar or food revenue, and it is not a forecast. Bar spend was never measured, so nothing here implies it.

In Their Words

Prohibition Lounge, five stars on the Wise Media Google profile.