Design Week Rotterdam's ticketing switch paid for itself in one quarter

Design Week Rotterdam ran on a brochure website and a marketplace checkout. The marketplace's fee, at times close to 30% of the ticket price once buyer fees were included, funded marketing that promoted competing events to the festival's own audience.

Because attendee data stayed with the marketplace, the festival could not build a returning-visitor campaign or tell sponsors who had attended.

Studio Kade launched a new site on Expola with the program and venue map generated from the event data, and moved all ticket sales onto it. Group tickets for schools and studios were added with a single invoice per booking.

The first campaign on Expola went to buyers from the two previous editions, imported once from marketplace exports and matched against the new record. From then on, every buyer belonged to the festival.

First-party ticket sales reached $104,500 in the first edition on Expola, and the festival saved around $31,000 in marketplace fees. Every attendee record, including purchase history and session interests, is owned by the organizer.

Sponsors now receive an attendee profile report the week after the festival, which supported a 22% increase in sponsorship revenue for the following edition.