CASE STUDY
Miami City Ballet
How a creative Brightline partnership — and the right Tessitura build — helped MCB surpass its Nutcracker revenue goal before opening night.
How a creative Brightline partnership — and the right Tessitura build — helped MCB surpass its Nutcracker revenue goal before opening night.
What Happened
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Miami City Ballet is one of the largest ballet companies in the United States, performing across three South Florida venues: Miami, West Palm Beach, and Fort Lauderdale. Their annual Nutcracker production is a signature event — and a significant revenue driver — for the organization.
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In 2022, scheduling conflicts pulled Fort Lauderdale off the Nutcracker calendar. Rather than lose that audience entirely, MCB found a creative solution: partner with Brightline, South Florida's high-speed rail, to offer an all-in-one travel package. Ticket buyers could purchase Nutcracker tickets bundled with round-trip train fare from Fort Lauderdale to Miami or West Palm Beach — and optionally, a car to the station.
The concept was strong. The execution challenge was real. For the campaign to work, the Brightline packages needed to live seamlessly inside MCB's existing TNEW purchase pathway — visible enough to drive sales, integrated tightly enough not to disrupt the buying experience for everyone else. MCB also needed a way to track package sales and communicate fulfillment details to both Brightline and ticket buyers without creating a manual reporting nightmare.
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We listed the Smart and Premium Brightline packages directly alongside standard ticket prices on the main TNEW purchase pathway. Buyers could select a package and check out in a single, uninterrupted flow — no separate landing page, no workaround, no friction.
On the back end, we built a custom dashboard in Tessitura Analytics that tracked package sales, buyer contact information, and fulfillment data in real time. This gave MCB's team a single source of truth for communicating with Brightline and managing package redemption without chasing spreadsheets.
We also set up dynamic messaging on the post-purchase email confirmation — tied directly to the package price type — so buyers received clear, specific instructions for redeeming their Brightline tickets the moment they completed their purchase. The right information went to the right buyer automatically.
Results
MCB surpassed its Nutcracker revenue goal before opening night.
424 Nutcracker + Brightline packages were sold.
72% of the households who purchased were new to MCB — people who might never have bought a ticket without the travel package as an entry point.
Tessitura Network recognized the campaign on Tessitura.com as a standout example of creative platform use.
FAQs About Miami City Ballet
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The key was treating the Brightline packages as a pricing option within the existing TNEW flow rather than building a separate purchase path. Buyers saw the Smart and Premium packages listed alongside standard ticket prices and could select and check out without leaving the main pathway. From the buyer's perspective, it felt like any other ticket purchase.
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The custom dashboard tracked package sales, buyer contact information, and fulfillment data in one place — updated in real time.
For an engagement like this where MCB had fulfillment obligations to a third-party partner, having clean, accessible data wasn't optional. It's what made the campaign operationally manageable for a team that couldn't afford to be chasing numbers manually.
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We used dynamic messaging in the Tessitura email confirmation — triggered by price type — so buyers automatically received instructions specific to their package the moment they completed their purchase.
No manual segmentation, no separate send. The right message went to the right person at the right time.
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Yes — the same approach applies to any campaign where you're offering a package that includes something outside the standard ticket.
The TNEW pathway, Analytics reporting, and dynamic confirmation messaging are all flexible enough to support a range of partnership structures. The build is specific to each campaign, but the framework transfers.
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New households are the metric that tells you whether a campaign actually grew your audience or just moved existing buyers around.
72% new to MCB means the Brightline partnership reached people who had no prior relationship with the ballet — and gave them a low-friction reason to say yes for the first time.