Phase 1 did its job. Now we run August carefully — city by city.
Toronto is our completed benchmark. August is the active business case. The cancelled June dates are out of the forward math. First thing to confirm: keep the current rooms, or scale some down.
August tour dates
Tucson
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Portland
Seattle
Vancouver
The short version
Toronto is our benchmark.
It sold well — 235 tickets, 59% of the room, VIP sold out, at an efficient cost. That's the bar for August.
August needs real support.
The cities aren't all moving at the same pace. Tucson, LA and Vancouver need the push first.
Spend carefully, not all at once.
Release budget as cities show movement — clean links, creative ready, checked weekly against DCV.
What Phase 1 gave us
More than tickets — it set August up.
- A working website + backend
- Tracking that actually fires
- Strong checkout interest
- Warm audiences to re-target
- A real read on each market
- Creative + audiences that work
- The Toronto benchmark
- A clear direction for August
Bottom line: we're in a better spot going into August than we were at the start.
Toronto — our benchmark
Toronto proves the ads can bring in cheap checkout interest and real ticket traffic. For August, the goal is simple: beat Toronto — with cleaner targeting, warmer audiences, local creative, and steady weekly pacing against DCV.
Phase 1 ad numbers (blended) — supporting context
Checkout clicks are what we optimize to; DCV is the real sales number. The Meta purchase count is incomplete — ticket platforms don't always redirect buyers back after checkout — so we cross-reference against DCV weekly instead of relying on it.
August sales read
Where each city stands.
Sell-through from DCV — a lower bar means more room still to fill.
What's working · what to fix
- Cost per checkout is low
- Enough interest to build warm audiences
- Toronto gives us a real benchmark
- Broad/Advantage+ targeting is paying off
- Site + tracking are solid
- We can plan August by priority now
- Launch August with clean ticket links
- Make creative local to each city
- Cut the weak audience pockets
- Let weekly DCV guide the spend
- Don't trust the Meta purchase number
- Don't split budget evenly across cities
What I'd do
The goal is to beat Toronto — not to spend the whole budget.
Keep going with paid ads, but on a short leash. Here's how we run August:
- Start with the cities that need it most
- Reuse Toronto + checkout audiences
- Mix warm retargeting with fresh reach
- Local creative + real urgency per city
- Pace spend weekly against DCV
- Scale only where it's clearly working
Budget
What we need to decide
To get moving, we just need:
- Rooms — keep them or scale some down
- The August budget (based on that)
- A yes on the controlled rollout
- The revised fee + scope
- City order + final ticket links
- City creative — Chris records 6 short clips, one per city; we handle production + deployment
- A weekly check-in rhythm
Where the numbers come from
DCV is the real sales number. Checkout clicks are what the ads optimize to. We re-check cost per ticket and return on spend weekly off DCV — not the Meta purchase number. The cancelled June dates stay out of the forward math.