How The Grounds Sold 18,000 Tickets and Grew Its Email Audience by 389% for Hong Kong's Open Air Cinema.

Date

2023

Deliverables

Stategy

Campaigns

Paid Media

Location

Hong Kong

Sector

Hospitality

The Grounds sold 18,000 tickets and grew its email audience by 389% year on year, establishing Hong Kong's open air cinema as a fixed event in the city's cultural calendar. The campaign ran in 2023 (the first season after Hong Kong's Covid restrictions were fully lifted) in a market where every entertainment category was competing for an audience reconnecting with live experience. With TikTok unavailable in Hong Kong and strict local laws governing competitions and giveaways, the growth had to come from organic credibility, strategic brand partnerships, and content designed to make the experience feel unmissable before tickets even went on sale.

The results

18,000

tickets sold across the season

389%

YoY increase in email sign-ups

83%

YoY increase in IG reach

the challenge

The Grounds is an open air cinema operating seasonally in Hong Kong, with screenings running from October through December. In 2023, it returned in its first fully unrestricted post-Covid season, competing against the full range of Hong Kong's hospitality, cultural, and entertainment offerings, all of which were simultaneously trying to reclaim their audiences.

The market presents specific constraints that most comparable campaigns do not face. TikTok, one of the primary reach channels in similar markets, is unavailable in Hong Kong. Local laws restrict the competitions and giveaways most commonly used for data capture and follower growth. The brand was also building from a limited owned audience, with most potential ticket buyers yet to be reached through any channel.

the approach

The campaign prioritised building a warm audience before tickets went on sale. We shifted the content strategy away from broadcast-style social posts and toward lo-fi, experience-led content: content designed to surface the emotional appeal of outdoor cinema rather than simply announcing the product. The atmosphere, the setting, the films, the occasion: these were the assets, not the ticket details.

Brand partners and content creators extended reach beyond owned channels in a market where paid amplification options were limited. A data capture campaign ran in parallel, converting early interest into a contactable audience ready to activate on sale day. The strategy was built for a context where earned reach and community credibility had to do the work that paid media volume does elsewhere.

The 18,000 tickets sold in a newly reopened, platform-constrained market confirms the strategy was calibrated correctly for where the audience actually was, not where a standard playbook would have looked. The result is more meaningful given the constraints: no TikTok, limited data capture mechanics, a market still finding its way back to live entertainment.

The 389% growth in email sign-ups is the asset that compounds into future seasons. An owned audience can be activated directly, without platform dependency or algorithmic variance. Every future season of The Grounds starts with a structural advantage that did not exist before this

The team at Mustard are clearly experts in their field. They have the technical acumen, creative ideas and up to the minute knowledge of the platforms and processes to achieve success in the fast-paced world of ticket-based event marketing. Their ability to translate blue sky concepts into actionable intel and tangible plans makes working with them a no-brainer investment in your social-driven marketing success. The regular check-in and willingness to revisit concepts and tweak through the campaign made them a great support to our in-house team — we have great takeaways we can apply in the future and have been able to upskill our team in the process. Their expertise transcends geographies and specific marketing knowledge, giving us best-in-class concepts we can deploy locally here in Hong Kong.

Simon Wilson

Co-Founder

What This Means for Leisure and Tourism Brands

Audience building is not the same as audience buying. In markets where paid amplification is limited (by platform availability, local regulation, or simply by budget), the brands that invest in organic credibility and strategic partnerships before on-sale will consistently outperform those that depend on spend volume. The Grounds' results in a platform-constrained market demonstrate that the underlying mechanics of pre-sale audience building work regardless of which specific tools are available.

An email database built before tickets go on sale is worth more than any social following, precisely because it is independent of any platform's algorithm or policy. The 389% growth in sign-ups at The Grounds means future seasons begin with a contactable, warm audience that can be activated at near-zero marginal cost. That is a compounding structural advantage, not a one-season result.

The diagnostic question for any leisure or tourism brand planning a ticketed season: if your social accounts disappeared tomorrow, how would you reach your audience? If the answer is unclear, the owned data strategy needs attention before the next campaign launches. Not after.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do you market a ticketed event in Hong Kong?

Marketing a ticketed event in Hong Kong requires a different approach to most Western markets. TikTok is unavailable, and local laws restrict competitions and giveaways commonly used for data capture. The Grounds sold 18,000 tickets in 2023 by prioritising experience-led organic content, brand partnerships, and a data capture campaign that built a warm audience before on-sale. The result was a 389% year-on-year increase in email sign-ups and an 83% increase in Instagram reach without relying on paid volume alone.

Q: How did The Grounds Hong Kong grow its audience by 389% year on year?

The Grounds grew its email audience by 389% year on year by running a pre-sale data capture campaign alongside experience-led social content, rather than waiting until tickets were available to start building an audience. Brand partners and content creators extended reach beyond owned channels in a market with limited paid amplification options. The campaign sold 18,000 tickets across the season and increased Instagram reach by 83% year on year.

Q: What is Growth Intelligence and how does it apply to seasonal event marketing?

Growth Intelligence is Mustard's approach to building owned audience data (email lists, engagement signals, first-party insight) that reduces dependency on paid media spend and platform algorithms over time. For The Grounds in Hong Kong, this meant prioritising sign-up and data capture before on-sale, so that launch day activated a warm, interested audience rather than starting from zero. The 389% email growth is the Growth Intelligence output; the 18,000 tickets sold is the commercial result.

Q: How do you build a ticket-buying audience before an event goes on sale?

The most effective pre-sale audience building combines a sign-up mechanism with content that makes the experience feel worth waiting for. Experience-led organic content builds emotional interest; a data capture campaign converts that interest into a contactable list. The Grounds used this approach to grow its email audience by 389% year on year before the season opened, meaning launch day had a warm audience to activate rather than relying entirely on paid acquisition to drive first-week sales.