Ekka 2026 Digital Campaign

Ekka is already a well-known fixture on Queensland's events calendar. For its 150th anniversary, the challenge was to give audiences a fresh reason to attend, reach new visitors and turn that interest into ticket sales.

The campaign set out to:

• create renewed demand around the 150th anniversary
• reach audiences who weren't already searching for Ekka
• convert existing high-intent demand into ticket sales
• re-engage previous attendees and website visitors
• maintain momentum across a long campaign period
• support physical attendance across the whole visitor experience

Performance data from 2025 highlighted an opportunity to simplify the audience strategy. The campaign had spread targeting across multiple locations, interests, behaviours and demographics. This created audience overlap and stretched the budget across too many segments.

For 2026, we consolidated these into clearly defined audience groups, with messaging tailored to each. This gave us a more focused approach to reaching prospective visitors and moving them towards ticket purchases.

We built the campaign around the role each channel could play so that all of them supported the same customer journey from discovery through to attendance.

Meta built demand and drove ticket sales. We restructured Meta targeting around clearly defined audience groups, including returning families, new-to-Brisbane residents, lapsed attendees and night-out seekers. This allowed us to tailor creative and messaging to the different reasons people might attend Ekka. From there, Meta served two purposes. 

Lead generation campaigns captured first-party data through presale access and guides, giving us an audience to nurture throughout the season. Ticket sales campaigns then focused on converting demand, including retargeting people who had already shown an interest in attending.  

Google Ads captured existing demand and reached new audiences

Google Ads focused on reaching people who were actively searching for Ekka while also introducing the event to new audiences. To achieve this, we separated branded and non-branded Search campaigns. We also used Performance Max to reach prospective visitors earlier in their decision-making journey. 

This helped us capture searches for Brisbane events, family activities and things to do, even when people weren't specifically looking for Ekka. The shift was reflected in search behaviour. In 2026, around 60% of search terms contained "Ekka", compared with 96% in 2025. We also excluded existing ticket purchasers to keep the budget focused on prospective visitors.

Programmatic expanded campaign reach. Introduced for the first time in 2026, programmatic helped Ekka reach audiences beyond traditional search and social advertising. Using display, native, video and connected TV (CTV), we reached people across different devices and environments. The channel helped build awareness among new audiences and reinforced Ekka's message with people who had already engaged. The channel delivered  4.34M impressions and reached around 1.02M households. 

SEO strengthened the organic experience. Our work focused on practical improvements to the site's core pages. We rebuilt meta titles and descriptions, improved how key Ekka pages ranked, implemented event and related structured data, and made content easier for search engines and AI assistants to understand. 

These changes helped search engines better understand information about tickets, showbags, rides, maps and opening hours. Organic search generated 1.01M sessions, with organic ticket revenue reaching $3.94M, up 7.6% year-on-year, while average ranking improved from 18.8 to 5.7 and 1,044 queries ranked in the top three. 

eDM and SMS kept audiences engaged throughout the season. We developed a 13-week communication programme that guided audiences from the initial announcement through to the event itself. The communication calendar followed five phases, covering launch and teasers, presale offers, event planning, the final countdown and post-show engagement. 

Each phase gave audiences timely information and reasons to take the next step. Across the campaign, we delivered 11.13 million emails. Despite sending 7.5% fewer emails than in 2025, total clicks remained steady at approximately 165,600. Click-to-open rates increased by 23.6%, while unsubscribes fell by 42%. We also introduced SMS to reach audiences at key decision-making moments. Two standout sends recorded click rates of 24% and 78%.

We managed the campaign in-market. Our work continued well beyond launch. We monitored audience behaviour, search trends and campaign performance, adjusting budgets and messaging as opportunities emerged. On Meta, the revised audience strategy increased reach by 16% while reducing spend by 27% year-on-year. Ticket sales rose by 19%, revenue increased by 21% and return on ad spend improved by 67%. Timing was equally important. We concentrated conversion-focused activity around periods of stronger purchase intent, including flash sales and the final days leading up to Ekka.

Ekka 2026 delivered strong results across ticket sales, digital revenue and audience engagement. The event recorded 423,033 gate scans, with paid attendance finishing 5% above budget and sales yield increasing by approximately 7% year-on-year.

Digital performance was equally strong. The campaign generated $7.95 million in GA4-tracked revenue and 1.75 million website sessions. Meta achieved a 20.46x return on ad spend, with ticket sales up 19% and revenue growing 21% year-on-year. Organic search also performed well, generating $3.94 million in ticket revenue, an increase of 7.6% from 2025.

These results reflect the strength of a coordinated approach across paid media, organic search and owned channels. With clearer audience targeting and ongoing optimisation, BFJ helped Ekka build demand, reach prospective visitors and turn interest into ticket sales throughout the season.