Fun Begins After Dark

What began as a conversation about the beauty of The Westin Kierland Resort & Spa at night evolved into a brainstorm about how the resort could potentially attract visitors through exciting, unique evening events. 

Attracting Locals and Visitors

What would align with the Westin Kierland brand, incorporate wellness, bring its beautiful location to life and feature elements of both relaxation and fun?

The answer quickly became clear: themed events that would be centered around live music, plus authentic food and beverages local to Arizona.

Key Objectives

We sought to create a branded event series that positions The Westin Kierland as an exciting local destination offering unique, memorable experiences that aren’t available anywhere else.

We defined what success would look like:

• Sold-out events, 
• The creation of partnership and resale opportunities, and
• Memorable experiences that generate buzz and serve as a launching point for a long-term event series.

Challenges

The Westin Kierland doesn’t have its own standalone website. As part of the Westin group of hotels, the Westin Kierland has a landing page on their main site.

To support ticket sales and track conversions, we had to develop a landing page that was associated with the Westin Kierland web page without being fully connected to it.

KierlandAfterDark.com now serves as the one-stop-shop to discover upcoming events, and to buy your tickets. Working in partnership with TZO, the Westin Kierland team are able to update this website themselves, to keep it current with everything happening at their resort.

Key Results

As an intimate “pre-event” leading into the Scottsdale Jazz Festival on April 30, the first event was a great success that generated overwhelmingly positive feedback from attendees. The live music was spectacular, the food and drinks sold out, and ticket sales ($125 each) needed to be cut off at 225 after exceeding the 175-ticket goal.

The Evolution of Kierland After Dark

Since the highly successful launch event, we evolved the brand to support and promote smaller scale, free Kierland After Dark events in June and September, which featured huge crowds, exciting live music performances and tremendous feedback from guests and the surrounding community.

Closing 2022 On A High Note

OktoberWest, a unique blend of Oktoberfest and a country western music festival held in October, sold 595 tickets (exceeding the goal of 500), driven by a suite of marketing materials and social media promotion TZO provided. A holiday-focused Kierland After Dark event drove similarly exceptional results, culminating in a sold-out patio as attendees celebrated and danced to live music.

Do you want an attraction that makes a splash for all the right reasons? If you want to sell tickets and bring people to your venue, we’ve got some winning strategies. Let’s talk.

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