Broadway Shows are Increasingly Looking to Influencers to Help Attract Diverse Audiences

By:  Serach Nissim

Broadway productions have found a new way to lure in a younger and more diverse audience base.

Per the NY Times, recently some 40 TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube influencers were invited to the Rickey lounge inside the Dream Midtown hotel to celebrate the release of the “Great Gatsby” cast album, which would begin streaming the next day.  Attendees included the likes of Francis Dominic, 31, a lifestyle and travel influencer with about 1,060 followers.  “We want to get influencers in the door to see something like ‘Gatsby’ — and hope they like it,” said Carly Heitner, 25, who recently started her own influencer marketing company and helped manage influencer invites for the event. “So when we invite them to the next thing, like ‘Suffs,’ they’re open to it and can appreciate it and will bring audiences to Broadway.”

“The Great Gatsby” production, which opened in April at the Broadway Theater, has been working with influencers since its premiere last fall at Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, N.J.  It’s hard to say, how much influencers have helped, but the show has seen as much as a 21 percent increase in traffic to its website in the two weeks after an influencer collaboration (although other marketing campaigns were also running simultaneously). The production was happy to announce it grossed $1.27 million for the week that ended July 28. “It’s sometimes tough to draw a direct line, but broad awareness is no doubt underpinning broad sales,” said Katharine Quinn, 35, the social media director for “The Great Gatsby.”

The production, with accounts on accounts on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, is considered one of the most followed Broadway show that opened during the 2023-24 season.  Quinn said that productions do not dictate what content influencers will post. “We’re building community more than we’re making a sell, and that will ultimately convert to sales,” she added.

Of course, other Broadway productions have also been using social media influencers as part of their marketing efforts.  With so many new productions opening on Broadway, each is looking for ways to set their name apart, and using influencers to target specific age or demographic groups.  ‘TheaterTok’ first gained speed during the pandemic, when stages were shuttered and fans missed the theater, said Quinn, who created her own account in 2021 and who now has close to 77,000 followers on TikTok.  “It just exploded,” said Quinn. “It was this amazing new way to engage with the community.”

Per the NY Times, the influencing market has grown exponentially in recent years—touching every business base.  In 2023, it was a $34.08 billion industry, with over 500,000 self-identified active influencers.  Food and beauty influencers have perhaps the largest footprint, boasting millions of followers, whereas theater influencers have just tens of thousands of followers for now.

The number is not always the most important thing though.  You don’t necessarily need a large quantity of followers– you just need to reach a niche audience and move them to take action, said Jill Avery, a marketing professor at Harvard Business School who has written about “microinfluencers,” or those with a smaller following but higher engagement rates.  “Their reach can be much more targeted or specific,” Avery said.