In 2025, the Festival had its most successful season yet, with their unique, high-demand program launch seeing 30% more tickets sold compared to their previous record. In a record-breaking year for the event, over 140,000 tickets were sold, generating a total of $1.48 million for their artists.
As the Festival continues to grow, the ticketing team have continued to find innovative ways of supporting sponsors, volunteers, and other stakeholder groups. Part of this process has involved supplying unique promo code offers that can be redeemed on Festival tickets.
Read on to find out how Red61 and Edmonton Fringe collaborated to provide a more effective solution for their staff and stakeholders in 2025!
Patrons attending the Edmonton Fringe Festival. Photo: Explore Edmonton
A perennial problem
Director of Engagement and Technology at Edmonton Fringe, Bradley King, explains that the Festival box office has always acknowledged stakeholder tickets individually, a process that can at times prove to be complex.
“Administration of those tickets proved challenging, with different groups requiring different quantities, access methods, limitations, and other restrictions,” says King.
“This proved time-intensive on our team and difficult for our stakeholders to utilize, as many of these tickets were booked manually, through scheme memberships, or multi-use promo codes.”
“We knew that single-use codes could provide an effective solution.”
Bradley King – Director of Engagement and Technology, Edmonton Fringe
Improving the process
Red61 used this information to inform a new way of meeting the Festival’s requirements, by adopting single-use promo codes within our existing functionality to offer a more exclusive delivery method for stakeholders.
This would allow unique codes to be distributed to sponsors, volunteers and other stakeholders across the Festival, to ensure tickets could only be purchased exclusively by individuals with access to the code.
Enabling this option within our existing Ticket Offer functionality allows for more granular offers to become available. These may include exclusive campaigns aimed at members, passholders, VIPs, and customers from a specified area to name a few.
Customers buying tickets at the Edmonton Fringe box office. Photo: Red61
As Bradley King explains, the introduction of this feature freed up the Edmonton Fringe ticketing team to focus on better serving their customers during the Festival.
“Single-use promo codes were a game changer for our team.”
Bradley King – Director of Engagement and Technology, Edmonton Fringe
“They were simple to set up across our stakeholder groups, taking much less time than our previous methods.
“Creating and uploading codes was streamlined, and we could cater them to our different groups depending on their needs.”
In addition to solving the problem of streamlining their operations, feedback from those receiving access and using the codes was positive across the board.
“The redemption process was well-received by our volunteers, who found it easy to understand,” says King.
“And troubleshooting was no problem as we could easily see the redemption of codes.”
Simple, flexible, effective
Given the Festival’s previous issues with managing this area of their ticket delivery, Red61 worked closely with Edmonton Fringe to incorporate their feedback into the final product.
Making the process simple for box office users was the number one priority, with the end result allowing single-use promo codes to be generated quickly for an offer.
Flexibility was also a key component of this initiative, with users able to randomly assign a list of unique codes to the offer, or upload a CSV list of previously created codes within the ticketing platform. The upload tool allows the option of tailoring an offer more closely towards the needs of a Festival, venue, or event being managed.
Tracking sales made through these offers is imperative, and Red61 accompanied this feature with a new reporting option, designed to show the updated usage of each code assigned to an offer. This report could be created as a live data link, to view the uptake of an offer as each code is redeemed within the system.
Crowds enjoying an outdoor performance at the Festival. Photo: Explore Edmonton
Everyone benefits
Not only was the 2025 Edmonton Fringe the biggest on record by way of ticket sales, but it also proved to be the most efficient as their ticketing operations were streamlined.
The addition of single-use promo codes enabled the biggest improvements, with the following benefits reported post-Festival:
Simpler setup and administration through Ticket Offers
Customization to stakeholder groups (e.g., the volunteers all had codes that started with V25, one of our financial partners started with their organization’s initials, etc.)
Easy redemption – “Patrons understood that one code could be used to redeem one ticket”
Easy distribution – “We could send a spreadsheet of codes to the people who needed them, or do a simple mail merge”
Unique marketing opportunities – “We found success in sending these to patrons to purchase more tickets”
Further positive outcomes identified by the Edmonton Fringe team were seen in the following areas:
Volunteers
“Volunteers were given single-use codes as a benefit of supporting Fringe. We gave out over 3,000 codes.”
Sponsors
“Sponsors negotiated tickets with us they would use for their own purposes, such as staff appreciation, giveaways, etc.”
Marketing
“Our Frequent Fringer membership holders each received a code to give them a deal on tickets, with the intention they share that code with someone they want to introduce to the Festival.”
A show at the Westbury Theatre during the Edmonton Fringe Festival. Photo: Fringe Theatre
Delivering for our clients
This initiative between Edmonton Fringe and Red61 truly delivered benefits across all facets of the Festival in 2025.
Following the values of Collaboration and Innovation, enabling single-use promo codes across more areas of the system played a part in the Festival’s record year of ticket sales, with an increase in passes sold and only positive feedback from patrons following their successful program launch and on-sale.
“Our team loved this feature! Truly made our lives a lot easier and we received plenty of good feedback.”
Bradley King – Director of Engagement and Technology, Edmonton Fringe
Read up on our Ticketing Solutions below, and get in touch to request a demo or learn more about how Red61 can streamline your box office.
