The Swedish Royal Opera was struggling to sell tickets to new and younger visitors. Young people thought of the Opera as stuffy, conservative and not for them.

Our insight was that a big reason as to why young people think the Opera is "not for them" is because it’s a strange environment that can make them feel out of place and insecure, especially concerning dress code. The most common question asked by new visitors is always the same: What should I wear? We needed to make a stand on the dress code issue. But simply telling people they could come as they are wouldn’t do the trick. Our idea was to break down the dress code barrier, leverage our target group’s fashion interest and show a more contemporary side to the Opera, all at once. How? By redesigning the Opera tickets into t-shirts in collaboration with youth fashion brand Weekday.

We needed to make a stand on the dress code issue. But simply telling people they can come as they are wouldn’t do the trick.We decided to actually redesign the tickets into t-shirts - the iconic casual wear.This was done in collaboration with street fashion brand Weekday, and the tickets were sold in their stores. The t-shirt’s motif was inspired by the theme of the ballet Manon: love.The t-shirt was promoted through print advertising, an in-store event with a teaser performance, and music players where visitors could sample music from the show. The t-shirt was also quickly picked up by leading fashion blogs and newspapers.

The t-shirt worked as an innovative media channel for the Opera, and allowed their tickets to be sold in a new context. By turning the tickets into a medium, and a symbol you could wear, we made the Opera more attractive and accessible.

The Royal Opera is a cultural institution that doesn’t currently do conventional brand tracking. However, the results of the Weekday Tickets campaign speak for themselves. The unexpected combination of opera and street fashion successfully fuelled both media and consumer interest.Through media coverage in Sweden’s biggest morning paper Dagens Nyheter and its biggest free newspaper Metro, in numerous fashion magazines/sites like Elle, Modette, Rodeo and Stureplan.se, the campaign has had an estimated gross reach of 2,293,000 people (Sweden’s population is roughly 9 million). Not including the campaign’s spread in the blogosphere. Using estimates of the equivalent media costs of these papers and websites at the time, the media value of the campaign exceeds €300,000. A remarkable result for a local campaign, aimed at driving interest for The Royal Opera House in Stockholm with the aid of a local brand of stores, Weekday.

The t-shirt ticket was quickly picked up by Sweden’s leading newspapers and fashion bloggers, who were suddenly talking about Opera tickets and commenting on the dress code statement, which was the main goal of the campaign.As a result, the same people who wouldn’t go to the Opera even if the tickets were free, were now queuing to buy them. All the tickets sold out in 4 hours (with every single buyer scheduling their visit within days).

A new edition t-shirt has recently been released (all sold out) and a third is under way, continuing to generate new interest for the Opera. We see this as a business solution and new media channel that not only changes attitudes but has also exceeded ticket sales beyond expectations.