Only Murders in the Building was approaching its third season on Hulu, and we wanted to create an experiential event to ignite continued excitement in our ever-growing base of fans.

The show has a VERY active and passionate fanbase. They follow along with each episode, posing theories and attempting to solve the mysteries, and have enthusiastically participated in our previous activations. So leveraging that passion for season three was a natural progression, especially given our change in story location - a Broadway theater!

The creative idea to allow fans to step into the active crime scene portrayed in the show with a backstage tour of The Goosebury Theater. This would give them the chance to explore evidence, form theories, and make their accusations.

With playbills and UV flashlights in hand, guests followed a police-taped path. OMITB fans loved that their investigation was quite literally in the room where it happened - the United Palace Theater, the actual location used in the show. BAs kept guests on the path to explore the various zones of the experience.

The experience culminated with attendees stepping on stage and climbing the infamous hero lighthouse from the musical and, finally, encountering Mabel’s Murder Board, where they could leave a red pin on the character they suspected of killing Ben Glenroy.

The heart of each season of Only Murders centers on a single mystery - a whodunnit amongst a large cast of suspects. This narrative naturally creates intense social conversation across platforms such as Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter as fans break down the clues and try to predict the solution. By creating an immersive environment that fans could step into and explore, we upped the ante on their investigative passions, allowing them to collect PHYSICAL evidence just like real detectives.

The target audience was Adults 18-54, male and female. The experience was created specifically to appeal to both current Only Murders in the Building fans as well as new audiences who weren’t currently watching the series. Other target audience segments included fans of:

The Only Murders in the Building Franchise, Talent & Guest Stars

Comedies (Dark Comedies & Dramedies)

Mysteries & Whodunnits

Provocative Storytelling

Pop Culture Enthusiasts

We took over the actual filming location for the show - the United Palace on Broadway - and transformed both the exterior and interior into the fictional Goosebury Theater. Staging the entire building as an active crime scene, complete with NYPD cops and forensic units - we invited attendees to explore both front and backstage, to search for clues to solve the murder.

Props, costumes, and scenic elements from the production were restaged on evidence tables, and fans were given UV flashlights to search for hundreds of invisible clues hidden throughout. Interactive elements included a shrine to the fallen star where fans could leave sentimental messages, make-up demonstrations in dressing rooms, and photo moments on the actual stage itself.

Over three days, more than four thousand fans explored the crime scene, and free tickets sold out within minutes of being announced.

Our event was oversubscribed, with long standby lines of fans trying to enter. This led us to extend opening hours so every fan was included. We received national press coverage, including Mashable calling it “the hottest ticket in town” and Time Out New York naming Backstage at the Goosebury the pop-up experience of the year.

Throughput for the event exceeded initial estimates by 174%.

The experience was covered in marquee entertainment and business publications such as Collider, IMDb, Page Six/NY Post, Playbill, US Weekly, Variety, Yahoo Entertainment, and more.

Locally, the activation was covered by well-known outlets such as AMNY, Average Socialite, Timeout, and W42ST. Coverage was also featured on Broadcast outlets such as WNBC-NY, WABC-NY, WINS-AM, Spectrum News, and E! News.

The activation yielded the following PR results:

Over 66 Major Press Stories

7.5B Media Impressions

58M Social Impressions