From Broadway TikToks to Record-Breaking
Ticket Sales
Photography: Matthew Murphy
One week
〰️
2 million video views
〰️
400,000 engagements
〰️
50,000 followers
〰️
One week 〰️ 2 million video views 〰️ 400,000 engagements 〰️ 50,000 followers 〰️
Songs from the Beetlejuice on Broadway cast album were going viral on TikTok, helping weekly ticket sales grow from $600,000 in April 2019 to $1.5 million by November.
With momentum building, the producing team set its sights on a new goal: breaking the box office record of $2.5 million.
As the show’s social media manager, I needed to figure out how to launch an official TikTok presence that felt as organic and joyful as the fan content driving the buzz. The challenge? Doing it without being inauthentic, overly sales-y, or worse, cringe. Gen Z can smell marketing tactics from a mile away.
So I developed a launch strategy that gave our passionate and wildly creative fanbase exactly what they wanted:
More audio
More access
More chances to be celebrated
Our first post — a 24-hour exclusive release of the cut song “Dead Bird,” timed to Thanksgiving — exploded.
In just one week, it generated 500,000 video views and inspired over 550 creator-made TikToks using the audio. (Check them out!)
We announced across channels that "Dead Bird" would be exclusively shared on our new TikTok profile for 24 hours to drive views and followers.
It worked! Fans literally created accounts to watch the video on TikTok.
"Dead Bird" was watched over 500k times in the first week.
The fans couldn't have loved it more. (The best part of the job was always the comment section.)
We followed it up with three more industry-first strategies:
Inviting cast members to post behind-the-scenes content directly to our channel, dubbed “TikTok Takeovers”
Launching monthly contests encouraging fan creativity tied to Beetlejuice audio
Sharing top fan-made content directly on our channel (with permission, of course)
By the end of the week, Beetlejuice’s TikTok had racked up over 2 million video views, 400,000+ engagements, and 50,000 followers, quickly outpacing Broadway hits like Dear Evan Hansen (17K) and Hadestown (19K).
Best of all, it worked where it mattered most: ticket sales. We hit $2.5 million the first week of January, breaking the Winter Garden Theatre’s all-time sales record.
And five years later? Beetlejuice is still a phenomenon, rising from the dead for a third Broadway run in October 2025.
For the first time, we did cast takeovers on both Instagram and TikTok!
Actress Presley Ryan posted TikToks to the Beetlejuice account the day of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade performance.
We followed this up with Broadway's first-ever TikTok Challenge, encouraging fans to make videos using the Broadway soundtrack.
We posted these fan-made videos directly to our account: another Broadway first!