The challenge

One transition. Zero disruption.

When the previous marketing manager left, SCHEELS Arena had a full event calendar, an 18,000-subscriber email list, a growing SMS program, and presale automations running across every show. The replacement was Lilly Voges, who'd spent three years in the arena's box office before taking on the role as the marketing coordinator.

In her new role, she would then be responsible for every email, every SMS, every contest, and every campaign across the full booking calendar. The platform was already built. The job was to keep it growing and make it her own.

THE STRATEGY

Building on what was there and adding what wasn't

The Alabama campaign

The first major test came in February. Alabama was announced, and Lilly ran a sequential five-email campaign to SCHEELS Arena's 18,000-subscriber list: announce, second announce, onsale, new seats release, and know before you go. The result was $31,440 across five sends. The announce email alone generated $19,779 from 54 orders.

Building the contest engine

Lilly built out SCHEELS Arena's contest program. She uses Hive's contest feature for every show with tickets to give away, building flows to capture email and SMS opt-ins while driving social follows simultaneously.

"That has been my bread and butter. If we have tickets to give away, I'm like, 'Yep, let's do a ticket giveaway. Let's do it in Hive.' You can put functions in there that give an extra entry for following on Instagram, Facebook, all of those."

Since January 2026, the program has brought in 5,683 total entrants across shows including Brad Paisley, HAIRBALL, Ian Munsick’s Boots and Brewtus, and a recurring HEART ticket giveaway. Automated follow-up sequences to those entrants generated additional ticket revenue, converting giveaway participants into buyers.

The Brad Paisley presale

For Brad Paisley, SCHEELS Arena served as their own promoter, giving Lily full ownership of the presale. She built an 8-step automated sequence that ran from registration confirmation through a coordinated email and SMS the moment tickets went live.

The sequence generated $30,011 from 108 orders. When the onsale moment hit, the email and SMS fired simultaneously to the same presale list: the email pulled a 27.94% click-through rate, the SMS hit 56.61%. Combined, those two sends produced 94 orders in a single window.

THE RESULTS

$325,068 in total attributed revenue and counting

In the first six months of 2026, SCHEELS Arena generated $105,007 in attributed revenue through Hive, a 27x return on investment. Combined with 2025 performance, their total Hive-attributed revenue stands at $325,068.

"I'm in Hive every day looking at ticketing breakdowns. I look at an email and ask: did it work? What did ticket sales look like from it?"

Leadership has stayed confident throughout the transition.

"They're very confident that it's working and that we're using it to the best of our ability. It's not something we have to fight to keep."

WRAP UP

When the previous marketing manager moved on, Hive made it possible for SCHEELS Arena to not skip a beat. Revenue grew. The presale engine kept running. Lilly proved the model with Alabama, built something entirely her own with Brad Paisley, and grew a contest engine that's brought in 5,683 fans since January.

That's what a well-built system does. It runs whether or not the person who built it is still in the building.

Read the original: How SCHEELS Arena tripled revenue in nine months using Hive