Metrolink Campaign to Promote Ridership for the Festival of Lights Special Service

Target Audience: Metrolink offered special service to the Festival of Lights at the Mission Inn and Spa in Riverside for the second year in 2017. The targeted audience was families within 5 miles of our station cities along the route of the special service.

Strategy Objective:The objective of this special service was to have Festival of Lights attendees take cars off the road and ride the train to the event. We wanted to increase revenue and ridership over the previous year by getting the word out about the service. The tactics we used were web banners, splash pages, newsletter articles, promotional emails, paid Facebook ads, organic Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts, conductor announcements and station screen messages.

Situation Challenge: 2017 was the 25th Anniversary of the Festival of Lights and more than 750,000 people attended the event. There was severe traffic congestion and little to no parking for the event attendees. Metrolink ran special service to the event in 2016 to help alleviate traffic and parking issues and it was extremely popular. The demand for service resulted in crowding and passengers being turned away at stations due to trains reaching capacity. Because of the large crowds from 2016, Metrolink increased their service offered by 133% over the previous year offering ample service for families from LA and Orange County to attend the event.

Results Impact: The 2017 Festival of Lights ridership on the special service trains was 11,274 for the season which was a 127.76% increase over the 2016 season service which was 4,950. The special ticket option for Festival of Lights was available in both 2016 and 2017. The special fare was $7 for adults with children 18 and under riding free. Revenue increased 27.94% in 2017 to $31,248.00 over the 2016 season which generated $24,423.00.

Why Submit: This entry is being submitted because it is a perfect example of great marketing and communications to increase revenue and ridership to a special event. With the tremendous increase in Ridership and the upslope in revenue, it is evident that the 2017 season had a very successful marketing campaign.