How do you drive buzz for the anticipated debut of Mean Girls on Broadway four months before its opening night? You take over a three-day festival attended by the most diehard theatre fans—BroadwayCon.

We kicked off with a bit of mystery. On the first day, mirror decals (written in pink lipstick) across BroadwayCon restrooms listed a phone number and a note from Gretchen Weiners, a well-known member of the Mean Girls gang. Upon calling, attendees heard a voicemail from Gretchen telling them something BIG was happening tomorrow at BroadwayCon. We extended this to global fans by posting the number on our Instagram and teasing out a similar message.

On day two, a spectacle arose when a Mean Girls street team strutted across the venue handing out printed pages of the Burn Book, a direct nod to the iconic film scene. Instead of high schoolers, the Burn Book was full of notorious Broadway villains (see, Veruca Salt: OG mean girl). We also posted the Burn Book pages across our Instagram Stories so that non-local fans could join the fun virtually.

For BroadwayCon’s final day, we wanted to establish a personal connection with Mean Girls fans and embed a positive spirit. Via social media, we engaged with fans mentioning Mean Girls by gifting them a “piece” of the Spring Fling crown, a Means Girls graphic complete with a customized message of encouragement.

By the end of festival weekend, Mean Girls was the most talked about show on social and drove its highest fan acquisition on social since its Broadway announcement. Attendees and fans (including New York Times theatre critic Michael Paulson) flocked to social to share our content and buzz about our Burn activations. Even after BroadwayCon ended, our campaign didn’t—the phone number stayed live as we engaged with fan texts, driving them to the website to buy tickets and see our show. The campaign resulted in more than 503K impressions and 20K engagements, with the mysterious phone number engaged with 6.6K times, generating 2.6K clicks to the official Means Girls on Broadway website.