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Dance Umbrella is London’s international festival for contemporary dance, bringing bold and adventurous work to venues across the city, and online, every autumn.

HDK has been Dance Umbrella’s long-term digital partner since 2014, supporting their website, CRM, and annual festival marketing. Our work together has covered a lot of ground: from designing and building their website, to helping the team better understand and manage audience data, alongside planning and delivering digital campaigns for the festival each autumn.

Main photo: Mark Wessels

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Dance Umbrella website

The challenge

Dance Umbrella faced two separate but equally pressing problems.

Their audience data was scattered across multiple platforms, making it difficult to track how people engaged with the festival across events, donations, and communications. Manual processes were needed to move data between systems, increasing the risk of duplication and errors. They needed a CRM that would centralise everything and integrate with their existing setup.

Separately, with a small internal team and a concentrated festival window each autumn, they needed a more effective way to reach new audiences and convert them into ticket buyers across both in-person and Digital Pass strands.

Dance Umbrella social media marketing

The solution

On the data side, we guided Dance Umbrella through the integration of Beacon CRM with their website and payment systems. This gave the team a single view of audience behaviour across events, donations, and communications, replacing a fragmented setup with something they could actually act on. We found a way to bypass a costly Zapier integration by using a Stripe webhook instead, a permanent solution that saved ongoing costs. Every Digital Pass purchase and video view is now tracked in real time.

On the advertising side, we have planned and delivered Dance Umbrella’s digital campaigns across Meta and Google Display Network for multiple years, refining the approach each time based on performance data. Campaigns are planned around the festival window, with audience segmentation to reach a mix of new and currently engaged users across both in-person and Digital Pass audiences. Meta and Google play different but complementary roles: Google delivers broader reach at a lower cost per click, while Meta drives stronger engagement with a more targeted audience.

How we did it

Beacon CRM integration with Dance Umbrella’s website and Stripe payment system

Custom forms for donation, event registration, and Digital Pass sales

Real-time tracking of Digital Pass purchases and video views

Campaign strategy and planning across Meta and Google Display Network

Audience segmentation to reach new and existing festival audiences

Ad creative development across both platforms

Real-time monitoring and optimisation during the festival period

Post-campaign reporting and analysis

Dance Umbrella website
Dance Umbrella social media marketing and website

The results

The Beacon integration has made a measurable difference to how Dance Umbrella raises money. Before the new CRM forms, only 5% of Digital Pass buyers made a donation alongside their purchase. In 2024, that figure jumped to 35%.

The 2024 advertising campaign delivered over 2.1 million impressions across Meta and Google. Meta achieved an average click-through rate of 10.12%, with 68,028 clicks driving traffic to the festival website. Google contributed a further 27,574 clicks. Together, paid advertising accounted for up to 40% of Dance Umbrella’s website traffic during the festival period.

Nuts & bolts

Beacon CRM integration
A full integration connecting Beacon with Dance Umbrella’s website and Stripe payment system, replacing a fragmented data setup with a single source of truth.

Stripe webhook
A custom solution that bypassed the need for a costly third-party integration, tracking Digital Pass purchases and video views in real time at no ongoing cost.

Custom forms
Donation, event registration, and Digital Pass forms customised to encourage newsletter sign-ups and increase donations at the point of purchase.

Meta advertising
Campaign planning, audience segmentation, and ad delivery across Meta, achieving an average CTR of 10.12% and 68,028 clicks during the 2024 festival.

Google Display Network
Broader awareness campaign complementing Meta’s targeted approach, contributing to over 2.1 million impressions across the full campaign.

Donations from Digital Pass buyers increased from

5% to 35%

after integrating Beacon CRM

The 2024 festival campaign achieved over

2.1 million

impressions across Meta and Google

Meta ads achieved an average click-through rate of

10.12%

- well above the industry average

The CRM has given us a way to not only understand how our digital audiences interact with us, but also to make the whole user experience more fluid and friendly. HDK really understood our needs and couldn't have been more thorough when it came to carrying out the integration. Their project management and communication were excellent.

Isabella Hubbard, Digital Content Manager, Dance Umbrella

Dance Umbrella website

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