Case Study · Event Promotion
Sold Out. A Week and a Half Early.
How Casico Creative promoted the ARK Big Ideas Summit St. Pete 2026 and hit every number that mattered.
The setup
The rebrand launch and ongoing social media built the audience. By the time the Summit's six-week runway started in April, that audience, and the voice and relationships built around it, were exactly what helped us succeed. The ARK Big Ideas Summit St. Pete 2026 was the biggest event on the calendar of spARK Labs by ARK Invest: deep tech founders, investors, and builders coming together at the ARK Innovation Center in St. Petersburg. Casico Creative took on the full promotional campaign with a six-week runway.
The event sold out a week and a half before May 21st.
"Cassandra and the Casico team played an integral role in the success of the ARK Big Ideas Summit St. Pete. Cassandra brought an incredible level of execution to the event, particularly in how we leveraged social media to build awareness, engage our community, and extend the reach of the Summit well beyond the room. She understands how to turn an important moment into sustained engagement, and the results spoke for themselves."
Becca Brown, CEO, spARK Labs by ARK Invest
The compound effect
17% of new spARK Labs members came from a social presence that didn't even exist before the Open House. By the time the Summit's six-week runway began, that same presence was converting even more: 35% of paid tickets came straight from social media. That's what it looks like when brand equity compounds. Nothing about the Summit campaign started cold. It ran on the same ⚡ signature, the same voice, the same channels built during the rebrand rollout, so every invite and countdown post landed with an audience that already knew and trusted us. The champions built through months of showing up in comments and reshares showed up here too, reposting invites and tagging friends the exact same way they'd been doing since the Open House.
Read the spARK Labs social retainer story →How we promoted it
- •A weekly invitation email throughout the six-week runway.
- •Backed by four reminder emails as the date got closer.
Social Media
- •Minimum three posts per week on all platforms for the full six weeks solely promoting the event.
- •At least two story posts per week on Instagram.
- •Daily Instagram Stories countdown in the 10 days before the event.
- •Every post ran through the same brand voice and visual system built during the rebrand, so there was no separate "event brand" to introduce and no cold audience to warm up.
Eventbrite
- •Full event listing built start to finish: description, custom graphic, complete agenda.
- •Updated in real time as speakers and panelists confirmed.
Brand Collateral
- •Produced the event deck and event logo.
- •Handled on-site signage and worked with spARK Labs' event planner on logistics.
On-Site
- •Photo and video coverage throughout the full day.
- •10+ video interviews pre-planned and filmed with speakers, founders, and attendees (including Cathie Wood and Andy Tang!).
- •Coordinated with professional photographers and videographer.
Post-Event
- •Full recap report delivered to spARK Labs leadership.
- •Post-event content plan built around the filmed interviews and footage.
The results
SOLD OUT
1.5 weeks before the event
35%
of paid tickets from social media
18%
of paid tickets from email
90%
attendee show rate
5
qualified leads within 24 hours
Breaking down the numbers
Social media drove 35% of paid ticket sales. Posts, stories, and the daily countdown pushed people from aware to registered. Our content covered each panel at the event, spotlighted the founders pitching during the Innovation Showcase, and featured content filmed with CEO Becca Brown, Community Lead Ed Kang, and several members who were happy to help us promote it.
Email converted 18% of paid tickets. Four emails went out over the six weeks to past event attendees, with simple, consistent copy covering the details attendees would actually care about.
The 90% show rate came from those reminders. Most events see a wide gap between registrations and actual attendance. We kept the event front of mind with consistent email contact all the way to event day, so people showed up because they never had a chance to forget they were going.
Five qualified leads arrived within 24 hours of the event, including new member inquiries and partnership conversations. In the weeks that followed, even more organic leads and developments came through.
But the number that matters most isn't listed above. The biggest driver of ticket sales was word of mouth built from the same community of champions built from the rebrand rollout in November.
Our goal for this ARK Big Ideas campaign wasn't just to fill a room on one day, it was to drive real business outcomes that carried past the event and help continue to drive spARK Labs as a community hub in the Tampa Bay Area.
Let's Create
This is for small teams and purpose-driven brands who want their online presence to feel just as real as their in-person one. If you've got a story worth telling and a community worth building, you're exactly who we love working with.
So whether it's social media, brand activation, event promotion, brand collateral, or just an extra set of hands, let's create together. Grab 20 minutes on our calendar or send us an email, whichever feels easier, and we'll figure out together if we're the right fit.