In late February, youth travel tour brand, Contiki Holidays, activated an out-of-this-world experience for local audiences. Robots Unrivalled landed in Sydney for three action packed nights of crazy Tokyo-style fun.

It was all in aid of Contiki’s first ever foray into Japan, with its brand new trip, Japan Unrivalled, launching in mid-March. Part of that trip includes an optional visit to the original Robot Restaurant in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district and the challenge was to take inspiration from the original performance, add some Contiki flare and activate in pop-up format using locally sourced talent and production

Contiki tasked the activations team at Ensemble with producing the event on a limited budget and the results were spectacular.

Katrina Barry, managing director, Contiki Holidays, said “We wanted to do something big to celebrate our new Contiki Japan trips, so chose to produce a fantastic representation of Tokyo’s Robot Restaurant, one of the experiences young travellers can enjoy on Contiki’s new Japan Unrivalled itinerary. While we expected a high level of demand, the sell-out response was overwhelming. We have been just as impressed with the post-show response and business results.  The team really pulled off not just an amazing show, demonstrating just a small slice of what one can expect when travelling to Japan with Contiki, but an incredibly effective campaign.”

Each member of the audience was treated to Japanese food, prepared on site, with drinks provided by Asahi, prior to the 30 minute performance. Technology giant Intel, not only provided one of the hero robot performers, also gave away a tablet device at each show, awarding the best Instagram photo, promoting real-time social sharing (over 600 photos and videos were shared over three days).

THE NUMBERS

3          Nights

9          Shows

45        Cast & Crew

7500    Ticket registrations

600      Tickets sold

9          Minutes – the total time all tickets sold out in

600      Instagram photos shared

1          Epic Contiki Japan launch event

THE RESULTS

• 25,000 UVs to Robots Unrivalled website
• Avg time spent: 3min 09sec
• +70% average weekly UVs to Japan Unrivalled trip page
• +26% UVs to all Contiki Asia trip pages YOY
• +100% Japan Unrivalled bookings WOW
• +18% Asia trip sales YOY
• 1500 new email signups
• +7% email open rate vs avg.
• +3.5% email CTR vs avg.