Christmas in July: Turning a Ticket Sale Into a Reel People Actually Watched

A mid-summer holiday on-sale is a hard thing to make anyone care about, so I made it funny. The concept: a Richmond Symphony VP in full Santa mode, except it's July, so the suit is a Hawaiian shirt, the backdrop is a wall of parrot tile, and the sleigh-bell gravitas is aimed at the news that Holiday Pops seats are now available.

I pitched the idea, wrote the Santa-style poem announcing the featured concerts and coached our star to deliver it with total deadpan commitment. I ran the shoot end to end, scouting location, supplying props, and recording with an Osmo Pocket camera. Then I edited the reel for Instagram, cutting to the rhythm of the poem and letting timing carry the joke.

The result felt like the Symphony had a sense of humor about itself while still landing the call to action: buy now, before the good seats are gone.