AIGA Chicago: 2026 Paper Show Campaign
Ticket Revenue: 35% increase in gross ticket revenue
Premium Conversions: 55.3% of revenue driven via VIP upgrades
The launch post achieved a 12.50% engagement rate on LinkedIn, while the presale campaign window alone captured 79.5% of the previous year's total event attendance.
My Role:Chapter President, Executive Producer, Lead Copywriter, and Digital Strategy Lead.
Brief: The 2026 Paper Show, held at the Chicago Cultural Center, is the third annual exhibition celebrating print, and physical design media within the Midwest creative community. This event is the main revenue generator for the chapter. It’s success determines the quality and the output for the chapter for the rest of the 2026/2027 fiscal year.
Target Audience: Creative leadership, graphic designers, print enthusiasts, agency creatives, production managers, and students across the Chicago area.
Challenge:While our volunteer design team built an amazing brand system, my responsibility was to construct the marketing funnel, author the messaging, lead our media crew during the event, and publish the content. The goal was to generate meaningful event revenue, by increasing attendance without raising baseline admission prices.
Solution:I led a 3-phase campaign focused on limited time offerings, and directly integrated corporate sponsor tie-in and promotion. Then a final campaign focused on the panelists with a count down to the event.
Campaign Leadership Structure
Strategic & Executive Direction
Chapter President / Exec Producer / Digital Lead
Derek Desormeaux
Derek Desormeaux
Art Direction & Visual System
Katrina Trinh
Copywriting & Content
Derek Desormeaux (Lead)
On-Site Media Crew
4x Photographers
1x Videographer
1x Videographer
*Derek Desormeaux provided direct sign off to Visual Design, authoring to Copy/Content, and operational management to Media Crew.
3-Phase Campaign Funnel & Marketing Analytics
Phase 1: Presale Launch
Jan 19 – Apr 3 • 151 Tickets Sold Early• 12.50% Peak LinkedIn ER
• Limited Time Window Messaging
Phase 2: Sponsors & Panelists
Apr 3 – May 13 • 6,600+ Partner Impressions• 3,837 Max Instagram Reach
• B2B Sponsor ROI Tracking
Phase 3: Media Production
Post-Event Rollout • 5 Creative Crew Members Managed• 40+ Wrap-Up Assets Deployed
• Long-Term Chapter Financial Impact
Phase 1: Presale Launch
January 19 – April 3To establish a financial baseline before we got close to the event, the copywriting and content strategy focused strictly on limited time pricing, and early access. This campaign strategy locked in 79.5% of the previous year's total overall campaign attendance (190).
LinkedIn Engagement: Our initial LinkedIn reveal hit a 12.50% engagement rate, beating the 2% industry average. Across all core presale posts, we maintained a 10.15% average engagement rate, capturing 1,152 initial impressions on the kick-off alone.
Instagram Engagement: Achieved a 5.26% engagement rate on the launch announcement, generating over 12,800+ total impressions across our top presale posts during this early campaign phase.
Direct Email Traffic: The April 3rd "Presale Deadline" email hit a peak 1.5% click-through rate, increasing our direct-traffic conversion and closing out the phase with 151 total tickets sold (96 General Admission, 55 VIP). This single launch window effectively captured 79.5% of the previous year's total overall campaign attendance (190).
Phase 2: Sponsors & Panelists
April 3 – May 13Once general ticket sales opened, the narrative shifted from locking in presale to focus on our sponsors and highlighting the panelists.
Delivering B2B Sponsor ROI: To provide value to our corporate partners, I wrote a specialized "Partner Spotlight" social series. This strategy captured the attention of their former, current, and potential business partners, accumulating 6,600+ impressions on our Partner Spotlights on LinkedIn—averaging over 2,200 impressions per post.
High-Converting Email Funnel: To convert last-minute fence-sitters, I directed a three-wave email sprint in the final six days before the show. Across the entire campaign lifecycle, we achieved 31,000+ total inbox deliveries. Even during this heavy final-week push (May 6–12), we held stable open rates up to 9.1% right up to the eve of the event.
Phase 3: Media Production & Post-Event Rollout
To ensure the physical scale of the event translated perfectly into content, I served as the Executive Producer for all on-site media coverage. This required establishing clear creative leadership to manage the teams and contracted creative crew members.
Crew Coordination: Sourced, briefed, and managed a live production crew of 4 photographers and 1 videographer. I built comprehensive shot lists and runtime schedules across speaker panels, interactive vendor booths, and audience engagement to guarantee the event was recorded.
Asset Distribution Pipeline: Oversaw the creative review, editorial alignment, and multi-platform deployment of over 40+ digital assets, ranging from real-time Instagram Reels and LinkedIn recaps to post-event sponsor appreciation assets.
Retrospective & Long-Term Chapter Impact
The 2026 Paper Show packed the Chicago Cultural Center and captured a diverse set of the creative community. Beyond attendance metrics, the financial success of this campaign hit AIGA Chicago’s financial goals. Compared to last year we had a 35% increase in total gross ticket revenue.
This result secured the funding required to keep half of our annual programming community events completely free and accessible to local students, and emerging creators throughout the year.
"This result secured the funding required to keep half of our annual programming community events completely free and accessible to local students, and emerging creators..."
Campaign Strategy, Copywriting & Media Production Lead: Derek Desormeaux
Sponsorship Lead & Event Coordinator: Hannah Goldberg
Art Direction & Brand System Design: Katrina Trinh
On-Site Media Production Crew: Samuel Saavedra, Alexa Agrelo, Ronald Uruchima, Katrina Trinh, Abner Benjamin