Work Pueblo Smelters
Bring Somebody.
Three seasons of falling attendance ended with a campaign that asked fans for one thing: don't come alone.
+23%
season attendance over 2025. 212,400 through the gates across 54 home dates, up from 172,700.
The problem
The ballpark was fine. The reason to go wasn't.
The Smelters play independent pro ball in a 4,850-seat park in Pueblo. Attendance had dropped three seasons in a row. The team's research blamed the usual suspects: ticket price, parking, weeknight start times.
We read it differently. The people who did come almost never came alone. A ballgame is a place you take someone: a kid, a coworker, your dad, a second date. Single-ticket marketing was selling a seat. Nobody wants a seat.
What we did
We sold the season in pairs.
I-25 billboards · the outfield wall · the back of every ticket
Bring Somebody.
Bring your boss.
Bring the guy from the hardware store.
Bring somebody who's never been.
A line the whole town could finish.
"Bring Somebody" went on billboards along I-25, on the outfield wall and on the back of every ticket. Every ad finished the sentence differently. Bring your boss. Bring the guy from the hardware store. Bring somebody who's never been.
Tickets that matched the idea.
We worked with the front office to lead with pairs and four-packs instead of singles. Four-packs came with four hot dogs. That part was their idea, and a good one.
Neighborhood nights.
Twelve home dates went to a Pueblo zip code each. Bessemer, the East Side, Belmont, Pueblo West. Local businesses from that neighborhood ran the pregame. The crowd knew each other, which was the point.
Players reading the reviews.
The launch film had Smelters players reading the ballpark's one-star online reviews out loud, deadpan, at their lockers. "The seats are hot." "Yes," said the shortstop. "It's July." It ran on social a week before opening night and became the thing people sent each other.
A season identity.
New type, a uniform-patch mark for the 2026 season and a rust-and-cream palette pulled from the old smelter signage downtown. Built to work on a scoreboard, a cup and a phone.
Nobody wants a seat. They want somebody to sit next to.
What happened
The first opening-night sellout since 2019.
The Smelters have signed on for 2027. They want more neighborhood nights. Pueblo has more neighborhoods.