Get a Clue.

I recently had the opportunity to design an event website for BalletMet in Columbus, Ohio. They are promoting a new show called “WHODUNIT?” (think of it as a sort of ‘Clue in a Tutu’ ) and have partnered with radio station Mix 97.1 to create a mystery microsite to engage the audience with a pre-performance crime to solve called WHO STOLE THE MUSIC?

The experience working with BalletMet was phenomenal. I met with Matt and Sheila from BalletMet’s Marketing Team, who had come up with a great idea to promote their new mystery show by constructing a fun and elaborate promotional storyline about a CD of missing music that must be recovered in time for the ballet company to rehearse the new production before opening night.

Part of the fun was that the site had to be created during an old-school all-nighter. With barely any sleep this past weekend, I constructed a site that had the look of a detective case file. Matt and Sheila’s “suspect statements” and “crime scene photos” were put into visual context by using Polaroid frames, manila folders, and typewritten dossiers on wrinkled paper.

Here’s the gist…
There are six suspects who’ve made statements regarding the missing music and the evidence found at the scene. By reviewing the evidence and statements, visitors to WhoStoleTheMusic.com are asked to uncover the answers to a dozen different questions.

Each correct answer has an accompanying letter (A, B, or C.) If you deduce all the right answers, you’ll end up with a sequence of 12-letters (i.e., ABCABCABCABC) which are used as a password to access a hidden page on the website.

The hidden page reveals a final clue to the guilty party and provides a scavenger’s list of items that need to be presented in-person (along with a print-out of the accused suspect’s page from the site) at the BalletMet offices on a certain day and time.

All the armchair detectives that get this far will receive a prize pack from Pepsi and BalletMet. Those ‘Columbus Columbos’ with the correct answers will be entered in a drawing to win season tickets to BalletMet, two passes to a performance of “WHODUNIT?”, and free Pepsi for a year.

The entire Who Stole The Music? promotion was original planned to run for just one week, but it’s proven so popular over the past few days that BalletMet has extended it for an extra week. Even if you live nowhere near Columbus, or ‘think’ you wouldn’t like the ballet, visit the site and have some fun solving the mystery — if the ballet can engage you in their online efforts, just imagine how creative they must be in-person. Consider attending either the Columbus performance of “WHODUNIT?” or visiting your own local ballet company.

Dust off your trenchcoat and grab your fedora (or pick-up your magnifying class and don your deerstalker cap) but get to work solving this mystery — the game is afoot!

…which is kind of ironic considering this is a ballet promotion (Afoot? Ballet shoes? Get it? SIGH… I need some sleep…)