Mailchimp Helps Country Thunder Rock Their Engagement

Canada is known for producing legendary rock-and-roll acts from Rush to Sum 41 to Barenaked Ladies. But those bands all reign from Ontario and the eastern part of the country. 

Western Canada isn’t known for rock music, and its festival scene reflects it.

Country Thunder is trying to change that—at least on the festival front—with a spinoff brand and a different genre.

The Country Thunder brand has been hosting country music festivals across the United States and Canada since the early 1990s and has become a respected name in the space. They hosted 7 events in 2025 with 5 more on the calendar for 2026, and they’re adding a rock festival. 

“Rockin’ Thunder started as an idea to fill a gap,” says Megan Benoit, Digital Manager for Country Thunder Music Festivals. “Western Canada didn’t really have a true rock festival, and we knew there were fans waiting for one. Because Country Thunder is such a trusted, long-standing brand, we had the foundation to launch something completely new.”

While Country Thunder’s existing festivals had built loyal followings over the decades, Rockin’ Thunder lacked historical data or a segmented subscriber list, and there was no guarantee that their established country audience would cross over to a rock show.

Country Thunder needed to rapidly build a new audience, and turned to a familiar partner for help, Intuit Mailchimp, which has powered the marketing behind its festivals for 12 years.

The challenge: Build a new audience for a new genre without legacy data

Country Thunder had sold out festivals for decades, but Rockin’ Thunder was an untested idea.

The team’s established country festivals had years of engagement history, well-defined segments, and loyal fans who bought tickets the moment they went on sale. Rockin’ Thunder, by contrast, started without a defined audience list, without past behavior to guide strategy, and without certainty that Country Thunder’s base would follow them into a new genre.

Megan and her marketing team needed to identify a new group of fans—one that skewed older and more male than their country audience—and quickly develop a relationship with them.

The tools: Marketing automation flows, Mailchimp API, and popup forms

Mailchimp was the backbone of Rockin’ Thunder’s digital launch and gave them a single platform to capture interest, communicate with fans, and refine their message as the audience grew.

Megan’s team began with Mailchimp’s popup forms, designed to appear the moment visitors landed on the new festival website. She said the form made all the difference for them, with email sign-ups outpacing the festival’s growth on social media.

In order to keep Rockin’ Thunder’s emerging brand identity consistent, they imported a custom font and A/B tested two versions of the design—one with a dark theme and another that was clean and bright (the bright design won). By the end of the first campaign, the form had converted 6% of site visitors, establishing a healthy foundation of engaged subscribers.

They used marketing automation flows for new sign-ups to trigger automatic welcome emails, which included early lineup details, and set expectations for what types of communication subscribers would be receiving. Those automations became the best-performing messages across all of Country Thunder’s other festivals, with open rates twice as strong as the company’s legacy lists.

Country Thunder connected its ticketing platform, Front Gate Tickets, with Mailchimp via API that allowed purchase and engagement data to automatically flow between the systems. This allowed Megan to segment audiences based on behavior, whether that meant general-admission buyers who could be offered upgrades, or fans who still hadn’t bought tickets who could be reminded that there was still time.

“Being able to import audiences straight from our ticketing platform and segment them in Mailchimp is huge,” Megan says. “It lets us personalize what people see, so no one feels like they’re getting a message that doesn’t apply to them.”

The results: A new audience, record engagement, and a scalable foundation

Rockin’ Thunder immediately saw strong engagement, Megan says.

Sixty percent of tickets sold have been on days that Mailchimp messages were sent to their contact list, and 27% of the audience that received those communications was acquired via popup forms.

The automated welcome flow also proved effective. These messages achieved open rates twice as strong as Country Thunder’s legacy lists, showing that the new rock audience was reachable and responsive. Segmented follow-ups and targeted offers drove steady ticket conversions to help the inaugural event find a footing.

And quarterly strategy sessions with Country Thunder’s dedicated Customer Success Manager at Mailchimp helped the team refine their creative assets to make their emails more engaging. They also archived inactive Gmail subscribers to improve deliverability.

“Mailchimp never feels static,” Megan says. “Every quarter, there’s something new that makes our jobs easier or our campaigns stronger. When you’re managing multiple festivals with a small team, that kind of progress matters.”

With a new audience established and a proven digital framework in place, Country Thunder’s marketing team is already thinking about how to build on their momentum heading into next festival season.