A concert ad video that sells tickets is a short video (6 to 30 seconds) built from footage you already own, edited for Facebook and Instagram, with one clear message: who is playing, where, when, and how to buy tickets. The video does not need to be a professional production; it needs to stop a thumb, name the artist, and make the ticket link obvious.

Key Takeaways

  • You can build a working concert ad video from a phone-shot clip, a poster image, and free editing tools. No production crew required.
  • The first second of the video decides whether anyone watches. Lead with the most exciting frame you have, not a logo or a slow fade-in.
  • Vertical video (9:16) outperforms every other format on Facebook and Instagram feeds in 2026. If you only make one version, make it vertical.

What You Need Before You Start

Gather these assets. You probably have most of them already:

  1. One or two video clips of the artist performing. Phone footage works. A 10-second clip of the crowd singing along or the artist on stage is enough. If you have no video at all, a still photo with subtle motion (a slow zoom) will do.
  2. The tour poster or a high-resolution artist photo. This gives you the visual identity of the show.
  3. The key facts: artist name, city, venue, date, ticket price range, and the URL or ticketing partner where people buy.
  4. An editing tool. CapCut (free, desktop and mobile) handles everything described below. Canva video works too. If you already use Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve, use those.

Step 1: Pick Your Hook Frame

The hook is the first thing people see before they decide to scroll past. Open your video clips and find the single most energetic frame. A crowd with hands up. The artist mid-song under stage lights. A wide shot of a packed venue.

Do not start with:

  • A black screen or fade-in
  • A logo
  • Text that says "Coming soon"

Put the most exciting visual first. If your best asset is a photo, zoom in on the artist's face and let the edit push outward over two seconds. That small motion signals "video" to the viewer's brain and buys you another second of attention.

Step 2: Build a 15-Second Skeleton

Fifteen seconds is the sweet spot. Long enough to deliver the information, short enough that most people watch to the end (which helps Facebook show the ad to more people, because completion rate is one of the signals the algorithm uses to judge quality).

Here is a structure that works:

Seconds What's on screen Purpose
0-2 Hook frame (best clip or photo with motion) Stop the scroll
2-6 Artist performing or crowd energy clip Build excitement
6-10 Poster or stylised text: artist name, city, date Deliver the facts
10-14 Second clip or photo + ticket price or "from 395 kr" Motivate action
14-15 End card: "Tickets at [domain]" or "Link in bio" Tell them what to do

If you have more footage, a 25-second version can repeat this loop with a second city or date. But always cut a 15-second version too.

Step 3: Add Text Overlays

Most people watch Facebook and Instagram videos with the sound off. Your video must work in silence. Add text for:

  • Artist name (large, readable on a phone at arm's length)
  • City and date
  • A single line that creates urgency, like "Limited seats" or "Final Stockholm date"

Keep text inside the "safe zone" of the frame. On a 9:16 vertical video, the bottom 15% is covered by the platform's UI (like buttons, captions). Place important text in the middle or upper third.

Use the font from the tour poster if you can. It keeps things looking like one campaign instead of a random ad.

Step 4: Choose Your Audio

If you have rights to the artist's music (and for most tour promoters, the artist or label grants this for advertising), use a recognisable 10-15 second section of their biggest song. Pick the chorus or the hook, not the intro.

If you do not have music rights, you can use:

  • Crowd noise from a live clip (often included in the video footage itself)
  • A royalty-free track from Facebook's Sound Collection (free inside Meta Ads Manager) or CapCut's built-in library

Audio matters less than you think, because of the sound-off viewing. But for the people who do have sound on, a recognisable song is a powerful trigger.

Step 5: Export the Right Sizes

Export three versions if you can, two if you are short on time:

  1. 9:16 vertical (1080x1920) for Stories, Reels, and feed on phones. This is the most important one.
  2. 1:1 square (1080x1080) for Facebook feed on desktop and older placements.
  3. 16:9 horizontal (1920x1080) only if you plan to use it on YouTube or a website.

Export as MP4, H.264 codec. Keep file size under 100 MB (Facebook's limit, though smaller is better for upload speed).

Step 6: Set Up the Ad in Meta Ads Manager

This is where the video becomes an ad. If you have never used Meta Ads Manager before, it is the tool Facebook provides to run paid ads on Facebook and Instagram. You access it at business.facebook.com.

Here is what to set:

  • Campaign objective: Sales or Traffic. "Sales" is better if you have the Meta Pixel installed on your ticketing page (the Pixel is a small piece of code that tells Facebook when someone buys a ticket after clicking your ad). If you do not have a Pixel, use Traffic.
  • Audience location: The city where the show is, plus a radius. For a show in Gothenburg, target Gothenburg + 50 km. For a large arena show, go wider (the whole region or country).
  • Age range: Start broad (25-65+). Facebook audiences for concerts skew older than you expect, especially on Facebook itself. Instagram reaches younger, and Meta will distribute across both.
  • Interests: Add the artist name as an interest if it is available. Add the genre ("classic rock", "Swedish pop", "stand-up comedy"). Add similar artists.
  • Budget: A useful starting point is 100-200 SEK per day (roughly 10-20 USD or 10-18 EUR) for a single city. Start the ad 3-4 weeks before the show date. For a 20-date tour, you typically run city-specific ads for each date.
  • Placement: Choose Advantage+ placements (let Meta decide) or manually select Facebook Feed, Instagram Feed, Instagram Stories, and Facebook Reels.

Upload your 9:16 video as the primary creative. Add the square version as an alternative. Write a short ad text: the artist name, the date, the city, one line about why this show matters ("First tour in 5 years", "The farewell tour"), and the ticket link.

Step 7: Retarget People Who Almost Bought

This is the step most promoters skip, and it is often where the real ticket sales come from. A "retargeting audience" (sometimes called a "warm audience") is a group of people who already showed interest: they visited your ticket page but did not buy, or they watched 50% or more of your video ad.

In Meta Ads Manager, go to Audiences and create a Custom Audience:

  • Website visitors: anyone who visited the ticket page in the last 14 days. This requires the Meta Pixel on the ticketing page.
  • Video viewers: anyone who watched at least 50% of your concert ad video. This does not need a Pixel; Facebook tracks it automatically.

Run a separate ad to this audience with a slightly different message. Something more direct: "Only 40 seats left for Friday" or "Tickets selling fast, Malmö is almost full." This audience already knows the show exists. They need a reason to act now.

For the Galenskaparna tours, where Adsome ran the film and Meta advertising, the combined spend across several tours was 493,774 SEK with 5,057,533 SEK in tracked ticket revenue, returning 10.24 SEK for every 1 SEK spent. A meaningful part of that return came from retargeting people who visited the ticket page but had not yet purchased.

Step 8: Read the Results

After 3-4 days, check Meta Ads Manager for these numbers:

  • Cost per link click: what you pay each time someone clicks through to the ticket page. For concert ads, anything under 5-10 SEK (0.50-1 USD) is solid.
  • ThruPlay rate: the percentage of people who watched your video to the end (or at least 15 seconds). Above 25% is good. Below 15% means your hook is not working and you should try a different opening frame.
  • Purchases (if Pixel is installed): the number of ticket sales Meta tracked. Divide your spend by this number to get your cost per ticket sold.

If a video is not performing, do not change the audience first. Change the video. Try a different hook frame, a different clip, or a different text overlay. The creative is almost always the variable that matters most.

Common Mistakes

  • Making the video too long. A 60-second mini-documentary about the artist's career is interesting content, but it is a poor ad. Keep it under 30 seconds, ideally 15.
  • Forgetting the date and city. It sounds obvious, but many concert ads show exciting footage and never say when or where the show is. Put it on screen.
  • Running one ad for an entire tour. Each city needs its own ad with the local date and venue. A person in Linköping will not click an ad that says "Stockholm, 14 March."
  • Not setting up retargeting. The cheapest tickets come from people who already visited the page. If you skip this, you leave money on the table.
  • Waiting too long to start. Begin running ads 3-4 weeks before the show. Starting one week out gives Facebook too little time to learn who responds to your ad.

Want more tickets sold on your next tour? Adsome runs the film, creative and Meta advertising for touring productions.