Nashville Zoo moves from legacy ticketing to an open ecosystem with ACME
How one of America's fastest-growing zoos replaced a decade of legacy software with a best-in-class ticketing platform and made it the center of everything it runs.
The Zoo became a primarily online institution. Its platform didn't keep up.
In 2011, Nashville Zoo processed tickets and memberships on paper forms at the gate. Online sales grew steadily as the Zoo crossed one million annual visitors in 2018 and kept climbing with each new exhibit. Then COVID changed everything overnight: timed entry and advanced reservations became the standard, and the Zoo became a primarily online business.
Its ticketing platform of ten years, Accesso, was built for a different era. Reporting was limited, and data requests took about a week. Memberships could be renewed but not upgraded or changed. Timed entry was enforced so rigidly that guests arriving a minute outside their window were turned away or required staff intervention. And with no API, the Zoo's team couldn't connect or extend the platform themselves.
Spy Museum
"ACME handles the day-to-day better than anything we've used, and the open API means we're never waiting on anyone to build what we need. It's become the center of how this Zoo runs."
Chris McBride, Director of IT, Nashville Zoo at Grassmere
A best-in-class platform, open at the core
The Zoo ran a thorough evaluation, and ACME stood apart from the first interaction. The team dug into ACME's documentation on their own and were on a demo call within an hour of reaching out. When the Zoo put the market through a detailed RFP, ACME checked every box it needed.
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Here’s how it works
Catches the sale before it disappears.
When a guest starts a booking and leaves without paying, they are captured automatically as a lead. Nobody has to notice it, flag it, or chase it.
Picks up exactly where the guest left off.
The email references the specific date and tickets, or the membership the guest was considering, and links straight back to finish rather than dropping them on a generic homepage. The moment the guest books, the campaign stops.
Shows what it is actually worth.
A built-in dashboard reports leads captured, emails sent and opened, bookings recovered, and revenue recovered, so the museum sees its return rather than infers it.
Turning Missed Bookings Into Ticket Sales
Average Order Value
of guests who received a follow-up came back and completed their booking.
Klaviyo Bechmark
the top 10% of senders benchmarked by Klaviyo.
In just five months since launch, ACME’s Abandoned Bookings has driven meaningful incremental revenue equal to 3.67% of the museum's total ticket sales over that same period.
20.91% of guests who received a follow-up came back and completed their booking, roughly 1 out of 5, from a single email sent two hours after abandoning the cart. That is nearly three times the top 10% of senders benchmarked by Klaviyo (7.69%). For a cultural institution, that is revenue going straight back into furthering the mission.
“For a team our size, having something that works quietly in the background and brings guests back on its own is a huge advantage. ACME designed this around the way a museum like ours actually operates, so it feels seamless rather than another thing for our small team to manage.”
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