Hamilton Musical App Built With Commercial Flutter

Entertainment
Flutter
Firebase
Google Cloud

We built the official Hamilton app in three months, launched it on iOS and Android at the same time, and we still run it. It was the first commercial app built with Flutter outside of Google.

app installs: 3.5M+
peak monthly active users: 500K+
lottery entries: 100M+

Lottery 555

Today’s lottery

Enter the lottery for seats in each city the show plays.

01The ask

Give every fan a shot at the show, whatever phone they carry.

Hamilton: An American Musical has run on Broadway since 2015 and won 11 Tony Awards, a Grammy, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Its seats are some of the hardest tickets in the industry to get.

The show wanted an app that opened its daily ticket lottery to every fan, with inclusivity as the central value. That meant iOS and Android together, a short runway to launch, and a long feature list, from the lottery to merchandise, inside a fixed budget.

In their words

“The VGV team created an unprecedented experience for Hamilton fans and has been a trusted partner since 2017. There’s no better team to help us give our fans incredible ways to connect with the show.”

CEO, Marathon Digital & Hamilton Marketing Mike Karns

02The build

One code base, two app stores, one opening night.

With Flutter, one team shipped the app on iOS and Android at the same time, three months in, with full feature parity on both. Nobody waited for the second platform.

One code base kept the experience the same on every device and kept the build fast and inside the budget. The design put fans first, with accessibility, performance, and consistency across every screen.

The HamCam camera with a crown filter, flanked by a Buy tickets card, gold Admit One tickets, and shop cards for a wool pillow, a featured sticker, and a HamCam share

03In the app

What fans carry in their pocket.

Plus trivia, karaoke, a treasury of archive pieces, and an in-app merchandise store.

Plus trivia, karaoke, a treasury of archive pieces, and an in-app merchandise store.

The Hamilton component kit with trivia streak cards, star rewards, character sticker cards, gold and outlined buttons in normal and disabled states, and menu chips — The component kit. Gold, black, a lot of stars, and every button in its disabled state too.

04Under the hood

Serverless, before serverless was the default.

The Hamilton app was one of the first large-scale commercial apps built entirely on Firebase and Google Cloud. With no servers to babysit, the team spent its time on features, and the backend scaled by itself when a new city opened or a lottery announcement went out.

Firebase handles real-time data, push notifications, authentication, and analytics. Cloud Functions run the lottery logic, the merchandise integrations, and the content pipelines.

A hand holding up an iPhone on a New York street, the HamCam crown filter on the fan’s face — HamCam on Broadway, outside the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

A smiling fan looking up from a phone under the Hamilton marquee at the Richard Rodgers Theatre — HamCam on Broadway, outside the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

05What changed

The show never had to choose.

No trade-off

Both platforms and every feature on day one.

Hamilton skipped the iOS-or-Android decision and launched without cutting the feature list to make the date.
One partner

VGV is the team.

Product leadership, design direction, architecture, backend development, growth and reporting, and Flutter development, from one partner since 2017.
The first

Flutter’s first commercial app outside Google.

The app that started the Flutter revolution is still in production, and VGV still runs it.

06If you’re next

What we’d tell a team in Hamilton’s seat.

01
Don’t pick a first platform. One Flutter code base ships iOS and Android on the same day, so nobody in your audience waits.
02
Put the backend on managed services early. The team should spend launch week on features, not on servers.
03
Plan for the spike, not the average. A lottery draw or a new city brings everyone at once, and the stack has to scale on its own.

Roll credits.

Who did what, and with which tools.

Client: Hamilton: An American Musical
Our part: Product leadershipDesign directionArchitectureBackend developmentGrowth and reportingFlutter development
Platforms: iOS and Android
Built with: FlutterFirebaseGoogle CloudCloud Functions
Timeline: Three months to launchPartner since 2017