Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion (AMP) opened with a country twang. The 10,000-capacity venue opened in its permanent location in Rogers with a Blake Shelton concert, June 7. This wasn’t a normally-priced concert, though. Walmart picked up expenses so that tickets were priced just $5-$10.
“The venue has really changed how we look at the way we sell tickets,” said Darcy Ballew, VP Communications for Walton Arts Center, which runs the facility. “Usually at a performing arts center you put your subscription or season on sale and it’s gradual, but for the AMP we sold most of our tickets in a two-hour period.”
About 166,000 people called phone lines to purchase tickets to Blake Shelton, with only 4,000 able to connect. Another 20,000 tried to get tickets through the website.
The Walton Arts Center uses TN Express Web to tie patron and transaction handling between their website and Tessitura. “We needed a solution to be able to protect our website from being overwhelmed,” said Marley Wynne, Walton Arts Center Technology Services Manager.
Walton AMP uses waiting room solutions that enable consumers to have booking experiences that are efficient and not frustrating. The waiting room solution basically acts like a shield around the website, monitoring traffic going in and out and protecting the transaction path when there are surges of traffic. When it sees that levels are potentially server-threatening, it starts lining people up in a virtual waiting room. It can be dropped in and out as needed for large on-sales and can be entirely set up in about five working days.
Walton Arts Center was an existing Tessitura user when the AMP opened, and they knew the software could handle the concert venue.
“A lot of the basic knowledge that we needed to run this successfully we already had from using Tessitura at Walton Arts Center,” said Ballew, who added that Walmart AMP hosted 15 performances in 2014.
Consortia Share Technology
AT&T Performing Arts Center, Dallas, has two Tessitura experts with Teresa Dean, Tessitura Systems Director and Amber Kinney, chief Financial officer.
Tessitura Software enables groups of venues to work collaboratively, offering savings for smaller organizations as sub-licensees. These groups of organizations are called consortia. There are 35 Tessitura consortia all over the world, with each participant having its own business rules, web presence, accounting and privacy of data.
In 2013, ArtTix, the branded Tessitura ticketing solution that services the eight sub licensees that make up Salt Lake County Center for the Arts, processed 313,000 tickets valued at more than $11 million for 727 performances.
In 2012, one of the Salt Lake County venues hosted “Lion King.” “Any time you have ‘Lion King’ or ‘Wicked’ you process a huge amount of tickets,” said Salt Lake County Center for the Arts Director Phil Jordan. ArtTix processed 393,000 tickets valued at $25 million for 803 performances.
ArtTix services several venues in Salt Lake City, including Abravanel Hall, Janet Quinney Lawson Capitol Theatre, Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Ellen Eccles Theatre – Utah Festival Opera Company, St. Mary’s of the Assumption Church, Deer Valley Amphitheater, and Sundance Theatre.
“The benefits are centralized services where you’re able to save dollars and share learning,” said Jordan.
The customer doesn’t necessarily distinguish between which specific organization is selling the tickets, they just want to have a good experience. Jordan added that the sharing — or not sharing — of data generally causes the largest issue.
Once a consortium decides how much data it’s going to share between members, Tessitura provides robust firewalls between customer records, with a sophisticated partitioning of the shared database.
“We don’t share ticket history, but we do share allowable customer information in terms of names and addresses,” said Annie Scally of Ticketing Network East Midlands (TNEM) in Nottingham, U.K. The consortium — the group of organizations serviced by TNEM and, therefore, Tessitura — does offer customers the option to join a consortium mailing list that goes to customers for all four venues.
“Of all the consortiums within the Network, I don’t think there are any two that function the same way, so it’s difficult to figure out how to create one and form one,” said Teresa Dean, Tessitura Systems Director at AT&T Performing Arts Center, Dallas. The facilities that make up AT&T Performing Arts Center and its resident companies had been a consortium since 2006, but hadn’t delved into database and standards sharing. Dean came to the 2009 Tessitura conference to meet other consortium members for ideas.
The main tip she has for any one considering a consortium model: “Have a plan, have it completely mapped out, written out, and everything signed before you start,” said Dean. Ultimately it’s a business arrangement, with a master licensee and sub licensees.
In some cases the master licensee manages the consortium and charges transparent service fees; in other arrangements, the cost is split between the sub licensees. AT&T Performing Arts Center holds the master license of its seven consortium members. TNEM has four consortium members that all have a 25-percent stake and participate in governance.
“The only way we could all afford to do this is if we all went in together,” said Nottingham Lakeside Arts’ Sofia Nazar-Chadwick. “It’s a shared resource, with shared data and training.”
One thing all consortia have in common is constant communication. Salt Lake County Center for the Arts and all ArtTix members have a voluntary meeting every quarter to discuss future plans and any issues. AT&T Performing Arts Center has dialogue once a month with its Tessitura Advisory Committee, consisting of members from each organization in the consortium.
The consortium model provides the opportunity for more people to use the software.
It’s a type of shared service that, in a way, mirrors the Network. Tessitura is a nonprofit organization run by its members and thrives in collaboration, which shows up in a smaller degree in the consortia environment.
“It’s about helping us — the organizations and licensees — be able to continue to exist, fulfill our missions, and have an amazing piece of software that we can use to fulfill our mission,” said Dean.