More than 1,700 users and supporters of Tessituras gathered for the annual Tessitura Learning and Community Conference in Florida.
REPORTING FROM ORLANDO — Opera great Renée Fleming set the tone for TLCC 2015 in Orlando, Fla., when she asked “Tessitura, where have you been all my life?”
The keynote address by a celebrity who performed before 111 million viewers at the 2014 Super Bowl and in hundreds of Tessitura-powered venues, went on to stress the importance of technology and data today in performance, of course, but also in behind-the-scenes endeavors to understand the audience even more importantly.
Having been appointed the first Creative Consultant for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Fleming is focused on extending the audience whenever she can. “We’re now under tremendous pressure to look like the character we’re playing. In my case that’s a girl between 15 and 23 always on the verge of death and destruction,” she joked with the audience. “Let me tell you, it’s become a challenge.”
But an even bigger challenge, “and I’ve seen this with my younger relatives, is that people aren’t really going out much anymore. They’re staying home watching high quality television, cable and the internet; younger people are watching Youtube and Vine rather than listening to music. But there is sense of malaise, isolation and loneliness that goes with that.”
So she has come to understand as a performer that ticketing and customer relationship management is not the bane of her existence. It’s a group to collaborate with to solve a common problem.
“When I told her five of the next six organizations she is performing with in the next few weeks are Tessitura-powered venues, she said, ‘oh, I just assumed they all are,’” said Jack Rubin, Tessitura president, during his introduction. “She is a visionary leader and cultural ambassador. A thought leader,” he said.
Fleming takes her role as musical ambassador to heart, and since spring of 2007 she has pioneered some innovative outreaches to draw a community of people to opera.
“In this secular world, there is this desire to share things. We can provide a place where people can be reminded of the historical context of what we read in the paper. This went on 100 years ago. Or in this museum, you’ll be reminded of the history of mankind,” Fleming said.
But first you get their attention. Fleming said she learned from books that one of the most important elements of happiness is novelty, and “we can provide this for our own audiences by giving them unusual experiences, unconventional experiences, and we can draw new audiences the same way.”
And she learned from the Grateful Dead, having attended one of their farewell tours at Soldier Field this year that a performer can create a lifestyle that spans the generations. Watching 50,000 people who didn’t even make it into the concert buying tie-dyed T-shirts for their grandchildren and enjoying the vibe, she thought, “this is really working and it has worked.”
To that end, Lyric Opera of Chicago teamed with Second City to, indeed, make fun of opera on an opera stage in front of an opera crowd. Thirty-five percent of the ticket buyers for that show were new to the opera. “Long live passion — with Second City. Great opera sells, but so do new works. We want to find something relevant that reflects our changing demographic,” Fleming said.
In her role as a change agent, she encourages performing arts organizations to make a lifestyle choice by adding friends, food, and wine to the experience. “If our work doesn’t become cool, glamorous and desirable for my generation and younger, there won’t be a new generation,” Fleming said.
“What I really am passionate about is audience development, how we get people in the doors. I consider Chicago one of the great cultural cities of the world. Let’s band together. Let’s collaborate with other institutions and make this a destination city,” she said.
BRINGING DOWN THE WALLS
The Tessitura users were totally on board, for Chicago and for their own cities, fascinated to hear her viewpoint as the performer.
“We want to be included in music again,” Fleming said. “We can expand what we present while maintaining a core of high quality opera. Young people are doing it already, in unconventional places. The walls are down.”
Fleming, who thanked Tessitura for letting her come and talk and not sing, won a standing ovation and endless questions from the crowd, who then went about bringing down those walls and supporting their performers and art with innovative ideas and cutting edge technology.
Digital streaming — performing live in front of hundreds of thousands of people — was applauded by Fleming and among the initiatives that Tessitura users are pioneering.
Rubin launched TLCC2015 with the news that 43 percent of the 1,722 registered attendees were first timers, and proved to them with the Fleming keynote that “we turn the how into the wow.”
“The community is our DNA,” he said of the membership organization founded in July 2001. Tessitura pioneered unified CRM for arts and culture, adds capabilities every year and now is on a tablet that can allow a sales point anywhere.
It is founded on trust, and the licensee retention rate of over 98 percent and team retention rate of 85 percent tells that story. Now there are Tessitura users conferences far afield, from Australia and New Zealand to Europe.
Tessitura is managed by a team of 147 people and functions as a distributed company, hiring the best people and letting them live where they want to live.
New members include zoos like the Minnesota Zoo, historic homes like Mount Vernon in Virginia, and attractions like the Tulsa Botanic Garden. “We’ve added 30 performing arts clients plus 20 museums, science centers, gardens an aircraft carrier in the past year,” Rubin said.
Tessitura is currently 522 organizations strong and growing, he continued. “My Tessitura career has created a family.”
Don Youngberg, VP of community for Tessitura, who led the planning for TLCC 2015, said it drew a record 32 sponsors. Over 200 members participate in planning content for the conference.
Rubin said the journey for Tessitura has been built on pain points in the sector and necessity, opportunity, trust, collaboration, and generosity. “The concept of community to me is what we’re made of. Community is our DNA.”
THE CORE OF THE MATTER
In 2015, Tessiturians gathered a year into the biggest release in its history — Tessitura Software Version 12. Now they’re seeing some of the most innovative and groundbreaking implementations of Tessitura technology ever by their clients. And as creativity soars, trends change and technology advances, Tessitura’s technology advances right along with them with future version of TN Express Web, TN Mobile Plus and Version 14 on the horizon.
“When you look at technology, you always hope you’re on the right side of the innovation wave,” said Chuck Reif, senior vice president Development & Technology. “It’s a rule that in order to catch a wave you need to be traveling about the same speed the wave is traveling, or it will just pass you by. You don’t want to get too far out in front of it either, or it may just come crashing down on your head.”
With Version 12.5 just released in July, Reif said they’re already looking to Version 14, which is planned for next summer. One of the new features will be resource scheduling for rooms, people and items, with the ability to be used as a web application. Payment enhancements are also planned for all geographic areas.
With Version 12.5 hot off the press, Kristin Darrow, vice president Internet Strategy, said Tessitura’s web products are both a flexible packaged web and digital presence and a web development toolkit. TN Mobile Plus will begin focusing on what venues can offer patrons once they’re through the doors. Location-based services, including navigation and on-the-spot digital experiences, will create a handheld mobile concierge.
“We’re taking what we know to work best for both of these applications, reenvisioning them for the future to maximize mobile capabilities, what we’re learning from you in the community and what the technology landscape as a whole is doing,” said Darrow. “There’s another wave coming, so the cycle begins again.”