The 2016 INTIX board includes, top row: April Moon, Canadian Stage; Robert Friend, Patron Technology, Inc.; Carrie Farina, Caesars Entertainment; Laura Zehe, AudienceView; Deborah Ballentine; Kay Burnham, Segerstrom Center for the Arts; Gary Lustig, Interim CEO; Bottom: Alison Barry, State University of New York at Fredonia; Tammy Enright, Smithsonian Enterprises; Jennifer Butler, Ravinia Festival Association; Amy Kline, ShowClix; Joseph Carter, Los Angeles Philharmonic; and Maureen Andersen, new INTIX CEO as of Nov. 21. Missing: Jane Kleinberger, Spectra Ticketing & Fan Engagement; and Brendan Bruss, PMI Entertainment.
INTIX has chosen a ticketing veteran and inveterate association volunteer as its new president and CEO. Maureen Andersen, who resigned her post as VP Arts & Entertainment, AudienceView, Nov. 4 and leaves AV Nov. 18, starts her new career as the new and fourth-ever INTIX CEO Nov. 21.
Jane Kleinberger, Spectra Ticketing, who now becomes INTIX chair, a position Andersen had held, positioned her as “the Brad Mayne of ticketing,” referring to another industry professional who took on an association role as president and CEO of IAVM.
Speaking to Venues Today just prior to the announcement, Andersen said that “one of the things it’s important we do as an association is that we replace ourselves. I think the only way you can do that is through products, services and education.”
Certification is one avenue to assure the future of ticketing professionals. That is already being explored by INTIX through research, a task force and a survey of members which is just back, noted Gary Lustig, who has been acting president and CEO and is past chair of INTIX.
“We will start to tackle certification after the first of the year,” Andersen said. “It’s out there, a strategic plan, but we need the next step.” Part of that next step will be increasing fundraising, an initiative that will be prominent at the upcoming INTIX Conference in New Orleans Jan. 24-26. Andersen’s influence on that gathering will be minimal, since she will be two months into a job and INTIX is a year into the planning. She will have a much bigger role in the association’s 39th annual conference in Baltimore Jan. 23-25, 2018.
“We have a 40-plus-years-old organization and it needs to go through an evolution,” Andersen said. “We’re a big kid now. The board is full of strategic thinkers. What they want to do with me in this role is grow the footprint of INTIX, grow it in stature, grow the types of membership, expand the services and products.”
She wants INTIX to capitalize on its key products, education and conferences, and adapt those to a new generation which is the membership of the future. “What does that look like? It’s diving down into the persona of who we are and who our membership are and working with them in different ways providing the services they want the way they want them.”
She also wants to put “international” back into INTIX (which stands for International Ticketing Association), which is much more doable in this technological age. “Now we have the tools at our disposal so that it doesn’t matter as much if you are in the same room,” she noted.
“We want a year-round education forum that we take out to the people rather than them always coming to us.”
INTIX currently stands at 1,002 members with an annual budget of just shy of $1 million. Kleinberger said INTIX runs with a surplus, which is good. It takes money to fund services.
“We have evolved from the original pedestrian box office person to members now who are more strategic thinkers and wearing multiple hats in marketing, fundraising, ticketing, venue management and customer service. They are different kinds of people versus that first-line kind of person,” Andersen said.
Andersen’s goal is to highlight that membership in more visible ways, including making sure that other conferences and gatherings that want to talk about ticketing think to tap INTIX first. Andersen envisions herself as a broker of sorts, lining up speakers and topics for others. “There are a lot of conferences out there and a lot of people talking about ticketing. Why shouldn’t it be INTIX in that’s driver’s seat?” she said.
Maureen Andersen and Jane Kleinberger at the 2015 INTIX conference in Denver.
“Maureen is probably one of the few executives in our industry whose experience has given her a real purview of all markets. She has spent time predominantly in performing arts, but at Paciolan and AudienceView her responsibilities have required her to be on the front lines of all market segments,” Kleinberger said. “I think from that perspective she comes to the chair with a better understanding of all those markets than most people who grow up in the ticketing world.”
“We would be hardpressed as an association to identify any other single individual member who has given so much of themselves to INTIX over these last few decades,” Kleinberger added. “She has served on every committee under the sun, chaired task forces, been on the executive committee, helped write and rewrite governance, and even served in this capacity previously post-Jeffrey (Larris, second president of INTIX). I said as we went through this search, ‘if we could find what Brad Mayne is to IAVM for INTIX, it would be a grand slam.’ I believe that’s what we have found.”
Lustig agreed Andersen has “a true passion and love for this industry – that’s so important.”
In preparation for her new role, Andersen also resigned her position as chairman of the board of INTIX to accept the CEO role. Kleinberger, who was INTIX chair elect, assumes that chairman of the board role immediately. Gary Lustig, current past chair who has filled the gap as interim CEO since Jena Hoffman (third ever INTIX CEO) left mid-year, ends his past chair role Dec. 31. The board will choose a new past chair to fill the role that would have been Andersen’s in 2017.
Members will also be asked to elect three new members of the board for 2017. Ballots go out next week, according to Lustig. Kay Burnham, Segerstrom Center for Performing Arts, Costa Mesa, Calif., is chair elect for 2017.
INTIX was founded in 1980 by its first CEO and president, Patricia Spira. Its members are ticketing, sales and marketing professionals from all walks of entertainment including arenas, stadiums, arts, sports, universities, museums and attractions.
The search for a new CEO was conducted by Mark Gnatovic, SVP of SearchWide. Earlier this year, SearchWide also placed industry veteran Mayne with IAVM.
Andersen began her career with a 23-year stint at the Denver Center of Performing Arts, overseeing ticketing and sales. She then became Project Manager for Spectra Ticketing (then known as Paciolan) working with all market genres including sports. She has been with AudienceView for the past seven years. She will continue to work out of Denver in her new role with INTIX.
INTIX is a virtual association, a move that was made when Hoffman was president and CEO, with only one other fulltime employee besides Andersen. That is Tiffany Kelham, who works from her home in Indianapolis. INTIX contracts services to about 10 or so business partners, which has proven a cost effective approach and garnered the association some preferred pricing it could not have accomplished otherwise.
Andersen said the plan is to continue as a virtual association. “At this point, there is no apparent reason to change it; it’s working nicely.”
Interviewed for this story: Maureen Andersen, (720) 425-6472; Jane Kleinberger, (949) 823-1679; Gary Lustig, (215) 205-3506