Tessitura Network Celebrates Success, Shares Knowledge and Unveils New Services at Annual Learning & Community Conference

Record Attendance of 1200+ from Six Countries and All Departments

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Theatres, arts centers, festivals, museums, orchestras, universities, dance companies and opera companies worldwide had representatives in attendance for the 2012 Tessitura Learning & Community Conference (TLCC2012), which was held August 12-16 in San Diego, California. Tessitura Network Inc. is the leading global provider of enterprise software technology, services and community for the arts and cultural sector, and the annual Conference allows users of Tessitura Software to share ideas, strategies, best practices, case studies and knowledge. This year’s 200+ session topics, planned by a committee of 100+ software users and chaired by Vice President Don Youngberg, included areas such as revenue management strategy, trends in social media, list segmentation strategies, philanthropic memberships, customer service strategy and demographic tracking for educational programs.

“Fabulous networking and sharing opportunity. Will be sure to have more staff attend next year.”

Chuck Reif, Senior Vice President of Development and Technical for the Tessitura Network, Ron Wilson, Chief Technology Officer, and Andrew Recinos, Executive Vice President, presented updates in general sessions on the multi-year, community-driven Tessitura Software roadmap. Besides user-driven new releases every year since inception, the Tessitura application has evolved to incorporate “Next Generation architecture,” which increases the interoperability and flexibility of the system. Exciting upcoming enhancements include a robust pricing engine to aid in ticketing discounts and rules-based pricing, even more advanced moves management for fund development, and a new time-saving feature that will allow for patron notes to be entered in a customer’s record from a mobile device. Working examples were demonstrated in general sessions and smaller discussions. Like all releases, upgrades to the software are provided at no charge to Tessitura license holders.

Product announcements from Tessitura Network partners included a free virtual waiting room and a no-charge “hot seat index” widget for the configurable Tessitura dashboards that are also included with Tessitura Software. The new widget will allow performing arts organizations to optimize their pricing strategy by viewing a colorized map of sales statistics by seat, adding to the already robust offering of business intelligence tools included with Tessitura.

TLCC2012 also featured a keynote address by Susan Lyne, chairman of Gilt Groupe and former executive with ABC Entertainment and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Her address entitled “Five Things I’ve Learned in the Past Four Years” focused on topics such as escalating changes in digital media, utilizing loyal consumers as marketers, and the importance of storytelling and creativity in marketing messages. After her talk, Susan tweeted - “Miracle @TessNetwork: getting 400 member orgs to agree on a roadmap. Vision to reality.”

Jack Rubin, President of Tessitura Network, commented in his conference opening, “This is probably the biggest cross departmental, cross genre, cross ocean gathering of arts and cultural organizations of all sizes. We know you make an investment in time and money. We know each of you have your own goals you want to achieve. It is not only our mission, but it is our privilege to put together a program based on your requests, input and involvement. The content is amazing and the networking opportunities are plentiful. As a nonprofit service company dedicated to helping our users meet their missions and operate efficiently and productively, we constantly look for ways to give out more. We constantly look for ways to give more services, more functionality, more capabilities and actually try to give more and charge less.”

The best reflection of the learning, excitement and knowledge sharing at TLCC is from the comments and tweets of the attendees. Just a few are below:

• “I think of it like Tessitura University! It's a great time to immerse yourself in best practices and network with other Tessitura users.” Gina Napolitano, Kaufman Center
• “The Tessitura Conference never fails to leave me feeling refreshed, inspired, and excited about working for the arts and with the database that allows me to exceed in the development work I do.” Jessy Friedt, Portland Center Stage
• “The session that will change my (work) life: Quick and Easy Acknowledgments. Thank you, Nick!!!! @TessNetwork #tlcc2012” via Twitter, Becca Bowden, Atlanta Opera
• “Just got out of a #tlcc2012 next gen session. So happy that @TessNetwork involves users in future development of the software!” via Twitter, Patrick Schley, First Stage Children’s Theatre
• “Tessitura is dynamic, not static, and each of us is responsible for where it's going. TLCC gives you the tools to be an involved and informed member of the community.” Cheryl Young, Pittsburgh CLO
• “We had such an amazing experience in San Diego! Wow, is an apt word. All of us are on fire for Tessitura and we are sharing all of this energy and knowledge with the staff that were not able to attend.” Irene Emma, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival
• “Day or night, you never know when you are going to have that AHA! moment - it ALWAYS comes and usually more than a few times!” Colleen Dickson, EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts
• “Even though this conference is ostensibly all about software, it's one of the greatest gatherings of the arts world you'll ever attend.” Matthew Hodge, Musica Viva Australia
• “It is the highlight of my working year surrounding myself with so many amazing smart arts workers! Only 11 months until we do it all again.” Lisa Middleton, Stratford Festival
• “Most energizing part of my year - always come home with new ideas and a sense of purpose. Great team building and bonding.” Meredith Meads, The National Ballet of Canada
• “Fabulous networking and sharing opportunity. Will be sure to have more staff attend next year.” Tom McCabe, Theatre Calgary
• “If you get chance to go grab it with both hands. Intensive quality learning and networking opportunities at your fingertips. Very inspiring and motivating.” Annie Scally, Ticketing Network East Midlands
• “My head was exploding with knowledge!” Jason Taylor, Toronto Symphony Orchestra
• “There is no other arts forum that offers so much to arts professionals at all levels of an organisation.” Richie Warburton, Wigmore Hall

About Tessitura Network Inc.

More than 400 theaters, orchestras, performing arts centers, university arts departments, museums, festivals, dance and opera companies are members of the Tessitura Network. Tessitura Network organizations are located in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States. As a non-profit corporation governed by an elected board of Network participants, the company mission is focused on providing continually innovated technology and services and improving the operations of users of its software rather than a profit motive. The mission also encourages and enables knowledge sharing among its open community of users.

Tessitura Software is the flagship product of the Tessitura Network. The unified platform allows organizations to provide unparalleled leverage for customer relationship management, and includes business intelligence tools and dashboards for advanced data analysis and strategic insights. Additional services include a hosted deployment option, ticket scanning for access control, express web integration, TN Social Ticketing™ for ticketing within Facebook^® and more.

For more information about Tessitura Network, please contact Laura Bowden, Director of Administration, at [phone] x376 or visit www.tessituranetwork.com.