TCG National Conference 2007 - Trend Workshops

Artistic

New Developments In Theatre For Families
Open Book 3rd Floor Book Club
Repeated Saturday 1:30-2:30 in Guthrie Theater 8th Floor Classroom 2
Michelle Wright, General Manager, Plays for Young Audiences
A growing number of theatres are including some form of family programming in their production seasons. Because of this rising interest, the need for quality plays for the family audience is critically important. Plays for Young Audiences (PYA), a script licensing partnership of two of the leading theatres for young people in this country, the Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis and Seattle Children’s Theatre, will share news on innovations in this field. In this workshop you will learn about resources for theatre professionals and new works that address the topical, contemporary and fantastical interests of the family audience.
Michelle Wright is the business manager at the Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) in Minneapolis and general manager of Plays for Young Audiences (PYA). As general manager of PYA, Wright guides the overall business operation and vision of the partnership. She received her bachelor’s degree from College of Visual Arts in Saint Paul, MN, in 1999, majoring in general fine arts. She continues to be an active visual artist and has participated in exhibits at College of Visual Arts, Ginkgo’s Coffee Shop, the Saint Paul Art Crawl and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts since her graduation. In 2002, Wright curated Sold on Art at Intermedia Arts, the organization’s largest art sale event at that time. She graduated from Saint Mary’s University in 2002 with a master’s degree in arts administration. From 2001 to 2003, Michelle was the president of the alumni board of College of Visual Arts and is the current board president of Frontier Theater.

Print What you Premiere: Introducing First Look Press
Guthrie Theater Dowling Studio Lobby
Repeated Friday 12:15-1:15pm in Guthrie Theater 8th Floor Livingston Conference Room
Erin Detrick, Publications Director, Playscripts, inc.
When premiering a new play at your theatre, are you looking for innovative ways to connect with your audience? Do you want to engage with your donors, encourage more interaction with the script itself and have an attractive memento of your production?  First Look Press, a new service from Playscripts, Inc., lets your theatre turn a production manuscript into a book, in time to sell by opening night. The author keeps all the rights—all we do is print the books you want, when you want them. Find out how First Look Press gets you from electronic file to finished book, and give us your feedback!
Erin Detrick is the publications director for Playscripts, Inc. She has served as a dramaturg and assistant dramaturg on a wide range of projects during literary internships at New Dramatists, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Freelance dramaturgy credits include The Glass Menagerie at Actors Theatre of Louisville and A Bright Room Called Day at the Cleveland Public Theatre, as well as a variety of workshop productions.

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Audiences

So You’ve Got All This Data…Now What? Grow Revenue and Develop Your Audience Through Client Data
Open Book 2nd Floor Room 208
Repeated Saturday 1:30-2:30 in Guthrie Theater 8th Floor Classroom 1
Margaret Bjork, Arts & Culture Account Executive, Blackbaud
This workshop will address how an integrated system and the resulting data can be used to improve your organization’s business practices. We will explore questions that can be answered with integrated data. Who cares about our organization? How do patrons use our resources? Who is most likely to donate to our organization? How do we leverage our various offerings? How can the business office keep balanced with our various sources of revenue?
Margaret Bjork has been with Blackbaud since June 2004, playing a key role in sales and consulting over the past three years. During her tenure, she has worked with more than 100 nonprofits, assisting with database technology implementations and services including consulting on best practices for ticketing, membership cultivation, retention and upgrades. Prior to working at Blackbaud, Bjork worked for various nonprofits, managing memberships, in Washington, D.C. She has also worked on stage and backstage at many theatres in the Washington, D.C., area. Bjork received her bachelor’s degree from William Smith College in New York.

Attracting and Keeping Your Single-Ticket Buyers: Retention Strategies That Work
Open Book 2nd Floor Room 203
Repeated Friday 12:15-1:15pm in Guthrie Theater 8th Floor Classroom 3
William F. (Rick) Lester, Chief Executive Officer, Target Resource Group; Jill robinson, President, Target Resource Group
Single-ticket buyer churn is one of the most troublesome issues in performing arts marketing today. Studies performed by Target Resource Group (TRG) detail the story: more than 50 percent of single ticket buyers purchase once and never return. But these studies also detail another story: arts marketers can improve these retention rates. This session will focus on customer retention strategies that will get your single-ticket buyers back, including direct mail and e-mail techniques that will energize single-ticket sales and build a fertile audience for subscription offers. The session will incorporate a case study highlighting how Houston Ballet successfully increased single-ticket buyer retention and improved its subscription conversion rates in the process.
Rick Lester is CEO of TRG, one of the largest performing arts marketing consulting and direct response firms in the U.S. Previously, Lester was the president of Lester & Associates, a company he founded following an extensive career as a marketing and public relations professional at the Cincinnati Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra. His successes in the marketing field led him to positions as president/executive director of the San Antonio Symphony, the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra and the Knoxville Symphony. In each of these organizations, Lester helped achieve records for both earned and contributed revenues. For more than a decade before he founded Lester & Associates, he had also been a freelance consultant to orchestras, as well as to numerous state and national nonprofit organizations. He has assisted with projects for the American Symphony Orchestra League (he was both vice-chair and chair of group 2 orchestra managers and a frequent presenter); the National Endowment for the Arts (he was a member of the NEA’s Challenge Panel for Policy Review); the Pew Charitable Trusts; and the Cleveland Foundation. In 1996, he earned an MBA from Queens College in Charlotte, NC. Lester is a member of the board of trustees of Drury University in Springfield, MO, and is a former trustee of the American Symphony Orchestra League.
Jill Robinson is President of TRG. She began consulting for TRG in 1997 and now manages day-to-day operations of the company’s consulting and direct response groups. In addition, Robinson continues to work with clients that include the Houston Ballet, the Wang Center for the Performing Arts in Boston and Opera Colorado in Denver. Robinson’s special field of interest and expertise is that of direct marketing, in which she earned an advanced degree from the University of Missouri in Kansas City. She received her MBA from the University of Colorado in 2003 and completed her undergraduate studies at Indiana University in Bloomington. Her career within the performing arts industry began at the Fort Wayne Philharmonic and included senior-level marketing management positions at the Milwaukee, Kansas City and South Bend symphonies. She is a frequent presenter at professional conferences, including the national conferences of American Symphony Orchestra League, Dance/USA, Opera America and INTIX.

Are You Discounting Too Much To Fill Your Seats?
Guthrie Theater 8th Floor Classroom 1 and 2
Repeated Friday 12:15-1:15 in Open Book 2nd Floor Room 208
Charlie Frankel, President and CEO, Easy-Ware Corporation
Are your theatre’s methods for attracting an audience and selling tickets outdated? Tired of duplicating your information and your workload? If information isn’t flowing seamlessly from your box office to theatre management, intelligent marketing choices and planning phases can easily be hindered. Join in a discussion of best practices to explore techniques for audience development and database management success. Find out how real-time information can easily be shared with all levels of management to improve your marketing efforts and minimize your discounting. You don’t have to do things the old way anymore!
Charlie Frankel is the president and CEO of Easy-Ware Corporation. Easy-Ware markets Total Info, an advanced, yet affordable, box office management and development software solution. Frankel has worked with nonprofit theatres in Chicago for more than a dozen years and currently is a board member of the Lookingglass Theatre Company.

Current and Future Trends in Ticketing and How to Look For a System
Open Book 3rd Floor Room 301
Repeated on Friday 12:15-1:15 in The Open Book 2nd floor Room 203
Brian Feldman, Client Development Manager, Tessitura Software
Like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, it is inevitable that at some point your theatre is going to need to search for a new ticketing solution. Where do I look? Who do I talk to, and what do I need to ask? How does the latest technology affect my decision? How much control do I need over the box office? This session will provide a plain-English description of where things stand now and where they are heading in this fast-changing industry. When it’s
time to actually start the search, you’ll know the steps you should take to make it as painless as possible.
Brian Feldman is a 17-year veteran of the ticketing industry and the client development manager of Tessitura Software. Truly fair and balanced (no, not the Fox News interpretation), Feldman has been hosting this presentation for a number of years at various conferences and trade shows with strong and positive feedback.

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Marketing and Development

Spring Cleaning: Evaluating Your Donor Database
Open Book 3rd Floor Rroom 302
Repeated on Friday 12:15-1:15 in The Open Book 2nd Floor Room 304
Paul Larson, President, Taylar Development
Building and sustaining a broad donor base is critical to every nonprofit arts organization, yet arts organizations of all sizes have seen an erosion in this crucial tool. How can an evaluation of your database and specific strategies to segments of your database build your broad base again? Cleaning and fully understanding your database is the first key to determining strategies for development and marketing. Come learn tips and get tools for heading your organization on the right path.
Paul Larson is president of TAYLAR Development, a professional telefundraising and phone marketing firm exclusively serving the performing arts for more than 15 years. Larson’s experience in both for-profit and nonprofit sales, marketing and client relationships, coupled with fundraising and marketing success with more than four dozen arts organizations, is establishing TAYLAR as the country’s premier service and cost leader in the industry.

Mobile Marketing: Interacting With Your Patrons via cell and smart Phone
Guthrie Theater 8th Floor Livingston Conference Room
Repeated Saturday 1:30-2:30 in Guthrie Theater 8th Floor Classroom 3
Marty Higginbotham, Founder and President, The Stage Channel
Mobile marketing has the potential to change the advertising and marketing space in the same way that the emergence of the Internet did a decade ago. Forecasts indicate that global spending on mobile marketing and advertising will see a 13-fold increase between 2006 and 2011. The bulk of that spending will come from SMS-based marketing and in later years of the forecast, from broadcast television and video services. We’ll cover the basics, including an acronym primer (what is SMS, MMS and 3G?), and discuss how the performing arts can use these emerging technologies to create exciting, efficient and data-rich interactions. We’ll also cover the code of conduct for mobile marketing, because spam is no good no matter how you get it.
Marty Higginbotham is founder and president of the Stage Channel. He has more than 20 years of professional experience as an actor, director, designer and artistic director, combined with working as a database and web consultant for companies such as Ameritech (now SBC/AT&T). Higginbotham has grown the Stage Channel from four clients in 2001 to virtually every theatre in Chicago in 2006.

Affinity-Based Marketing: Increasing Sales and Contributions Through Strategic Community Partnerships
Open Book 3rd Floor Room 303
Robert Friend, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Choice Ticketing Systems
Building long-lasting community relationships is important to any theatre-based marketing and development program. These partnerships serve as the glue to ensuring success in the box office, the development office and the board room. Join an interactive roundtable to discuss successful audience development techniques and innovative new marketing initiatives, with a focus on how to effectively drive the core constituencies of your corporate, media and civic-minded community assets to the theatre through the development of affinity-based partnerships.
Robert Friend is the Vice President for Sales and Marketing at Choice Ticketing Systems. He is the former director of marketing for La Jolla Playhouse (1984–88) and associate director of marketing for Long Wharf Theatre (1995–98).

Are You an e-blaster or an e-marketer? Arts Email Marketing Essentials
Guthrie Theater 8th Floor Room 3
Lily Traub, Senior Account Executive, Patron Technology
Smart e-marketing is not about blasting your email list—it’s all about using email with professionalism and expertise. Be prepared to have your eyes opened as you hear the results of a 2007 nationwide study of 11,000 arts patrons’ online habits and how they are really using the Internet. You’ll learn the most important tips for getting an email program started, including tips on how to build and manage your email list, some basics on campaign design, and how to avoid common mistakes. See examples of successful campaigns from the New York Philharmonic and the New York Transit Museum. Walk away feeling jazzed to do email marketing the right way!
Lily Traub is currently senior account executive at Patron Technology, and she regularly guides arts and nonprofit organizations on the benefits of marketing through the Internet. Prior to her time at Patron Technology, she served as the assistant box office manager of the Center for the Arts at her alma mater, Wesleyan University. She also worked as a subscription manager at the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York City.

Using Technology To Drive Ticket Sales
Mill City Museum 6th Floor ADM Conference Room
Repeated on Friday 12:15-1:15 in Mill City Museum 6th Floor ADM Conference Room
Amelia Heape, Director of Sales, theatremania.com
This session will explore the web-based tools essential to your media mix and discuss how to maximize your website, create effective email campaigns and utilize online advertising to increase ticket sales for your organization.
Amelia Heape was appointed the director of sales for TheaterMania.com in August 2006. Previously, Heape served for eight years at Spotco Advertising as an account supervisor for Broadway and Off-Broadway shows and for two years at the Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival as marketing associate. She holds an M.A. in arts administration from Indiana University and B.A. degrees in theatre arts and speech communications from Eastern Illinois University. Heape is an adjunct faculty member at New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies teaching “Marketing the Arts” and serves as a marketing consultant to the New York Television Festival.

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Planning

Measuring Success: Challenges are Opportunities in Disguise
Open Book 2nd Floor Green Room
Lynette Turner, Project Manager, AMS Planning & Research
Look over the horizon past next year’s season and the next. What will your organization look like five or ten years from now? Definitions of success vary from organization to organization, but some common areas of opportunity exist for all. One key requirement for success is a willingness to be flexible and open to change. What constitutes success? How can and should it be measured? Are your mission/vision/values and core competency statements up-to-date? Is your business model “broken” and do you have the tools in place to fix it? Are you celebrating the shift in your area’s demographics by finding new and creative ways to work with various populations? Challenges are opportunities in disguise. This session will examine various scenarios and articulate how to turn your challenges into success stories.
Lynette Turner has more than 20 years of experience in the arts. Currently she is a project manager at AMS Planning & Research, a national arts and entertainment management consulting firm. Projects have included cultural plans, feasibility studies, business and strategic plans and market research. Prior to joining AMS, she was producing director of Perseverance Theatre in Alaska. Turner’s theatrical experience includes acting, choreography and directing. She has been a panelist for several agencies, including the NEA, TCG and Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund.

Facility and Capital Campaign Planning: Are You Ready?
Mill City Museum 2nd Floor Macmillan Education Center
Lee Kappelman, Vice President, Arts Consulting Group;
Bruce Thibodeau, President, Arts Consulting Group
How can theatres ensure that they are prepared to renovate, build or otherwise meet their capital fundraising needs? Have you initiated a community engagement process to build bridges to your audience, funders and potential donors? Learn more about the steps needed to prepare for unparalleled growth by both engaging your stakeholders effectively and maximizing your contributed revenue.
Lee Kappelman joined Arts Consulting Group as vice president in 2006 with more than 25 years of experience in the performing arts, specializing in fundraising, business development, entertainment client artistic representation and television network programming. Prior to joining ACG she was senior development director at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where she was responsible for increasing the BSO’s annual fund donations over four years to an all-time high of $9 million.
Bruce Thibodeau is president of Arts Consulting Group and has extensive experience in arts and business management. He has worked with dozens of clients in the interim executive, marketing and development roles; has guided multiple executive search processes; and has led many team building and effective communication seminars.

Everybody Must Get Paid: Do Your Payroll Choices Minimize Cost and Decrease Risk?
Mill City Museum 7th Floor 710 Conference Room
Repeated Friday 12:15-1:15pm in Guthrie Theater 8th Floor Classroom 1 and 2
Kristen Sweet, Client Relations, NPI Production Services
Many theatres struggle with balancing the budgets of annual production costs. Audience attendance and growth is difficult to estimate and the actual amounts realized from sponsorships, grant monies and box office dollars cannot be accurately calculated until the conclusion of a production. If your production payroll budget could be calculated by summing up the payroll dollars actually going into the pockets of your talent and crew, there would be no need for consideration of options or discussion of new ideas. However, this is simply not the case. This session will investigate increasing the dollars available to support artistic vision and the production quality of your shows by examining possible avenues which may decrease the amount required for payroll costs. Join in a discussion and sharing of ideas with the goal of finding ways to minimize your payroll costs and allow for the best use of the dollars you have to work with.
Kristen Sweet received her BFA in theatre management from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA, and further stage management training at the Juilliard School in New York City. After working for more than 10 years as an AEA stage manager for a variety of regional theatres across the country, followed by several years working for a marketing division in the technology industry, Sweet is pleased to once again be in a position which aligns her with her theatrical roots. For the past two years she has worked in client relations for NPI Production Services, Inc., a company providing payroll services to the entertainment industry. Her professional background in the theatre allows her to provide a unique perspective to the business practices and financial challenges of the theatrical clients as she helps to assess the potential cost savings and value to theatres considering outsourcing their production payroll.

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Theatre Spaces

Making a Black Box Truly Spectacular
Open Book 2nd Floor Performance Hall
David Catlin, Artistic Director, Lookingglass Theatre;
Michael Diblasi, ASTC, Partner, Schuler Shook;
Robert Shook, ASTC, Partner, Schuler Shook;
Dominique Serrand, Artistic Director, Theatre de la Jeune Lune
Flexible theatres are a mixed blessing. We love them for their ability to adapt to a variety of production styles and for their tendency to surprise our audiences with new configurations. We hate the amount of labor required to move all of the gear around. Join this discussion with Dominique Serrand, co-founding member and artistic director of Theatre de la Jeune Lune and David Catlin, artistic director for Lookingglass Theatre, on how to make a black box a great performance space: one that is flexible and supportive of both the artist and audience.
David Catlin is artistic director of Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre. Directing credits include Lookingglass Alice, Metamorphosis, Her Name Was Danger, The Idiot (Joseph Jefferson Award), and Lookingglass Hamlet. As an actor he recently appeared in Hard Times and Manuscript Found in Saragossa. His film work includes Since You’ve Been Gone for Lookingglass/Miramax and Humanoid with Dark Harbor Stories.
Michael Diblasi, ASTC, is a partner and principal designer of Schuler Shook and has been an integral part of the firm since its inception over 20 years ago. DiBlasi’s background includes lighting design for dance, opera, theatre and special events which provide a strong basis for his theatre consulting work. This hands-on understanding of the requirements for performance venues, including technical, functional and aesthetic issues, provides an invaluable resource to the design of theatre facilities. His involvement in a project begins with programming and pre-design; he continues throughout the project and collaborates with members of the design team to transform the project’s original vision into its successful completion. Some of DiBlasi’s projects include Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Pantages Theatre, Boston Opera House, the Playwrights’ Center and Orpheum Theatre.
Robert Shook, ASTC, is a founding partner at Schuler Shook and enthusiastically brings to every project a wealth of experience in professional theatre, both in front of the curtain and behind it. He has been involved in the planning of auditoria and audience areas for hundreds of theatres around the world, and his depth of experience as a professional theatrical designer provides him with a keen understanding of backstage operations and technical systems. He promotes intimacy and flexibility in theatre design and is a strong proponent of the collaborative process in the development of successful performing arts facilities. Some of Shook’s projects include Harris Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, Lookingglass Theatre and Court Theatre.
Paris native Dominique Serrand studied at the National Circus School, the Winter Circus School, and the École Jacques Lecoq. He is a co-founding member and artistic director of Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis. Serrand received Twin Cities Drama Critics Circle Kudos awards for his roles as Uri Ogenyenovich in 1929 and Octave in The Caprices of Marianne. Serrand’s directing credits with Jeune Lune Include: Heroes, The Bourgeois Gentleman, Romeo and Juliet, 1789, The 3 Musketeers, The Pursuit of Happiness, Tartuffe, The Magic Flute and Gulliver, A Swift Journey. This season Serrand is directing at the Guthrie Theater and Berkeley Repertory Theatre before returning to Jeune Lune to direct The Seagull and The Marriage of Figaro.

Remaking the Guthrie’s Famed Thrust Theatre: Behind-the-Scenes Improvements
Guthrie Theater 8th Floor room 4
Richard Talaske, Principal Acoustics Consultant, Talaske;
Douglas Stebbins, Associate-in-Charge, Fisher Dachs Associates;
Gregory Miller, Senior Acoustic Consultant, Talaske
No one could image a new Guthrie without its beloved thrust theatre—but even a legend may need to be reworked. This Trend Workshop features an open discussion with the acoustics consultants and theatre planners who helped design the new Wurtele Thrust Stage, which captures the spirit of the original theatre while addressing the need for subtle improvements discovered through several decades of use. Discussion will include an exploration of these subtle changes, what makes the Guthrie thrust such an intimate performance space and how these features apply universally to theatrical design.
Richard Talaske, FASA, Principal Acoustics Consultant, TALASKE, has a master of science in acoustics from Pennsylvania University and more than 25 years of consulting experience, whichmakes him unapologetic about his “obsession with sound.” He knows how to craft spaces that enhance the live performance event in theatres and performing arts centers. Talaske enjoys a deserved reputation as one of the country’s premier theatre acousticians. Recent projects include the new Guthrie Theater as well as Arena Stage and Sidney Harman Hall in Washington, D.C.
Douglas Stebbins, Associate-in-Charge, Fisher Dachs Associates, joined FDA with experience as an architect working on all aspects of theatre and performing arts center design. For eight years, as a project architect and designer with Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, he played an active role in the design of more than a dozen theatres. Since 1995 he has worked with FDA on numerous significant theatre projects throughout the country, including serving as project manager and leading the programming and design of the new Guthrie Theater complex.
Gregory Miller, Senior Acoustic Consultant, TALASKE, is deeply interested in the way that sound interacts with the built environment and how that interaction affects our shared experiences. An alumnus of the Cooper Union, Miller previously served as a key consultant at New York based Cerami & Associates and has taught as an adjunct lecturer at the City University of New York. Since joining TALASKE in 2001, he has managed projects such as the Guthrie Theater, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Signature Theatre (VA) and the Children’s Theatre Company.

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