5/15/2018

3 min

More than 260 arts and cultural professionals from 58 organisations attended the ninth annual Australia & New Zealand Tessitura Regional User Conference (ANZTRUC) in Sydney last month.

The not-for-profit community-led conference, held this year at Sydney’s Sheraton on the Park on April 16 – 17, brings together users of Tessitura's unified CRM platform. Delegates came from leading arts and cultural organisations across Australia and New Zealand, representing multiple disciplines including senior leadership, marketing, ticketing, fundraising, finance, IT, education and technology.

Adriana Law, Head of CRM & Digital Marketing at Opera Australia and President of ANZTRUC Inc., opened the conference. Attendees were welcomed by Philippe Magid, Tessitura Network Chair and Executive Director of Bangarra Dance Theatre. In acknowledging the traditional owners of the land upon which the conference was meeting, Uncle Charles ‘Chikka’ Madden, Gadigal Elder from the Eora Nation, delivered a “Welcome to Country.”

Photo by Sandra Ashby

Built around three pillars of sharing, learning and discussing, the agenda offered a total of 45 presentations, discussion sessions, trainings, labs and networking events led by 68 presenters from Tessitura Network and the community. Sessions addressed current topics such as Analytics, Corporate Partnerships, Ticket Security, Digital Storytelling, Data-Driven Fundraising, Segmentation, Subscriptions, Digital Innovation, and more.

Knowing your audience was the theme of the opening presentation from Tessitura Network CEO Jack Rubin. “Data enables you to be a better arts and cultural professional by putting your customers — your people — first, in highly personalised ways,” Rubin said. “If we turn that notion to your audience, your prospects, it means that by using the tools and data at your fingertips with Tessitura, then you are able to personalize in ways that build loyalty, warmth, engagement, and goodwill. You will know them as well as you know yourselves.”

“Data enables you to be a better arts and cultural professional by putting your customers — your people — first, in highly personalised ways.”
— Jack Rubin 

Andrew Recinos, President of Tessitura Network, gave what he called a “non-techie tech presentation” telling the story of Tessitura’s technology progression over time. From first bursting onto the scene during the “Era of Revolution” through the ongoing “Era of Evolution”, Andrew tracked the Network’s clear and continued focus on user experience both for Tessitura users and the customers at Tessitura organisations. He finished with a glimpse into the future, as the next chapter of Tessitura technology is being written. 

“We are constantly evolving.”
— Andrew Recinos

Returning to this year’s conference was a Hybrid Session type. Blending case studies with training, these included topics such as Data-Driven Fundraising and Education Out of the Box. An addition to this year’s events were the Learning Labs, offering hands-on training to small groups on topics including Intro to SQL, V14 Lists and Output Sets, and Tessitura Analytics.

The “Tessnet” community prides itself on the high level of collaboration and knowledge-sharing, and many sessions featured case studies presented by delegates hailing from organisations of varying sizes. Heath Wilder of Sydney Dance Company, Hannah Schneider of Arts Centre Melbourne, and Martin Keen of NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art) shared how they are leveraging standard Tessitura functionality to manage their education programs. More case studies explored topics such as Corporate Partnerships, Security Essentials, and Data-Driven Fundraising.

Andrew Chew of Perth Theatre Trust during the Customisation Showcase.
Photo by Sandra Ashby

Open Space discussions, which have become a fixture at Tessitura Network’s annual Tessitura Learning & Community Conference, came to ANZTRUC this year. Beau Vigushin, Director of Ticketing and Visitor Experience for Arts Centre Melbourne, facilitated these first ANZTRUC Open Space discussions, which offered participants the opportunity to set the discussion agenda. The 24 topics across three breakouts included “Cross-organisation collaboration”, “Subscriber benefits in the 21st century,” and “Engaging young people in philanthropy.”

Beau Vigushin closes Open Space. Photo by Sandra Ashby

An exciting development from the Tessitura Network is Tessitura Analytics, a new BI tool to be released with the upcoming Version 15. Tessitura Analytics, an innovative toolset that is vertically integrated with Tessitura, offers a comprehensive approach to organising data, enabling analysis, and providing insight, with interactive dashboards that serve as a springboard for exploration and discovery. ANZTRUC offered a deep dive into Tessitura Analytics, conducted by Tessitura Network Enterprise Consultant Amalia Hordern and Network Developer Patrick Drew.

“A decision without data risks falling into opinion.”
— Amalia Hordern on Tessitura Analytics

The second day of ANZTRUC featured Amalia Hordern’s report on the second year of results from her research into the state of subscriptions. She also reported results on a new survey on the state of fundraising in the region. The findings, which will be published in the future, will be able to inform organisations’ approaches and strategies toward fundraising as well as subscriber retention and acquisition.

Photo by Vicki Allpress-Hill

The conference finished on a high note with a live Innovator Series talk by Patrick McIntyre, Executive Director of Sydney Theatre Company. In his inspiring talk, McIntyre shared his new model for demonstrating cultural value, “The Pie Chart of Happiness.” 

“Those of us in the culture business often fund ourselves having to defend culture – to explain its value,” he said. But “culture brings people together.... If culture is one way that individuals feel connected and inspired, shouldn’t we try to increase access to culture so that our neighbours, and strangers, can all be positive contributors?” He concluded by noting: “Decisions are made with the emotions; we need to understand our feelings and the feelings of others. We need to feel better. And this is what art and culture can do for us.”

“Once we are fed and housed, nothing is more important than culture.”
— Patrick McIntyre

Jeremy Dixon, Tessitura Network’s Director, Asia Pacific, noted that ANZTRUC could not have taken place without incredible time and investment from committee members, speakers, sponsors and Tessitura team members. “The voluntary Content Planning team has done an exceptional job, led by Tessitura Network’s Amalia Hordern with key support from Andrew Chew of Perth Theatre Trust, Jade Moore from Arts Centre Melbourne, and Sarah Whelan from Bangarra Dance Theatre.”

One attendee said, “I hope to come again next year… It is a really valuable way to understand that Tessitura can be the glue that holds our teams together and the data is what helps us grow our donor pools.”

View photos of ANZTRUC 2018 on Flickr.

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