Leadership / 12.15.21
What to Expect from the INTIX 2022 Town Hall
Teddy Durgin
Crystal Brewe
Organizers say the Town Hall General Session on the morning of Jan. 20 may be INTIX 2022’s most important presentation. Sponsored by Ticketmaster, it will feature an impressive roster of C-suite executive leaders from some of the industry’s most important organizations and verticals. The goal of the panel will be to address the ramifications of the COVID-19 crisis and industry shutdown, with five top decision-makers telling their stories of survival and success. The title? “Bigger Than Burnout: Sparking Joy, Rekindling Passion and Rebuilding the Industry.”
Crystal Brewe, Senior Vice President of Strategic Marketing & Communications for the Kimmel Cultural Campus in Philadelphia, will serve as the presentation’s moderator. She worked closely with INTIX President Maureen Andersen to create and curate the panel and presentation.
“Thematically, the INTIX Town Hall has always been very topical and very prescient,” Brewe says. “I think this particular year, the Town Hall is extremely important to our industry. Most of us are in our jobs not to get rich, but because we are outrageously passionate about what we do. Our one and only goal is to make people feel about that event how we feel when we go to these events. We go through so much to get that moment where we lift the curtain (or pitch or kickoff the ball) and have those butts in those seats. That was the real trauma of having that taken away. It was so jarring. And then having to rebuild that in the midst of the Great Resignation. As leaders, we’ve had to figure out how to march through and keep ourselves motivated for what we do, but keep others who look to as leaders motivated also.”
Brewe describes this year’s Town Hall panelists as “leaders who went through big change and identified where they were going to get new inspiration. The idea with this panel is that these senior-level executives share a very personal story about what they experienced or a moment of enlightenment that they had. It’s an exciting panel. We have Anthony Esposito [Vice President of Ticket Operations] of the Atlanta Braves. The Braves organization was supposed to host the All-Star Game, and then they were denied hosting it … and then the Braves went on to win the World Series. What an emotional roller coaster to talk about! Then, there’s Laura Matalon, who has gone through major shifts running the marketing as Chief Marketing Officer for ‘Hamilton.’ But, funny enough, during the pandemic, she took up tap dancing!”
Brewe continues, “So, you can expect to hear some very personal stories. That’s exciting, because you don’t always get that from senior leaders. This is about emotions. It’s about mental health. This is about being together again. This Town Hall couldn’t have been some staid event. I hope people walk away from it with something that was really heartfelt.”
As moderator, Brewe intends to bring her own pandemic experiences to bear on the event. She is not a stranger to transition either, as the Kimmel Center is in the middle of a merger with the Philadelphia Orchestra. “So, I’ll probably draw from some of my experiences on that journey to try and really pull those personal stories out of the panelists,” she says. “The good news is I am pretty good friends with most of the panelists.”
At the same time, she is also looking to strengthen ties with those panelists she doesn’t know so well or has not been in close touch with due to the past 20-plus months. “All of the panelists are amazing,” she says, “and their stories are going to be amazing to tell. The one panelist I don’t really know yet and I am looking forward to getting to know is Anwar Nasir. He has been the Chief Revenue and Advancement Officer for the Omaha Symphony. He’s been involved with INTIX for years, and he has an incredible story to tell.” Other panelists include Marla Ostroff, Ticketmaster’s Managing Director of North America, and Qiava Martinez, Vice President of Premium Service & Guest Experience for the Las Vegas Raiders.
“The most rewarding part has been meeting with the panelists in advance and hearing these stories,” Brewe says. “I have been able to formulate my questions out of that. Talking to each of them about this and realizing that they were in the same place but different circumstances throughout the last two years has been a rewarding learning experience for me. Hearing Laura’s story, I thought about Googling tap dancing!”
For those who will be serving as panelists at the Town Hall and in other presentations at INTIX 2022, Brewe offers some basic advice on how to be a good one. After all, she has served as both a moderator and a panelist herself over the years.
“A good panelist has a willingness to share,” she says. “If you get up there and you are holding things too close to your chest — particularly this one, which is about emotions more than anything — then it’s not going to work. That’s number one. Number two, it’s not really about how good your PowerPoint is or even how many tickets you have sold. It’s ‘What did you learn?’ Some of my favorite presentations from INTIX over the years have been more about failures and what was learned from those failures than what the successes were.”
Register for INTIX 2022 today to secure your spot to hear from the thought leaders participating in this panel. We'll see you in Orlando!
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Tags: Leadership , COVID-19 , Coronavirus , INTIX 2022