“Beautiful girl, you can do hard things.”
That is the message engraved inside a bracelet I wear on difficult days.
I mentioned it during a career-focused panel at the recent Greater Niagara Ticketing Professionals (GNTP) Q1 meetup in Fredonia, NY. Alison Barry, Director, Michael C. Rockefeller Arts Center at SUNY Fredonia, and I were taking part in an interactive, gamification-style “choose your own adventure” session on career dilemmas, scenarios and personal challenges in the workplace. Produced by GNTP founder and INTIX team member Anja Arvo, the session encouraged discussion on topics that many people in ticketing resonate with — how reporting structures can change, how roles evolve and how the ground beneath you can shift even when you are doing your best work. I shared that sometimes, when things feel uncertain, it helps to have something physical that reminds you who you want to be, regardless of what is happening around you. For me, it is the bracelet.
Alison Barry (right) with members of the Michael C. Rockefeller Arts Center ticketing team after a recent GNTP meeting. On the left is Dan Cherry, Manager of Ticketing, Transportation and Audience Services, and in the center is Kerry Cope, Arts Center and Ticket Office Assistant.
After the GNTP panel ended, audience participants shared their own versions of the same idea. One described wearing colorful rubber bracelets from fundraising events as a reminder of people who continue to show resilience through serious health challenges. Another shared the story of a tattoo that serves as a daily reminder that strength is always within reach.
It was an unexpected exchange, and it stayed with me. So, I reached out to the broader ticketing community, including via the Women in Ticketing Facebook group. People began sharing stories of objects tucked into pockets, music that keeps them grounded, reminders taped to walls or computer monitors, and words they return to when the work — or their world — feels a bit too heavy.
For Michelle Rose, Director of Ticketing at Playhouse Square, those anchors are both visible and intentional. “I got the tattoo shortly after I got my promotion to director. A reminder to stop, sip my coffee, and breathe. I got the bracelet at the beginning of the year, and I tend to wear it when I know it is going to be a rough day.”
Michelle Rose’s beaded bracelet says, “You Got This.”
For Brittany Pallozzi, Director of Patron Relations at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, grounding comes from something she could hold during a 12-month system transition. “I spent the last year converting our CRM to Tessitura; trainings were long and a lot to take in considering I was on a small team of two configuring the entire system for our organization. If I wasn’t taking notes, I had a small heart-shaped rock in my hand. This rock, given to me by my husband [and] found on one of his work trips, helps me remember to step back and give myself grace, so I can continue to lead my staff with intention and purpose.”
Other ticketing professionals described keeping reminders that help reconnect them with the impact of their work. Sarah Hom, Director of Culture and Engagement, Audience Strategies at Roundabout Theatre Company, shared: “Any particularly good or meaningful feedback from attendees, bosses, colleagues, etc. gets printed out and put into a folder on my desk (or screenshot and put into a folder on my phone). Sometimes rereading it helps.”
Hom also described returning to the experience at the center of the work itself. “I try to see either the top of a show I’m working on or a show I love (usually, Wicked). Seeing the people coming into my theater and sitting there rapt as the show starts really helps to remind me why I do what I do. Same with seeing a show I love. It’s usually Wicked because it was the first show I saw on Broadway (i.e. not a tour in my hometown), which was also one of the first trips I took without my parents, and now that I know someone from Denver in the show, it really feels full circle!”
Some responses reflected practices that create calm by intentionally slowing things down. On stressful days, Rebecca Simmons, Regional Ticketing Director, Live Nation Entertainment, finds her “a moment of Zen” in tracing a Chartres labyrinth. “There is one path in it, so there are no choices that have to be made, like which way to turn, which calms my brain. We have so many options before us in life, choices that we want or have to make, and intentionally giving way to a path with no choices or demands needed feels good. The labyrinth is rooted in religion and one’s spiritual pilgrimage, but it can be used for other purposes too.”
Others rely on reminders that can shift perspective in the middle of a busy day. Amy Botwright, Ticketing Manager, Kutztown Golden Bears, has two websites bookmarked. “One is for cooling me down when my frustration is at inferno level. One is to bring me up when I am losing faith in humanity. Some of my favorites from both are posted behind my computer screens.”
The humor of the Despair, Inc. products and the encouragement of the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation messages create a small reset button when Botwright’s day needs one.
Music surfaced repeatedly in the responses. This did not surprise me in a community of ticketing and live event experts.
As I shared with GNTP attendees, there is a James Taylor playlist that is almost always on when I am at my desk. In 2025, I spent 66,059 minutes listening to his music and ended up in the top 0.001% of his listeners according to Spotify Wrapped.
I also told GNTP members about a particular Dave Matthews Band (DMB) concert video I return to again and again. It brings me back to a joyful evening — July 14, 2018 — the second show of a two-night stand at Saratoga Performing Arts Center. DMB closed the main set with my favorite song, and I left before the encore because I wasn’t sure that life (or music) could get any better than what I had just seen. I wanted that moment to live on forever, exactly as it was.
Hom shared how music touches her and her life. “Something about listening to Yo-Yo Ma’s recording of Bach’s first unaccompanied cello suite helps to regulate my system. First, it is a gorgeous piece of art. Second, Yo-Yo Ma is an incomparable artist who always plays with such generosity and joy, and it comes through in the music. Third, seeing him play at Red Rocks with my family is an experience that I will never forget. It’s such a perfect encapsulation of what we do; create moments of human connection centered around art and gathering that lives in our memories but cannot be replicated beyond that fleeting moment.”
Simmons described returning to familiar playlists from earlier years. She seeks out music that already carries memory and identity. “Like many people, I find comfort in playlists of music from when I was in high school and college,” said Simmons.
For Susan Csendes, MGM Northfield Park Ticket Office Manager, grounding comes from something even simpler and widely shared: “The Serenity Prayer.”
Ticketing is a profession built on creating meaningful moments for others. But the people doing that work are carrying meaningful moments of their own — in bracelets, tattoos, rocks held during long training sessions, folders of saved patron feedback, messages and posters taped behind monitors, and music that brings them back to places and experiences that make their hearts happy.
Sometimes staying steady starts with something very small.
Sometimes it starts with a sentence you can return to when the day asks more of you than expected … Beautiful ticketing professionals, you can do hard things.
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