Leadership / 01.08.19

Sponsor Spotlight: Jack Rubin and the Tessitura Team Are Gearing Up for INTIX 2019

Doug James and Christine Payne

“I truly love my job,” declares Jack Rubin, co-founder and CEO of Tessitura Network, a non-profit cooperative that is owned by arts and culture organizations and focused on helping those in the sector achieve success.

“I love working with people who do what they do because they believe in their cause and not just because they are selling or making a product,” says Rubin.

Make no mistake about it, Tessitura does have a product on offer: a single unified enterprise software solution that manages ticketing, fundraising, customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing activities. But it does not collect fees on transactions or take a cut of revenue generated by its 600-plus owners worldwide.

“Other companies in this industry focus on profit and return to investors,” says Rubin. “We don’t. Our mission is to help organizations operate successfully and to facilitate knowledge sharing. Those implementing our best practices benefit from the industry’s tested and true methods,” says Rubin. “When we set up a system for our users, we configure it to give them the best chance for success. However, the best, most robust CRM systems still don’t set strategy or do the important work that a good leader in charge of patron experiences does. So, we continue to share what our users are learning about data, patron experiences and strategic thinking to enable everyone to go further and to go faster.”

As a resident of the Dallas area who frequently travels for work, Rubin is thrilled that the 40th Annual INTIX Conference & Exhibition is taking place in his own backyard. With the easy flight connections to and from Dallas, more of his organization’s team, than ever before, can be on hand to share their knowledge and insights with ticketing professionals from around the world.

“We attend many conferences and trade shows throughout the year,” he says. “Most are divided by industry or genre…INTIX is the best opportunity to meet with professionals who are primarily interested in the topic of ticketing. Yet, it still gives us the ability to address other needs as well, such as CRM, analytics, marketing, digital, fundraising and other areas where Tessitura also is present and where we really shine.”

And that’s exactly what Tessitura will be doing at INTIX 2019, which, for the first time, will revolve around a themed “Village” concept. The Villages take the highly popular INTIX "breakout by venue type" sessions and re-envisions them to give attendees a better opportunity to zero in on their specific vertical-centric topics and spend more time, rather than just one session, developing deeper connections with their peers.

As a presenting sponsor, Tessitura is presenting the ARTS Village, a program offering a variety of interactive seminars and workshops for the arts and culture community. 

“We’ve been serving the arts for close to 20 years, and we continue to grow as rapidly and robustly today as we did when we started,” says Rubin. “As a non-profit cooperative that is owned by arts and cultural organizations, Tessitura truly fits the definition of an arts village and we look forward to seeing the forward-thinking and innovative professionals who come to INTIX each year. Sponsoring the ARTS Village really matches up with who we are as a company.”

One of Tessitura’s sessions, “The Value of Everything: What Matters Most When Everything is Important,” will explore how data can guide your decisions and priorities in order to reach your full potential as an organization. Erin Koppel, who currently heads Tessitura’s enterprise consulting team, will share the valuable insight she has gained over the past 20 years, including what she learned as a leading fundraiser for one of the largest opera companies in the world.

“Erin was very successful [before joining Tessitura],” says Rubin. “She thought outside the box and used data to make decisions, focusing on where the most revenue was…As a result, the Lyric Opera in Chicago was one of the few opera companies in the world that consistently produced surpluses.”

While data is an essential ingredient in Tessitura’s business success, so is analytics and, according to Rubin, that now means much more than just knowing your audience.

“Our customers expect us to know them, to meet them where they are and to not waste their time. Thus, organizations need to be highly targeted in their segmentation and highly specific with their messaging. Organizations should leverage analytics in their decisions to answer important questions, to understand trends and customer behavior and to visually explore their data to discover what story their data is telling them about their customers and about their organizations,” says Rubin. “Organizations that maximize the insights gained from analytics are at a competitive advantage. We also understand that digital marketing is inherently data driven…so modern marketers need the right tools and techniques to work with that data and this is also where we’re also focusing a lot of effort.”

Tessitura and its users will also participate in a session titled “Let Data Take the Wheel: Creating a Data-Driven Culture” and this, says Rubin, is important at a time when the world is drowning in data.

“We’ve made huge investments in business intelligence tools that enable informed decisions and a data-driven culture. We’ve seen high-performing organizations incorporate data into their decision-making process seamlessly through the strategic use of their holistic customer data within the unified Tessitura database,” he says. “We think it’s important for these great examples of data-driven culture to be talked about and to give others the opportunity to see it in peer organizations. Hopefully, they can leave inspired to implement what they learned at INTIX 2019.”

In closing, Rubin emphasizes that what ticketing professionals are really doing is enriching people’s lives by helping them participate in something larger than themselves.

“You’re pulling their heads from out of their screens and bringing them back to the present moment,” he says. “Whether it’s live entertainment or an experience at a museum or attraction, people become connected to others – the performers, their family or partners, the wider audience or the community, what’s happening in the world. That connection can be transformational for them. On the frontlines, ticketing professionals are a steward of that connection. They’re the beginning point, the life preserver and often providing the service when people attend their venues.”

Connect with Jack Rubin and the Tessitura team by visiting booth #201, #300 at INTIX 2019.

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