Industry Press / 01.10.19

The Barbican Selects Spektrix

LONDON: Spektrix today announces that the Barbican Centre has adopted the Spektrix solution to improve audience experience and manage ticketing, fundraising and marketing activity for the million-plus customers who attend its ambitious, international programme of performances, exhibitions, screenings and learning activities each year.
 
A world-class arts and learning organisation in the heart of the City of London, the Barbican presents boundary-pushing work across all major art forms including dance, film, music, theatre and visual arts. Home to the London Symphony Orchestra, its Resident Orchestra, and partnering with more than ten associate ensembles, producers and artistic associates, the Barbican Centre is comprised of five permanent performance and gallery spaces, a three-screen cinema, a glasshouse conservatory, conference facilities and three restaurants.
 
The Barbican team were impressed by the ease and simplicity Spektrix brings to the customer journey, as well as the flexibility of integration with arts websites. Key to this are tools which will enable the Barbican to understand and communicate with audiences across a large and diverse programme of events.
 
By choosing Spektrix’s software-as-a-service solution, the Barbican is taking a big step towards its goal of moving all its mission-critical applications to the cloud.

“We chose Spektrix’s solution because it gives us all the benefit of genuine software-as-a-service without compromising performance or flexibility,” said Andrew Hayes, Head of Systems and Data at the Barbican. “Spektrix’s approach to working in partnership with us was really important. This isn’t just about installing new software but about changing how we do things for the better. We see this an investment in audience experience.”

Regarding the decision to run the Spektrix implementation as an agile project, Hayes said, “Spektrix have worked with us to develop an approach that draws on their experience and fits with the way we work. The Barbican is a busy, complex place. We learned when  we built our website that an agile approach is very powerful at breaking down this complexity and helping us focus on what we’re trying to achieve.”
 
“We are excited to welcome the Barbican Centre to the Spektrix cloud,” said Michael Nabarro, CEO of Spektrix.  “Our solution has the robust capabilities arts organisations of all sizes need to excel in the evolving entertainment landscape.  We look forward to a long-term partnership and supporting the Barbican in its mission of continuous improvement in audience experience.”
 

NOTES TO EDITORS
Europe’s largest arts organisation in numbers (2017/18 fiscal year*)

• 1.3 million attendances
• Creative learning and offsite engagement programmes reaching over 100,000 people
• Tickets booked from 101 different countries
• Earned income of £29.3m
• 352 external venue hire events
• More than 120 cultural and education partners  

A complex venue serving multiple arts genres and formats:

Spektrix will provide ticketing and audience analytics for all the Barbican’s performance halls and other facilities. These include:

• The Barbican Hall (capacity 1,943)
• Barbican Theatre (capacity 1,156)
• The Pit, a flexible 200-seat theatre venue
• Barbican Art Gallery
• The Curve gallery for new commissions
• Three Barbican cinemas with seating capacities of 280, 156 and 156
• Three restaurants
• Seven conference rooms
• Three reception and banqueting spaces for 70-650 people
• Two conference auditoriums with seating capacities of 246 and 153
• One trade exhibition hall
• Public spaces hosting Level G programming and installations

 
About the Barbican
A world-class arts and learning organisation, the Barbican pushes the boundaries of all major art forms including dance, film, music, theatre and visual arts. Its creative learning programme further underpins everything it does. Over 1.1 million people attend events annually, hundreds of artists and performers are featured, and more than 300 staff work onsite. The architecturally renowned centre opened in 1982 and comprises the Barbican Hall, the Barbican Theatre, the Pit, Cinemas One, Two and Three, Barbican Art Gallery, a second gallery The Curve, foyers and public spaces, a library, Lakeside Terrace, a glasshouse conservatory, conference facilities and three restaurants. The City of London Corporation is the founder and principal funder of the Barbican Centre.

The Barbican is home to Resident Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra; Associate Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra; Associate Ensembles the Academy of Ancient Music and Britten Sinfonia, Associate Producer Serious, and Artistic Partner Create. Our Artistic Associates include Boy Blue Entertainment, Cheek by Jowl, Deborah Warner, Drum Works and Michael Clark Company. The Los Angeles Philharmonic are the Barbican’s International Orchestral Partner, the Australian Chamber Orchestra are International Associate Ensemble at Milton Court and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra are International Associate Ensemble.  

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About Spektrix
Spektrix is the leading provider of cloud-based ticketing, marketing and fundraising software for the arts. Founded in London in 2007, Spektrix now helps more than 375 organisations in the UK, Ireland, US and Canada to provide a simple and intuitive ticketing journey to end customers. Sophisticated, real-time analytics and marketing tools allow arts marketers to be truly responsive to audiences, build deeper customer relationships and grow revenue streams.  Customers include the Barbican Centre, Nederlander Theatres in London’s West End, Town Hall and Symphony Hall Birmingham, the Bristol Old Vic, Round House theatre in Washington DC, and the Luminato Festival in Toronto.  For more information please visit www.spektrix.com. 
 
*Barbican Review 2017/18

http://sites.barbican.org.uk/review1718/ 
 

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