Andrew Douglas
Any venue that has been open for 20 years and is still winning awards is doing something right. The Mesa Arts Center in downtown Mesa, Arizona, is one such place. This performing and visual arts complex boasts more than 210,000 square feet and ranks as the largest comprehensive arts campus in the state. It also will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2025 and is going into that year having just been named Best Performing Arts Center in the Phoenix New Times’ Best of Phoenix Reader's Choice Awards for 2024.
No one is prouder to be a part of these milestones than Andrew Douglas, Director of Ticketing. He describes the Mesa Arts Center as being “very connected and invested in our community. With four performing arts theaters, the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, 14 visual and performing art studios-classrooms, and an amazing architectural campus situated on seven acres, our diverse performance spaces enable us to host a wide range of events from large-scale touring productions to local children’s theater productions to festivals. In total, Mesa Arts Center hosts over 500 performances/events in our theaters, over 900 art studio classes, 10-plus contemporary museum exhibitions, and four festivals every year.”
Mesa Arts Center is owned and operated by the City of Mesa. Among its best-known venues is the 1,600-seat Ikeda Theater. The overall campus holds one of the largest Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) festivals in the Southwest; offers a Creative Aging program, which provides free experiences and engagement for adults 55 and over; and houses the award-winning PROJECT LIT program, which uses poetry, spoken word and hip hop to promote literacy among young and emerging adults.
Ikeda Theater
Ticketing such a huge complex can definitely be a challenge. Douglas says, “Sometimes it is difficult to take a moment to reflect and truly enjoy all the great artists and activities that we offer. Like so many other performing arts venues, we face the similar challenges with ticketing fraud, ticket resellers, connecting with new audiences and continuing to deliver on our mission and vision to create an arts-ignited and inspired community with meaningful arts experiences in Mesa for everyone.”
But for Douglas, the pluses far outweigh any minuses. He has personally worked with the City of Mesa and the Mesa Arts Center for more than 20 years. “I truly love how every year feels new and exciting,” he states. “There's always a new artist or new program that engages our patrons and inspires a new audience. One of my favorite and most valued memories and experiences would be that I had the opportunity to lead a collaborative effort to unify the ticketing experience across the City of Mesa’s Department of Arts & Culture and Parks & Recreations Department. This collaboration has allowed me to work closely with the Arizona Museum of Natural History [which many locals refer to as “the Dinosaur Museum”], the I.D.E.A. Museum, and the Mesa Amphitheater — an aspect of my role that has always been one of my favorites. I was able to bring my expertise in ticketing, events, membership and marketing to support these institutions in enhancing their admissions processes, events and programs.”
In terms of upcoming events that he is looking forward to ticketing, there will be the Mesa Arts Center’s 20th Anniversary Performing Live season that will welcome back some of the most popular and well-known artists the venue has ever hosted over the past two decades. The series will also include the return of the Center’s Broadway series, featuring “Come From Away”, “Dear Evan Hansen” and “The Cher Show.”
He adds, “The Mesa Arts Center Foundation Gala event will honor the visionaries, supporters and contributors whose dedication brought the Mesa Arts Center to life over the years. We will also be celebrating with a brand-new Spring Festival called ALT Fest — a celebration of art, light and technology.”
Of course, a venue can’t have been open for so long and hosted so many events and not needed some repairs, renovations and upgrades. Douglas was eager to talk about such improvements, saying, “We have renovated our theater seats across all four theater spaces, and we have focused on expanding our accessibility across campus to address neurodiversity, autism and sensory-processing disorders.”
Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum Courtyard
To this end, the Mesa Arts Center recently became a Certified Autism Center, with its staff and volunteers having gone through the rigorous process of autism certification training by the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards (IBCCES). Along with the Center, the City of Mesa became the nation’s first Autism Certified City.
Douglas says, “We have also implemented new technology to assist patrons who are deaf or hard of hearing, with Listen Everywhere — our new WiFi-assisted listening system (ALS) — now live in our theaters. This app-based system can be easily downloaded onto patrons' phones, allowing them to listen through headphones or Bluetooth-enabled hearing aids.”
Looking ahead to the next 20 years, Douglas is hopeful the Mesa Arts Center will continue to expand on its mission of creating meaningful arts experience by enhancing accessibility and serving a broader, more diverse audience. He concludes, “We aim to reach more people in our community and hope to incorporate more voices into the conversation of our programing. We look forward to expanding our capabilities with new technologies, new initiatives and new programs to keep our arts experiences accessible, while engaging and collaborating with our community.”
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