We all knew that Tessitura was the gold standard in the business. It was a quantum leap forward for us.

The inclusion of RAMP and of TNEW makes it almost like three pillars of the same stool. One is Tessitura itself, but these other pieces were the difference between being able to execute this and not. 

And it’s almost hard now to imagine the difference. We've been implemented since 2011. We're thinking about things, about innovations, about ways to organize our business, that never would have occurred to us in a previous environment. And the reason was that these hosted environments eliminated so many of the roadblocks that we would have had. I know that's the reason why they were developed: they worked, amazingly well and amazingly quickly for us. We're still figuring out everything that TNEW can do and we don't have to figure out so much of what RAMP can do. That's the difference for us. It was like instantaneously making the varsity squad, if you will. That was the key and it's an overall piece. We are sort of aware that we are part of… the group of smaller organizations, and it's easy to see the strategy that Tessitura employed to make it possible for us to do what we do and join the club. It was extremely seamlessly executed.

The other piece of it that I think is tremendously encouraging is the fact that… there's a constant sense of innovation, but also feedback, which I think is the difference between a third party hire, say if we have a contract with Verizon or somebody. The difference between that and Tessitura… is the fact that we have a voice in the innovation process. Those are game-changers. They're changing the way people think about the work that they do fundamentally.

Tessitura for small organizations

The difference for us, in part, was that we were in an environment where we were not able to deliver appropriate levels of security for customers. We also didn't think we were keeping up with the industry. And in every other way, it was clear to us that we are: what we put on stage, they're world-class artists and we’re in world-class venues and we're in a wonderful city. All of that was great but we weren't keeping up. And it was apparent that we weren't, at least to those of us who were focused on those issues.

The biggest change I think for us was that the security and the purchase path change immediately put us into a new echelon of acceptance. We had a certain percentage of our customer base who were going to the rental venues that we used to purchase their tickets rather than us. They're coming to us now. And that's one significant but only one symptom of how this process has changed the way we're regarded. And you can talk about per-ticket revenue, fees, and things like that. Those are all relevant but more than anything else it has increased the validity of our brand in the digital space.

More than anything else, [Tessitura] has increased the validity of our brand in the digital space.

TN Express Web and TN Mobile Plus

Again for us, so much of it is a question of not so much innovative processes that are unique to us or ways that we're using things that are unique, but the fact that we have put our customers in a position to be able to interact with us directly and be able to give direct feedback. There is always an alternative for a renting presenter. As I mentioned, people can go outside and interact with a box office at another venue that we're operating. The biggest difference I think is, it has made it clear, for the first time, that our brand and our digital interface with the public are aligned. The fact you can see that connection on a daily basis is a significant change in my mindset. It's very easy to lean on external presences like box offices and venues, they do rent, when they do a good job themselves. But in this case, that alignment is there and actually demands that we be responsive. And it also gives people the chance to see that we will be responsive. It's just a question of alignment of purpose and purchase path. It's the place where technology sort of creates a new reality.

N-Scan

We've begun a process of using popup venues around town and we expect to be doing a lot more of that in the coming years. We're creating a box office from scratch. N-Scan is going to play a significant role in that.  I think what I'm most excited about is to be able to do a decent data capture in our free community events. There are a lot of places within the company where we've replaced folklore with real data, and the idea that we can do that in the free ticket space is a complete game-changer as well, at least theoretically.

Most-Used Feature of the Software

I'm a big T-Stats fan. I love it. So many times you're looking at the core reports that are available, standard reports. They give you a certain level of data organized in a certain way that doesn't quite mesh with what you're interested in looking at and everybody understands that, the organization is very clear about that when you come in the door, that the standardized reports are not the answer to everything.

I wasn't quite initially prepared for how effective T-Stats was in creating the equivalent or something very like a custom report without having to create the complete superstructure for it. The fact that you can create it on the fly, use it once, use it daily. The one piece that I find that I use the most is – it's a simple thing but for me, it's enormous – I can keep track of the total value of all available tickets in any given house at any given moment and know whether we're underwater, or know where we are with regard to the potential revenue, and I know where my margins are readily. And that's a T-Stats function for me. I could have built a custom report, I still could. But T-Stats, you know, once I built it there's a beautiful little tool there. I would say I probably use it as much as anything else. When I use it, it's a critical piece of data I can't get any other way.