Success Story | How Theatre Under the Stars Resolved its CRM Challenges

Theatre Under the Stars is a non-profit organization providing musical theatre to the Houston area. The organization’s mission includes “enriching lives through innovative musical theatre, inclusive educational curriculums and dynamic community engagement.” The theatre produces or presents around six musical each season in their home at The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.

In the fall of 2021, like so many organizations, Theater Under the Stars had gone through significant staffing changes. After a lengthy closure, staff were re-learning how to operate the theatre and re-evaluating procedures that had long been routine. Michael Gepner, then the newly minted Director of Marketing and Communications, reached out to JCA Arts Marketing with an eye towards an analysis of the organization’s demand-based pricing strategies. Michael was interested in doing an analysis of the organization’s discounting practices, as well as implementing a dynamic pricing strategy.

However, before adding new tools to the toolbox, staff at Theatre Under the Stars recognized that they first needed to ensure that they were using their existing tools to the fullest. The organization had implemented Tessitura only a few years prior, and with the interruption of the pandemic, staff were not fully versed in how they should, or even could, be using the system in their day-to-day work. So, before beginning any work on pricing, Theatre Under the Stars decided to undertake the work to help their staff be more effective in their use of Tessitura.

In early 2022, the JCA Arts Marketing team began a discovery process to understand how Theatre Under the Stars was using Tessitura, and to identify areas where additional training or process changes would be beneficial. That led to the creation of a training plan that focused at first on the box office and audiences services. JCA Arts Marketing spent several months working with the Theatre Under the Stars box office team to ensure they were comfortable and confident with all Tessitura-related procedures. Training with the box office was followed by similar trainings with marketing, development, and finance staff.

By the fall of 2022, Theatre Under the Stars was much more effective in the ways they were using Tessitura, and no longer required regular meetings with their JCA Arts Marketing consultant. But, not wanting to jump into the deep end on their own, decided to continue the engagement via a retainer, so that as questions arise, JCA Arts Marketing is only an email or phone call away.

Now, with CRM challenges resolved, Theatre Under the Stars is ready to tackle their pricing goals. They are just beginning the process of installing the RMA, which will provide a new level of sophistication to their revenue management practices and aid in the updates to pricing and dynamic pricing they originally set out to accomplish. JCA Arts Marketing looks forward to continuing our relationship with Theatre Under the Stars, and can’t wait to see their future successes!

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