How Carnegie Hall Balances Legacy, Innovation, and Fans

Ever wondered how a legendary stage keeps pace with a hundred different audiences at once? We sit down with Carnegie Hall’s Chief Marketing Officer, Sara Villagio, to explore how a 135-year-old institution stays agile, relevant, and deeply human while serving fans who arrive through classical subscriptions, education programs, global tours, and once-in-a-lifetime occasions. From a rebrand that landed quietly and confidently to a St. Patrick’s Day concert reframed as New York’s signature celebration, Sara shares how the team thinks in both seasons and sprints.

We talk about real-world friction and the quirks that make the Hall beloved: scaling digital ticketing while fans still request printed stubs as souvenirs, navigating a multi-door lobby to the breathtaking reveal of Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, and the storied climb to the balcony that becomes a rite of passage. Sara explains why education and social impact initiatives are designed to help people solve real problems first, not as a pipeline to paid audiences, expanding what “success” means beyond ticket counts and revenue. She also pulls back the curtain on festivals that blend fandoms, like Nuestro sonidos, where reggaeton, salsa, and orchestral programs lived side by side and invited discovery across genres.

On the data and technology front, we dig into practical AI: using Microsoft Copilot to synthesize customer feedback and surface fixable pain points fast; speeding creative edits with transparent, consent-driven tools; and opening the archives with an agent that answers repertoire questions. And yes, we get into subscriptions; why fixed packages spiked thanks to the Ring Cycle, how seat loyalty still matters, and where Create Your Own fits when demand is high. Along the way, you’ll hear stories of first dates turned decades-long marriages, box office lines that feel uniquely New York, and the words that best capture the room’s charge: electric, magical, powerful, moving.

If this conversation sparked ideas, follow Fandom Unpacked, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review. Your support helps more curious fans find the show.

Recorded Monday, March 2nd, 2026
Hosts: Damian Bazadona, CEO & Founder, Situation & Meghan Goria, Account Group Director of Arts & Culture, Situation
Guest: Sara Villagio, Chief Marketing Officer, Carnegie Hall
Producer: Peter Yagecic, Founder, A Mind at Work

https://situationinteractive.com
https://intix.org
https://amindatworkconsulting.com

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Peter Yagecic 0:04

You're listening to Fandom Unpacked from Situation and INTIX, the podcast series where we unpack modern fandom with some of the brightest minds in sports and entertainment. I'm producer Peter Yagecic, and joining me for today's QA from Situation, our CEO and founder Damian Bazadona, and Account Group Director for Arts and Culture, Meghan Goria. INTIX President Maureen Andersen is away this week on jury duty, but she's going to be back with us next time. Damian and Meghan, great to see you as always. Great to see you, Peter.

Damian Bazadona 0:31

Great to see you, Peter.

Defining Carnegie Hall Fandom

Peter Yagecic 0:32

I am also very excited to welcome our guest today, Chief Marketing Officer for Carnegie Hall, Sara Villagio. Sara, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us on Phantom Unpacked. Thanks for having me. So, Damian, as the old saying goes, practice is the best way to get to Carnegie Hall. How about you get us started?

Damian Bazadona 0:50

Sara, thank you for spending time with us today. You're sitting at the helm of marketing of one of the most iconic cultural institutions in the world. At the highest level, and this is not an easy question. At the highest level, how do you define Carnegie Hall fandom?

Sara Villagio 1:09

Well, that's one of the hardest questions I think you could ask because there are so many different kinds of Carnegie Hall fans. You might describe a subscriber who's been coming here for decades only to hear keyboard concerts or orchestras from all over the world, or you might describe somebody who only comes here for education programs, or you might describe someone who's never actually stepped foot in Carnegie Hall because the only way they know us is from a teacher, you know, using our name and curriculum all over the country. So yeah, I think that's a really tough question to answer.

Damian Bazadona 1:43

Given on any any day of the week, there's an entirely different genre of entertainment in that space that you're that you have to market and you have a lot of seats to sell. I'm just curious, like in in terms of what is the a day in the life of the marketing team there of how you guys are thinking about reaching new audiences given it's churning so quickly.

Rebrand: What Changes And What Stays

Sara Villagio 2:03

Well, it's definitely some level of controlled chaos because we have to be ready to change at every single moment to respond to the next upcoming need. So I think it's it's it's both proactive and reactive because some things take off when you're least expecting it, and other things need a lot more time and attention. So something we're working on right now is launching our first ever St. Patrick's Day concert. It's going to be an incredible evening with Martin Hayes and the Common Ground Ensemble on St. Patrick's Day in New York City. And we had to really put our hats on for this one. How do we reach the people who are interested in celebrating St. Patrick's Day at Carnegie Hall, which will be the signature event of the evening of St. Patrick's Day? But um, I'll say one thing we did was actually change, change our marketing to really focus on the holiday itself. And then it started behaving more like a holiday concert, which has been fascinating. So yeah, it's a little bit of change every single day and being ready to pivot.

Damian Bazadona 3:05

I don't think people realize. I don't think people realize the amount of the speed and the change. That's a good example. It's not like you go, well, let's look at all the other St. Patrick's events that we've done. Like you have to sort of do create it on the fly. I have great admiration for it. Um, Meghan.

Meghan Goria 3:19

I'm really curious because we talk to a lot of legacy brands and uh, you know, organizations that have been around for a hundred years and they're really trying to balance that legacy with innovation. So I'm curious when you're looking at Carnegie Hall's history, how do you decide what is sacred and what is is up for change? I mean, you recently had a massive rebrand of your visual identity and the way that you talk about yourselves as as an institution. So I'm just curious, kind of in those conversations, how do you decide what is untouchable and what is is up for reinvention?

Speaker 3:55

I mean, the most amazing thing about Carnegie Hall is that even though it's been around for 135 years, I would say this hall is eternally open to change. And that's truly represented by what's appeared on stage over the years. And something like the rebranding, I think suddenly there was a real recognition that we needed to meet the times and meet audiences where they are on different platforms. And it wasn't easy. It took us about three years to figure out, you know, what the heck we were doing with that rebranding. But one of my favorite parts about it was that when we launched it, we didn't get a ton of feedback. And that was the best, in my opinion, as a marketer, that was one of the best possible ways a rebranding could go. Because if you get too much noise in either direction, somebody might be left out in the cold. Somebody might feel disconnected from your brand. And that was one of my favorite parts about it. It meant to me that we had stayed in touch with the people who love Carnegie Hall, that we had done a good job of representing what it means to them and connected with them, but that we were now meeting contemporary audiences, newer audiences where they are. So it it was one of my favorite projects. So thanks for asking about it.

Who Gets To Be In The Room

Meghan Goria 5:12

I mean, it looks beautiful. So congratulations. And yes, no, no news is good news often when it comes to brand. So that's that's great. Um, I think that that really leads into the next thing we want to talk about, which is um, you know, we talk a lot on the show about who gets to be in the room, who is our brand for. Um, and so I'm curious how you think about broadening Carnegie Hall's audiences in terms of age, demographic, geography, all sorts of um ways that you think about welcoming new audiences into your space.

Sara Villagio 5:42

Well, that's such a good question. From the concert standpoint, you know, what's on stage every night, the three concert halls that we have here, we already talked about how the fact it can be a totally different audience every night of the week, depending on what it is. And I think people discover music whenever they need to and in so many different ways. And I think they discover a place like Carnegie Hall maybe because family's coming to town, there's a special occasion, and hopefully we start to become a part of the fabric of their lives. But that doesn't even touch uh people who might be entering quote unquote the hall through different ways. Uh, and I think a lot when you ask that question about people who participate in our education and social impact programming. And those are people all over the city, all over the country, and some programs internationally who may never come here, but have a connection to Carnegie Hall because of that work. And uh, that's one of my favorite parts about it is that Carnegie Hall itself as a brand can sort of dial up or dial down to meet that audience wherever they may be.

Meghan Goria 6:51

I love that. And it kind of gets to success beyond the bottom line of, you know, just beyond how many tickets do we sell a year, how many people, you know, pay to attend one of our concerts. But if we are welcoming new audiences, engaging with them wherever they are, that that can be a measure of success beyond just the dollars.

Sara Villagio 7:10

Absolutely. And I think one thing that Clive Gillinson, our executive and artistic director, holds very uh close is that we don't design our education and social impact programs in such a way that is meant to cultivate audiences of the future for Carnegie Hall. We design them in a way that is meant to help people solve problems in their real everyday lives or provide sustenance in a different way. And that alone is the primary purpose.

Meghan Goria 7:37

That's a that's a game changer of just switching the focus from yourself as an institution back to the person that you're trying to reach. I love that.

Sara Villagio 7:45

And I think it's really about what's best for people, not not it, not what is best for Carnegie Hall on any given day.

Friction Points From Street To Seat

Damian Bazadona 8:02

And if you don't know my team at the advertising agency situation, you most definitely should. Aside from just being an awesome group of human beings, they're a global team of professionals covering a brand base in sports, arts, theater, culture, museums, or any live experience that requires people coming together. Big, small, all shapes and sizes of brands. You can hit them up at the information below in the show notes. If you think about the journey from street to seat and all the different audiences from all the different productions that are happening, you know, I would imagine, like on any live experience, the the little pain points can add up, right, in a whole range of ways. What are the friction moments you find yourself obsessing over, trying to remove for audiences, or even things you may not be able to remove? They're just reality. Uh take us in that space.

Sara Villagio 9:00

Well, one of the first ones that we're actively working on evolving is digital ticketing, which is so however many years ago, but we just have started to expand the use of digital ticketing to a broader set of people. And someone can call the phone room now and request a digital ticket and get it sent to them via email. What a concept. Uh so I that has been long on my list, but I'll share with you that one of the surprises that I've had is that since we've introduced more digital ticketing, and all of my ticketing people out there will really love hearing this one, audiences come, ticket holders come to the box office and request hard copies of tickets that they can keep as souvenirs. And that ranges from everything people attending a performance of their, you know, granddaughter or whatnot, uh, to the Final Fantasy presentations that happen here to Grupo Nietzsche, who's an amazing salsa band that we had last year. It really runs the gamut of who's asking for that physical souvenir, but it's kind of amazing. So in my head, I'm like, okay, we did all this work to get digital ticketing off the ground, and yet people still want that paper souvenir. And my box office team is thrilled about that. So that's one pain point. The other one is just the physical experience because the lobby itself, if you've been to the hall, is sort of dark. You have to figure out which door to go in. There are many doors to go in. There's security, there's all the normal things that that you find when you enter a space like ours, but there's not a ton of public convening space when you first enter the hall because shocker, no one was thinking about that in the 1890s when Carnegie Hall was designed. But I think it can be a little bit imposing, confusing. Our Usher staff does an amazing job of welcoming people and helping them figure out where to go. But I do think there's like a darkness. And then you step into Stern Auditorium, Pearl and Stage, and you're hit with the magic of that room. So there's definitely a payoff to that experience, but it is, I think, a little bit of friction that's inconsistent with the whole experience itself. And then the last thing I'll say on this is the fact that you have to walk up the stairs to the balcony, which is like its own special trek to the top. If you've ever done it, you will see people who are really hardcore dedicated taking their time, just trudging up those stairs one by one, uh, all the way to the top. The elevator does not go up there. So we have to make sure we do a good job of communicating as best possible about the fact that the elevator doesn't reach the top level and you have you can take it only so far before you have to go up the stairs. But I think it's it's uh it's friction, but it's also things that make Carnegie Hall unique, right? And um all of these things to me, they're they're part of the quirks that I love about Carnegie Hall, um, even though they cause pain points sometimes.

Damian Bazadona 11:54

But it shows, I mean, that's that that's I guess the the gravitational pull to while people go. The fact they're going up afterwards saying, Can I please get a hard ticket? Yeah. It's kind of awesome. And not most venues can't say that. Most 99% of venues would never get that. So the fact you get that's awesome. Uh Peter, uh, do you have a listener question?

Peter Yagecic 12:12

We do, but but I do think I heard Maureen psychically from the jury room cheering the digital tickets. So I know our friends at InPix are loving, loving that innovation. Um, yeah, Sarah, I'd love to sneak in. Uh, we got a couple of audience listener questions beforehand. And this one, uh, I can tell it came from someone who's tuned in for a lot of our previous episodes. We hear from so many guests on the show uh about things that fans do that surprise them, whether it's supporters marching before soccer matches or cosplay at BroadwayCon, opera fans uh treating curtain calls like sporting events. Our listener wants to know has anything surprised you uh about Carnegie Hall audiences recently? Does a story come to mind?

Sara Villagio 12:54

Well, the paper tickets is definitely that story to me. The uh it was just never something I expected when we moved to more digital options that people would continue to want a physical ticket as a souvenir. It did not occur to me. Um, but one of the things, uh, stories I was thinking about recently is uh we had someone tag us on social media who indicated that they had won tickets to a Carnegie Hall concert through a WNYC ticket giveaway. And they chose to invite a woman on their first date to Carnegie Hall to this concert. And the gentleman shared that six weeks later they were engaged and that 35 years later they are still married. So it's not, it's surprising and it's not, right? Because I think it shows the place of occasion that Carnegie Hall can be in someone's life. But well, I'm thrilled they're still together, thank goodness. Um, but it just made me happy and reminded me that people come here to celebrate special occasions, but they also have everyday moments in this place. And that is another thing that makes Carnegie Hall really special to us. So yeah.

Peter Yagecic 14:05

Yeah, that that is a fantastic surprise. And uh and I feel like you should, you know, align with maybe some of the online dating services to for a crossover promotion.

Sara Villagio 14:16

That would be some fascinating matchmaking. Yeah.

Peter Yagecic 14:20

Uh Megan, handing it back to you.

Blending Fandoms Through Festival Programming

Meghan Goria 14:22

Sure. Um we've talked a lot about how uh, you know, it's it's that difficult balancing act of marketing lots of different kinds of artists, um, but that also means lots of different kinds of fandoms. So I'm curious what sort of um tactics you have in terms of courting so many different groups of fandoms based on your programming. And uh if you ever see any opportunities to kind of blend different fandoms together or, you know, encourage folks, nudge them towards a different type of artist that they might not have thought of before, kind of how you think about that audience-centric view given the variety of artists that you have at the venue.

Sara Villagio 15:00

I think one of the best examples we have of that is our Nuestro Sanidos Festival from a few seasons ago. And it was a season-long celebration of Latin music in the United States. Oftentimes our Carnegie Hall festivals are about a few months long at a time or even a weekend, depending on what the programming is. But what was unique about that one was that we were able to program Latin music throughout all of our so many of our presentations and so many different genres. So you might have reggaeton, you might have salsa, you might have uh classical composers. And one of my favorite examples was uh the artist Natalia LaForcade coming with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel. And our classical audience was witnessing Natalia LaForcade's genius uh alongside that of the orchestra. So that's just one example of how I think these things can blend for people. It was a unique opportunity for us to really be able to show how um prevalent this music is throughout our culture in the United States. And the other interesting thing I'll share on that is that what we see, I mean, one season we may have a lot of one particular genre because we're focusing on something, and then we may not have it the following season. So the challenge becomes how do you let someone know that there's still something here for them? And I think we do our best in that way, but what we will see is that even 10 years later, someone may come back for a certain artist or a certain genre of music. And it's it's a fascinating thing to see an audience be that captive with one particular artist loyalty, et cetera. Um, I cut Angela Kijo comes to mind for that for me. She's an amazing singer from Benin. And she comes here probably every couple of seasons, and we see her her fans following her each time. Um, so they do cross over a little bit into other things, but there's a real real fan loyalty with some of these artists as well.

Damian Bazadona 17:09

Hey guys, Damian here. If you're listening to this podcast, I'm gonna bet that you're probably thinking about how your team works and adapts right now in this new technology landscape. That's why the one person I always point people to is my co-host, right here, Peter Yajisic, and his company, a Mind at Work Consulting. They run smart, tech-infused workshops that help teams build new skills and actually put ideas into action. Peter is way too humble to brag, but I have no problems bragging for him. So if you're serious about what's next, talk to a Mind at Work Consulting. More in the show notes below.

Meghan Goria 17:51

Let's talk a little bit about the internationality of Carnegie Hall. Um, I mean, obviously you're one of the most iconic brands in New York. Um it does seem like the the audience base is primarily New York City based. Is that that's that's correct?

Sara Villagio 18:07

It is. It's it's a little bit of a mix in that our subscription base and our Carnegie Hall presents season ticket holders are very New York City-based. When you expand it to include the visiting presenters at Carnegie Hall, and I'll just add that there's about 150 or so concerts presented by Carnegie Hall in all three of our concert halls each season. And there's another several hundred events presented by the those that uh the visiting presenters, which run the gamut, and they're coming from all over the country and the world as well. So when you have high school choirs coming from Idaho, yeah, they're their fans are gonna come with them. You better believe it. Um and they fill the house, you know. So it's it's really interesting to see that. The other ones, we always have many, many new to file people when the New York String Orchestra does its annual concerts at the end of December. This is a tradition that's been going on for more than 50 years here at Carnegie Hall. One concert is Christmas Eve, the other is always December 28th. They're not holiday music, they're just wonderful classical music. And these ensembles are made up of young, uh aspiring artists who have uh auditioned for the program and been selected. But those two concerts, they're not subscription houses, and we welcome far more new people and more people from out of town than we typically do for many of our other concerts. So uh it really depends on the event. And I will add one more anecdote, which is that when um the Korean pianist Yunjin Lim showed up on our season for the first time, we saw a lot of people from South Korea subscribing. Amazing. They were ready to commit to four concerts total just to make sure they got into that one concert featuring Yun Jin Lim. So it is an interesting mix. Like everything is at Carnegie Hall.

Meghan Goria 19:59

I love that. That's actually a great segue because we do want to talk about subscriptions. Um, you know, I know that you do with such a wide variety of programming, you have a a large, um, a large offering of different kinds of subscriptions. We've seen lots of arts and culture buyers really trending more towards flexibility, um, but you somehow managed to buck the trend, it seems, with this year um seeing actually an increase in subscriptions. So I'm I'm curious if you could just talk a little bit about uh your subscription patterns and kind of how you see your audience behaving in a slightly different way in 2026.

Sara Villagio 20:33

Three words, the ring cycle. I know you can appreciate that, Megan.

Meghan Goria 20:37

I can, full disclosure, I am a Carnegie Hall ring cycle subscriber.

Sara Villagio 20:41

Yes, thank you for your support in that way.

Meghan Goria 20:42

You're very welcome.

Sara Villagio 20:44

It it has far surpassed even our wildest uh expectations uh and been really a pleasure to see that. I hope we can retain it. But I've I've already put like an asterisk on every single report I give in every single meeting where I say, it may not be like this every year, you know. Um, not to be a downer, but reality. This may be the season we have to isolate in its own trend, all because of the ring cycle. That said, though, there it's a really, really wonderful season that we have ahead for 26-27. We just announced it in early February. And it's not just the ring cycle, although that is a major driving factor. There's there are just incredible classical names appearing on the season. And uh I think it's it's our best yet, I would say, are you to say? Uh, as Clive also says, we always have to come up with something better for the year after, though. So it never stops here. Um, but with subscriptions, I think we also have uh Martha Argrich coming, who has not been here in about 10 years. She's an amazing pianist. She's appearing with Maxime Bangarov. Yun Chunlin, the famed Korean pianist, is coming four times, not just once. Uh, so there's a lot of wonderful names on the program uh for people. Um so yes, we're Seeing one of those crazy anomaly seasons where fixed packages are shooting through the roof right now. And that is not normally what I would be saying to you right now. They're healthy. We're very fortunate that they're healthy. People really retain their seats at Carnegie Hall. They love them. The seats are very important to them. That is alongside, of course, the artists and the repertoire. The seats are the reason you know people are hanging on to these subscriptions. We started Create Your Own subscriptions in around 2019, and we've seen a steady increase from that since we launched it. This year I'm not really sure what to expect because I don't know what seats will be available for Create Your Own. So if anyone's listening out there, now's the time.

Meghan Goria 22:40

Never underestimate the dedication of the opera fandom, is all I can see.

Damian Bazadona 22:53

Yeah. Well, here's hoping that your leadership team remembers the asterisk that you're putting in.

Sara Villagio 22:57

Thank you. I appreciate that. I need that.

Practical AI For Customer Insight And Ops

Damian Bazadona 23:00

Just putting it just so everyone knows, putting it in recording, just recording in your live so everybody needs to be able to do it. Document this, please. So there's uh obviously a lot of conversation happening around the use of AI and automation and marketing. And obviously you're in a mission-driven nonprofit like yours. Like, how are you guys thinking about it? How do you think about technology, whether it's enhanced, enhance, replaced, like with the idea of human connection and audiences? Take take us into that world.

Sara Villagio 23:23

Absolutely. Well, we're actually working hard on understanding how Carnegie Hall can embrace AI. And we have a policy on it that our staff uses, we disclose it to each other when we are using it for anything. But one of the things I am most proud of when it comes to AI is that our uh phone room and customer service team has started using Microsoft Copilot to crawl all customer feedback that we receive and create a report that can be sent around to decision makers, stakeholders around the organization that illuminates for us where are the pain points, what are the challenges we need to solve for, and it's reduced the manual amount of time it might have taken to compile a report like that in the past because the tool is actually the agent's crawling all of our customer feedback sources and compiling them for us. So I think that's been a game changer. It's the kind of thing that shows up and it's like, oh, we have an issue with mobile ticket delivery, or we have an issue with this kind of seat type on the website, or um, there were many people freaking out that we were advertising Verdi Requiem with the Cleveland Orchestra and there were no tickets available. Whoops, okay, we got to figure that out. You know, it just brings forward things that we may not have that might have fallen into silence otherwise. So it's been really incredible. That's one of my favorite uses. The art department's getting a lot of use out of it when you have to remove a music stand from a photograph that's in the way of somebody or um, you know, change the color on someone's tie, that kind of a thing, if we have to, all with their consent and disclosing, et cetera, et cetera. But it really saves a lot of time in that way. And personally, I think that the to me, the human touch around this can never be replaced. It still requires a person to interpret and validate all of this, but it can be a really powerful tool to enhance what a human is doing. The last thing I'll say about AI is that we did an interesting project with our archives. Uh, we partnered with a company called Stardog to set up uh an agent that can actually crawl the archives and answer questions like how many times has Aroaca been performed at Carnegie Hall? Um, there are still bugs in that, but it is out there on the internet. If anyone's interested in looking it up, there are some fascinating facts in our history that you can find. So yeah.

Damian Bazadona 25:45

That's great. Uh, Peter, I want to make sure we get another listener question in.

First-Time Magic And Box Office Lines

Peter Yagecic 25:49

Yeah, we've got one more. And uh, you know, I think this one is a callback to one of your friction points that you talked about before, Sarah. So I'll I'll just read what they wrote. Uh, I remember the first time I went to Carnegie Hall back in the 90s. I can't remember what the performance was, but I do remember the building and the feeling as I climbed the stairs to the balcony, which you talked about. Can you share the first moment that you, Sarah, thought I am a fan of Carnegie Hall, either personally or professionally?

Sara Villagio 26:15

Ooh, that's such a good question. Well, I think the first time I really felt it authentically and organically, I was working down the street at my last job, which was at Jazz and Lincoln Center, and we had done a number of concerts with Bobby McFarrin, amazing, amazing vocalist. Don't worry, be happy. That's like a mantra we can all continue to carry with us. And one of my colleagues at the time noticed that Bobby McFarn was appearing with Yo-Yo Ma at Carnegie Hall doing cello duets. I mean, Bobby McFerrin was singing. He was not performing the cello, just to be extra clear. But the two of them were coming and doing this concert, and we both thought we have to get tickets. So the day the season went on sale at Carnegie Hall, we walked two blocks to the east from our then office and got online at the box office and waited to buy tickets. And what was a long line of people waiting to buy tickets, which was just something you don't normally see, right? To see like a line of people waiting to buy tickets at a box office feels less and less common than it might have at one point. And even that at that time, it was probably 2008 or something like that. It it still was unusual to see that. And I kind of thought, wow, okay, like if this is what, you know, people are this committed, this many people are this committed to standing outside on this day and waiting for tickets to whatever it is they're purchasing. There's like some kind of magic happening here. Um, and the longer I've worked here, it's amazing. I mean, I went to the Vana Philharmonic yesterday, and you just look around the room and see people completely immersed, completely lit up. They're just really in the moment of whatever they are experiencing. So, anyway, that moment of recognizing that line of humans, just like they're not, they're not lined up waiting for, you know, the hottest coffee or shop or bakery on that they learned about on TikTok. They're they're waiting for Carnegie Hall tickets. And I'm proud to say that still happens here sometimes that people line up outside the box office to purchase tickets to whatever it is they're they're hoping to get. Um, and it's still, it's just a reminder to me how special it it actually is.

Peter Yagecic 28:34

I love that story. And and hopefully it will continue, even with the digital tickets, it'll continue to be part of the tradition for many, many years. Because yeah, it is it is one of those magical things when you walk past the hall and you see that, it just feels like, oh yeah, this is this is one of those things that you only see in New York, which is awesome. Agreed. Um, Damian, kicking it back to you to wrap us up.

Damian Bazadona 28:55

Well, I like to end on sort of the I don't know, the ex the the emotional experience of of visiting a venue, right? So so if you had to describe the energy of an amazing Carnegie Hall experience, and I recognize there's all different types of experiences, but there's something unique about watching something and seeing something in Carnegie Hall that we can all relate to. How would you describe it vividly as you can?

Sara Villagio 29:21

Electric, magical, powerful, moving. I mean, you really feel something when you're sitting in that hall that to me just cannot be replicated anywhere else. So those are the words that come to mind for me.

Closing And Calls To Action

Damian Bazadona 29:39

I agree. I feel it's important to me. I think we in one of our pre-calls, it's like you felt like it just feels like yeah, it feels I would say important, plus all those words, I suppose. Yeah. No, well, first, Sarah, A, thank you for taking the time to do this with us. Um, we're obviously all fans, we all have our stories of walking the balcony. Like, I feel like everyone that I connect to is just it's such an impressive organization. And I think it's extremely impressive the work that you specifically do, having to navigate and churn the number of audiences you churn on any given night. Uh, to you and your team, kudos, because that is not easy and you do it really well. And um, yeah, I I really appreciate you taking the time.

Sara Villagio 30:14

Thank you so much for having me. It was a really fun conversation.

Peter Yagecic 30:18

Thank you, Sarah. That is gonna do it for this episode of Fandom Unpacked. Thank you to Damien and Megan and Maureen. We miss you. We'll see you next time. If you liked what you heard today, please check out all the great QA interviews we've done at fandomunpack.com, or by searching Fandom Unpacked and following the series in your podcast, Player of Choice. We'd also love for you to rate and review the show while you're at it. That really helps us find new fans. We'll be back in your feed in a couple of weeks. I'm Peter Yigistic. See you next time, true believers.