Community Is the Killer App: Human Connection & Growth at TLCC 2026

A period-instrument orchestra relocates to a working-class public school, teams up with student street dancers, and suddenly Bach becomes a sold-out, standing-ovation collaboration. That real story, “Breaking Bach,” is our jumping-off point for a bigger question: how do arts and culture organizations grow by shrinking the distance between the stage and the street?

We’re recording live at the 2026 Tessitura Learning and Community Conference near Washington, DC, with returning guest Andrew Recinos, President and CEO of Tessitura. We talk about what arts leaders are feeling right now: ongoing uncertainty, higher costs, and more careful consumer spending, plus the surprising optimism that shows up when creative teams commit to new ways of working. Andrew lays out why “community” can’t just be a department or a calendar of one-off events. When it becomes the mission, it changes fundraising, relevance, and the story people tell about who the arts are for.

We also revisit technology for live experiences: ticketing, customer service, and the temptation to automate away the very human moments that build loyalty. We get honest about AI ethics, bias, environmental impact, and what it means to innovate with integrity. We wrap up with a lightning round of 2027 growth opportunities, from immersive and interactive experiences to finding “shadow audiences,” measuring wellness benefits, and having the discipline to say no.

Subscribe for more conversations on fandom, audience engagement, and the future of live events, then share this with a colleague and leave a review. What’s one way your organization could reduce distance and build real belonging?

Recorded Tuesday, August 5th, 2026
Host: Peter Yagecic, Founder, A Mind at Work Consulting
Guest: Andrew Recinos, President and CEO, Tessitura
Lightning Round Guests: 
Fernando Masterson, Director of Marketing, New York City Center
Toni Garcia, Marketing Coordinator, The San Francisco Symphony
Brad Dunn, Vice President of Marketing & Communications, Lyric Opera of Chicago
Matt Zarracina, CEO & Co-Founder, True Tickets
Parker Krug, Director of Partner Development - Broadway, EBG
Jill Robinson, CEO & Owner, TRG Arts
Producer: Heather Gault, Event Operations Manager, Situation

https://situationinteractive.com
https://amindatworkconsulting.com
https://www.tessitura.com

Transcript

Live From TLCC In DC

Peter Yagecic 0:04

You're listening to Fandom Unpacked from Situation, recording live from the Tessitura Learning and Community Conference at National Harbor, just outside DC. This is the series where we unpack modern fandom with some of the brightest minds in sports and entertainment. I'm Peter Yagecic, and our guest today is the president and CEO of Tessitura, Andrew Recinos. Andrew, in our two years that we've been doing this podcast, you are our first official return guest. So welcome back and thank you for making the time during what I'm sure is one of your busiest weeks of your year.

Andrew Recinos 0:39

Well, I am uh I'm honored and flattered to be the the first uh the first two-peat. Is it like it's at five with SNL where you can do that? Yeah, you'll get a jacket at five.

Peter Yagecic 0:48

Yeah.

Andrew Recinos 0:49

All right. I'll I'll keep a lookout for that. But no, I'm happy to be here. Um I will always have time for fandom unpacked and for situation, even if it is truly the busiest week of the of the year for us. Yeah.

Peter Yagecic 0:58

Well, we we are certainly grateful for that time. And I I really want to catch up on some of the things that we touched on a year ago when we had you on the podcast. And I want to ask you about your what was a really fantastic keynote yesterday morning. Um I really, really loved it. Um, but before we do any of that, I just would love to know what are you hearing in the hallways of the Gaylord Convention Center that tells you where arts and culture leaders are right now.

Andrew Recinos 1:24

Yeah,

Where Arts Leaders Are Right Now

Andrew Recinos 1:25

that's a great question. I think that um, you know, for a lot of the performing arts, this is this is kind of the downtime, right? A lot of times the seasons end in in May or June. And this is sort of the time of reflection and getting ready for the for the kind of for the school year. Um, and so I think it's an interesting time because people are a little more reflective. They're not necessarily in the hurly burly of a show every night. Um, and I think that my sense is they've they've they've settled kind of into a groove of of you know volatility and uncertainty and all of that. You know what I mean? Like um there's sort of a just an acceptance of kind of where we're at, you know. Inflation is continuing to to hit costs, and uh, you know, consumers are being a little bit more discerning about when they're spending their discretionary income or making donations. So things are not any easier than they were a year ago. Um, but I feel like, you know, since COVID, and then, you know, name your list of things that have happened, there's almost kind of a an acceptance and not a grim acceptance, right? It's not just like, you know, nose to the grindstone, just let's let's try to get through it. I think um I'm also seeing all sorts of interesting sort of bright spots and and rays of light where people are just sort of figuring out new ways of doing things um and adjusting to the situation, which is which is what creative people do, right?

Peter Yagecic 2:55

Yeah. Well, and and glad to hear that it's not all just resignation, but that there is optimism in there as well. Um

Making Community The Main Mission

Peter Yagecic 3:03

I want I want to talk a little bit about your keynote address that you kicked off uh the event yesterday morning. You you talked a lot about how arts and culture organizations should really focus on community uh and then how that can be fundamental in changing their story. Why is that something that you think your members need to hear right now?

Andrew Recinos 3:23

Well, I mean, this is a theme that that I come back to a lot and at Tessatura comes back to a lot, as you know, Peter, from being here and and having been here um at prior conferences as well. Community is the sort of the killer app of Tessatura, right? Um And so I guess it's because it's in the DNA of our company, we also think about it in terms of how our member organizations interface with their with their patrons. And the the theory of the case, and this is not just sort of Andrew's theory, this is um reading how uh sort of how the history of culture has happened over time or how culture exists in different kinds of um lowercase sea cultures, that in a lot of cultures around the world, there actually isn't a word for the arts. It is it is just part of life. It's we dance or we sing or we tell stories or we we you know we make visual um representations of things. And there's sort of the the grand Western kind of age of enlightenment culture where, you know, for the longest time, musicians and the people who were members of the audience were kind of one and the same, or maybe they were separate, but they were all on the same floor. But then you got the literal, you know, stage, right, which suddenly made this physical barrier. You had the museum where suddenly the art was sort of behind these big stone walls. And I think uh, and there's lots of wonderful reasons for that, and that it's incredible to have the experiences in these, in these venues. But I think it also created a distance that um that worked for a long time, but but as our world has gotten a lot different, I think that people are craving the the reduction of that distance more and more. Um, and so I've noticed that when organizations start prioritizing the word community and their mission and their vision and their work, and not just, oh, and by the way, we have some community events or we do a couple education things, but that they make it central to who they are. Um, I've watched those organizations thrive as a result. And so in this talk, I just strung together a couple of different organizations that really seem to have embodied that um to really pretty transformational effect.

Peter Yagecic 5:45

Yeah, I I remember you talked about theater squared. I think and and the redesign of their space. One of the things you mentioned was that their performance space now had a giant window that let the odd the people walking by on the street get a little bit of a glimpse of what was in there. And I think that speaks to kind of breaking down some of those barriers that you were just alluding to.

Andrew Recinos 6:06

Yeah, yeah. Theater squared, their rehearsal studio looks out onto the looks out onto the street. So the community walking by can literally see their work in progress. I mean, you see that, like maybe the best example of that is um Dizzy's Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center, right? I mean, that was decades ago that they decided to have that huge open window so that you can actually see the performances happening there on Columbus Circle. But but yeah, I mean it is. You're right. It's that's the physical embodiment of this is not this sort of h hallowed temple of art and only the, you know, the special people can see it.

Peter Yagecic 6:38

Well,

Designing Spaces That Feel Open

Peter Yagecic 6:39

well, just to go a little bit deeper on the stories that you shared yesterday. I mean, the last time you were on mic with us, you warned against treating audiences or fans like an ATM. And you you made the case for moving from a transactional mindset to more of a relational one. And and can you share one, whether it's the Theater Squared or one of the other examples you talked about yesterday, can for our podcast audience who wasn't there, can you share one of the examples that you brought up in your keynote?

Andrew Recinos 7:06

Yeah,

Moving An Orchestra Into A School

Andrew Recinos 7:07

absolutely. Um, you know, the one that I'll share, I should start by saying this is an organization that's never had a transactional mindset. So this is more about leaning even more into an already relational mindset. So there's um, so twice on this podcast, I'm going to reference the Age of Enlightenment, which is interesting. Um there is a wonderful, small but but very well established and and famous um orchestra called the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. They're based in London. Um and they are an original instruments ensemble, which means that they they perform work on instruments that that would have been the instruments that had they were originally performed on, right? So if it's Bach, it is the kinds of violins that existed in the early 1700s. Um and so it's a niche, right? Like this is not like mass market, nor do they want to be. But it's also the sort of thing original instrument, sort of Baroque Bach music is can be stereotyped as elitist. And in fact, you know, if if if they were to look at kind of the kinds of people who who join them or or come to their concerts um or give money to them, um, it's probably more of a certain stereotype. And they didn't want, I mean, they're they they love that, but they wanted to be, you know, they wanted to broaden their they wanted to have a bigger tent, I guess I would say. And they had this this opportunity slash problem that they had to deal with, where they had these, their, their offices were in this quite posh corporate central London building, and the rent went up by like a lot, and they had to decide whether they were gonna just, you know, deal with the rent or go find somewhere cheaper to live. And their their chief exec, uh Crispin Woodhead, sort of figured out a way to to um solve two problems at the same time because he has he had a friend who was a head teacher of a of a working class uh uh high school, secondary school, as they call it, in in North London. And this particular high school had extra space lying around that they were willing to rent relatively cheap. And so they were like, well, it's a lot less expensive and it's in the heart of, you know, just regular London. It's not posh London. And so they moved the orchestra into a high school, into a secondary school, comprehensive school, as they call it, and into like two of the classrooms that weren't being used. I've been there a couple of times. It is literally, you know, you have to like get security and wear a badge and be escorted and like, and it's just it's just kids, right? Except it's kids, and then there's like, you know, um couperon playing from the assembly hall because they're rehearsing in there. So suddenly they were making sort of connections with the students and with the teachers and with the students' parents and with the community itself. They were hosting community events at the school where just the folks from the community came. And they're creating these friendships and these and and all of these things. But the thing that that really sort of brought down the house was there's a dance program at the school. And the this the students are are most of them are street dancers, right? Break dancers, as I would have called them in my it back in my day. Um, and these students are amazing. Like you see the the video and they're just like so facile. Um, and Crispin, the the CEO, one day he was like, he went to the kids during COVID and he was like, you know, do you fancy dancing with the orchestra? And, you know, they sort of gave him, you know, gave him a hard time a little bit, but they decided to try something and and they kind of got into it. So then he brought in a choreographer, a very famous choreographer, Kim Branstrup. Um, they started working together, and they're like, they're we're actually making something. Like, this isn't this is no longer just like an exercise. And they ended up creating a whole program um that they debuted at the Edinburgh Festival last summer called Breaking Bach. It was like brought down the house, sold out, incredible reviews in The Guardian and The Observer, and it was all these students dancing to Bach. But the, the, the rhythms and the complexity of Bach actually really matched the breakdance. So, all of this to say, when you think about relational, um, we're we're talking about an organization that has become part of the community. And not just the orchestra that's in our community, but the orchestra that's performing with our kids while they're showing their own talent, uh, which one might think has nothing to do with the music that was written in the early 1700s, and yet they've created something brand new that wouldn't have happened before. And had they not left their posh offices in central London, this wouldn't have happened. So when I talk about changing your story, they made an intentional decision to change their story from sort of, you know, this ensemble uh that was really, you know, maybe more for an elite audience to an ensemble that was for everybody. Um, they've tripled their fundraising. Um, they're the darling of the uh Arts Council England, which is the big funder over there. Um, it's it's completely changed who they are as as an organization, and yet it hasn't changed what they play. Like their core, playing early music on original instruments, hasn't changed. Everything else has changed.

Damian Bazadona 12:31

Hey

A Quick Message From Situation

Damian Bazadona 12:32

guys, Damien here. I just want to take a quick moment to say if you're enjoying this podcast right now, odds are you're in the business of selling live experiences. 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 based 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.

Tech That Removes Friction

Peter Yagecic 13:12

Um well, I want to pivot a little bit. Uh, there are at the conference, there are a lot of technologists here because I think you know you are a technology company. Um, and one of the strongest ideas that we talked about a year ago was that technology shouldn't replace meaningful human interaction. Um, it should remove the frustrations, for sure, uh, but but hopefully it's making room for more meaningful, meaningful ones. I think you used the example of the box office, you know, let's automate the the things that people call the box office for that can be answered by technology, but then create space for those conversations about, you know, what did you think of the new Lloyd Weber? Um, you know, to to create room for that real human interaction. Where do you think the industry is getting that balance right today, 12, 13 months later? And where is it still at risk of losing human connection?

Andrew Recinos 14:09

It's a funny sort of conference, the Tessatura conference, because it is a technology conference. Um and so there's a great sort of celebration of the importance of tech, but also an understanding that tech isn't primary, nor should it be. You know, I think that there are plenty of tech conferences or tech schools of thought that you hear about in Silicon Valley where tech is the most important thing. And tech is is a wonderful thing, but at this conference it's not the most important thing. And so I think the the balance continues to be um, you know, what we talk about is reducing the mundane work and increasing the virtuous work. Um and for so many of our members, the virtuous work is goes back to the community, is are you sp are you able to spend more time in community? Are you able to spend more time making that human connection? Um arts and culture is ultimately a communal art form, right? It's a communal life form, I guess. I mean, we saw that during COVID, like how the arts and culture sector just kind of ground to a halt for a minute there, because it's like your whole reason for being is gathering people to have a shared experience. Um so you know, I would continue to say, um, you know, technology is there to elevate humanity. Um, and we're continuing to see that.

Peter Yagecic 16:18

Do you ever have to have conversations where you are arguing for technology to continue to do that, help the humans do that virtuous work? Because I think sometimes the temptation is to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Um, no data centers anywhere versus a smart community-informed construction of data centers that will help the humans be elevated.

Andrew Recinos 16:48

Yeah. I

AI Ethics And Environmental Tradeoffs

Andrew Recinos 16:49

mean, yeah, when you get into AI and and and um the data centers and the sort of ethical, responsible use of AI, um, knowing that as quickly as it's changing and as fast as you know, just the the insane amount of money that's being piled in um to capital to to build out the really the infrastructure for AI. Um I can understand why people recoil at that. And in fact, um I teach a class at Indiana University, an adjunct class on digital um for arts and culture students. And and you know, this summer I taught the class. And there's, you know, most of these are sort of Gen Z students, master students, um, very well informed, um and and just aren't having it when it comes to AI because they're looking at their future um and the environmental impact. And they're looking at the bias that's that's inherent in AI, and they're looking at um these data centers that are often going into neighborhoods of of people who don't have um the ability to protect themselves because you know of their economic situation. Uh and so there is there is a lot of problem behind this, right? Like, and and we can't ignore that, or we can't sort of pat it on the head and say, but yeah, look at all the good stuff it's doing. I think you do have to figure out how to reconcile it and balance it. Um and so, you know, I'll just talk about Tessatura for a minute. Like at our company, um, we have an ongoing um couple of of governance committees right now that are really sort of doing doing this hard work with our team because we have plenty of members of our team, even though we're a tech company, who absolutely get the benefit and appreciate the benefit, but also want to make sure that we're doing this in a responsible way. So um I think it's an interesting balance because you can't, it is in our mission to provide continually innovated technology. Um and so we are at at the same time, we are really gung-ho about AI, AI. Um, and we just came out of the tech keynote where they were talking a lot about AI. We are also you know doing the hard work and having the hard conversations on how can we do this and you know, sleep at night and and you know, and live, live with integrity.

Peter Yagecic 19:18

So yeah. What do you tell your students at the end of the course or throughout the course?

Andrew Recinos 19:26

Um, I listen a lot, right? Like I I can't tell them how to feel about this. Um and I think the thing that I've come to understand that's different about AI than any other technology that that, you know, and and you're probably younger than me, Peter, but like, you know, I remember the internet, like when the internet boom happened or or even, you know, the PC era started. Uh those were much less sort of moral kinds of things, you know? It was like when PCs came, it was just like it's the next technology after typewriters or whatever. Um this one is this one has such a sort of a visceral and emotional and moral component to it. Um, you know, some of the students are like, we just won't use it. And I'm not gonna tell them they can't. I I will remind them in their in a class called digital, you know, and so they're gonna learn about it. But um I won't tell them to get over it or, you know, um, I think that we each have to make our own decision there.

Peter Yagecic 20:29

Yeah, what when I'm lucky enough to speak to students about this topic, I encourage them to ask really hard questions. It's not all about the enthusiasm. And I encourage them to write the rule book that that they are the leaders of the future and and the decisions will be made in a way that is that has to take into account the people that are asking hard questions about it. I I am I am old enough to remember when some of those technologies first came in. I think what's different about this one is it's happening professionally and personally at the same time. Yeah. With the internet, it kind of started in the offices first and then worked, everyone got broadband at home later with social media the other way around. Yeah. This is one that's hitting us everywhere all at once. And I think that's causing some dissonance.

A Quick Message From A Mind At Work

Damian Bazadona 21:18

Yeah. Hey guys, Damien 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 Yajistic, 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.

Why In Person Still Wins

Peter Yagecic 22:03

I I want to talk a little bit about this conference, this amazing show that you've put on. Um, a conference like this doesn't just happen. Uh it takes a lot of hard work from a lot of dedicated humans, a community of humans over many, many months. What is an in-person gathering like TLCC uniquely able to unlock that online community, which is very strong in Tessatura, just can't do? Why why gather in person?

Andrew Recinos 22:32

Uh it's a great question, and thank you. Yeah, we're uh the the team that puts this together is is amazing. Um and you said, I mean, you mentioned the community. Like, you know, we have a team dedicated to this conference, and then we have a you know part of many of our team members, whether they're presenting here or they're moderating, or they're preparing content, or they're at the sort of solution center or they're helping out with um, you know, individual meetings on on learning more about Tessatura. Um, and then there's the community members themselves who are delivering a lot of the content. Like, you know, a good portion of these presentations are given by the members themselves. They prepare them, they rehearse them. Um, the volunteer lift here, I mean, it's gotta be hundreds of people. I guess as a virtual company, you know, Tessatura is fully virtual. Um I think it it's a bit of an analogy. So almost all of the work of Tessatura is done over Teams or Zoom or Slack or email. Um, but when members of the team do get together, and we do, like we don't necessarily get the whole team together, but we get groups of the team together. We we find that our level of productivity and creativity goes up, you know, exponentially. Because there are just, I mean, we are social creatures, right? Like humans are not meant to be, you know, a barnacle on the bottom of a rock. Everything about us is social. And so there's something physiological about being in the same room with somebody where you the level of conversations, I think the random interactions, right? Like if you get on a on a Teams call, you know who's gonna be there and you know what you're gonna talk about. Yeah, right. When you sit down at lunch at the conference and you're from a science center, and you sit down next to somebody from a ballet company, and it turns out that you both are trying to figure out a group sales thing, and suddenly the ballet company learns how the science center does group sales and it blows their mind, like that would probably never have happened, right? It just and and it's only because I happen to sit down at this table, because it was closest to, you know, the the win, the the front door or whatever. So I think the random, the random professional development. Um and the other thing that I've learned about this community, which is going to come as no surprise because this is a community of arts and culture people. This is a this is a group of people who love to celebrate. They love to celebrate each other. They love to celebrate the software at the band. You know, we have a rock band that will be performing tomorrow night, um, and they will be singing songs about the software, and everyone will be screaming along. Um, and that's something that we tried it. I mean, we did our best during COVID to replicate it online, but there's just nothing like it. They like to celebrate when, you know, somebody has a great question. Um, the amount of applause and cheering that just goes on in in any random session um is something that's really hard to replicate. And I'll I'll I'll sort of finish this line by saying, kind of going back to the very first question, at a time when there's just so much hard stuff going on at these organizations or in the world, depending on your worldview, um, being able to come to a place with, you know, kind of birds of a feather, other arts and culture people, and celebrate the good. Um I just hear, you know, we just hear it again and again from folks that it just fills them up. Like it just gets them ready um to go back and and do great things.

Peter Yagecic 26:03

Well,

One Commitment To Take Home

Peter Yagecic 26:04

you've teed up my last question for you perfectly. Um, and and I think the the idea of giving people a place to celebrate together is so so needed and so important. As everyone leaves the conference uh on Thursday, Wednesday night, Thursday morning, and and returns to their organizations where they're facing some very real financial staffing, audience pressures. What what is one commitment that that you hope they carry home, not simply as tessatory users, but as leaders who are responsible for nurturing fandom and connection of people with culture.

Andrew Recinos 26:42

I mean, I would say you are not alone. You know, I mean, I think that's the most important thing. That if they didn't know it when they got here, they know when they leave that they're not alone in this.

Peter Yagecic 26:56

I love it. Andrew, it's been great. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. Total pleasure, Peter. Thank you so much.

Heather Gault 27:05

And now

Lightning Round For 2027 Growth

Heather Gault 27:06

for a special lightning round edition of Fandom Unpacked from the 2026 Tessatura Learning and Community Conference in Washington, D.C. We invited leaders, innovators, and change makers from across the arts and culture sector to take a break from their busy conference schedule and share their predictions for the single biggest growth opportunity for live experiences in 2027. Now we're serving up the best insights back to back, from audience immersion and social prescription to uncovering shadow audiences, human connection, and the transformative power of saying no. Let's dive in.

Fernando Masterson 27:40

Hello, hello. My name is Fernando Masterson. I am the director of marketing at New York City Center. I use this acronym TIA of like if something is tangible, interactive, and accessible, then people are going to be naturally going to want to engage with it. There has always, or there is, especially lately, this obsession with like capturing Gen Z or bringing young audiences into our spaces. Young audiences seem to really respond to art, to cultural experiences that are interactive in some way, shape, or form. The word immersive gets thrown around a lot, but experiences that are going to be able to like put the audience right in the thing in a way that they can maybe become the maker of the thing, I think, are gonna be the thing to profit.

Toni Garcia 28:21

My name is Toni Garcia. I'm the marketing coordinator at the San Francisco Symphony. At the San Francisco Symphony, we have some very exciting news that we recently shared with the music director Destinate. Her name is Alim Chan. She's one of the first women to lead an orchestra, especially of the San Francisco stature and size. And one of the reasons why Alim is a great pick for the San Francisco Symphony is she does this great thing where she turns around on the podium and she interacts with the audience and she gets the audience engaged and involved. You're giving a voice literally to what you're about to witness. Everyone is in a shared moment of engagement listening. You smile and you laugh with the person that you came with. It's just a very human thing.

Brad Dunn 29:06

It's connection. My name is Brad Dunn. I'm the vice president of marketing and communications at Lyric Opera Chicago. I think the differentiator for opera is that there's not a lot of places. It's the symphony world and the opera world where you can hear a piece of music performed by 50 or 60 musicians, right? And then the power of the live voice. And so the opportunity to tell stories using those assets, but perhaps not always in the traditional art form, is a great way to bring new people into the house to experience that musicianship and that level of singing and storytelling through it. The biggest one was our collaboration with Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins. He wanted to take Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness and turn it into a sort of operafied work of art. And so we worked with him and an arranger and uh turned 10, 11, 12 tracks from that album into this really gorgeous piece of operatic music. And it was beautiful. I think it was a great way of showing how more sophisticated rock and roll compositions can actually lend themselves to the art form.

Matt Zarracina 30:16

My name is Matt Zarracina. I'm the CEO,

Finding The People You Do Not Know

Speaker 8 30:17

co-founder of True Tickets. When you look at the vast majority of venues in this space, they know one out of three people coming through the door. How do you compete in an attention economy when digital service providers, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Apple TV, know 90 to 99% of the people engaging with their content? And so when you have a full house of, let's say, 100 people, 85% of those people are just trying you out. It's the 15%, the superactive, the active that are coming back that they represent, you know, they are 10, 20, 30, 40 X of your values.

Parker Krug 30:54

My name is Parker

Proving The Wellness Value Of Arts

Parker Krug 30:55

Krug. I am the director of partner development for the Broadway Lane at EBG. There's just so much going on. And even the keynote was talking a lot about how we can understand arts and culture and the well-being benefits that come from attending it. There's so much that people have been investigating with the people that are on stage, right? The musicians, the actors, and the creators, and how that kind of affects us internally, right? What is that biometric change because of the positive impacts that participation in the arts can do? I think there's so much there that we can actually begin to quantify and try to really understand the wellness. Because as we look at funding, where things are coming from, how the arts is integrated in our community post-pandemic and with all technology that's going on, it's really exciting to be able to maybe find a way to really hone in on that data understanding and arts and medicine in general, almost in a preventionary measure, right? As we look at these changes. That's what's really exciting. Cause there's also a lot of studies from child development. That's a big thing. Make sure they have arts, make sure creativity and all of that stuff is engaged. But then you finish high school, you go to college. If you don't go into the arts, how do we get you back into that idea?

Jill Robinson 32:08

My

Growth Comes From Saying No

Jill Robinson 32:09

name is Jill Robinson, and I'm the CEO and owner of TRG Arts. If you set your sights on a destination that you can describe, put a story around, create a narrative around, and then begin to act toward, you can create something that's quite different. The nonprofit mindset can frustrate and challenge the results that they get. And the things that I see about that are every stakeholder is important. I have to satisfy every single person. I can't say no. If you don't say no, you are scattered and you can't focus and you don't get the kind of impact or results that you want. The opportunity for growth is in saying no. It's so counterintuitive. For my business too. I mean, it's like the hardest thing to do to say, I'm not going to do these two things, or I'm going to pause doing these three things in favor of doing something that will enable us to be our best at this thing. And I have never felt as strongly about the need for that in small business creative, commercial, and nonprofit arts and creatives than now. Because the instinct when you're when things feel insecure is to do everything. And the ones that really succeed say three things. We're going to do really well. And we're going to focus on that so that we can build the engine that can fuel exploration.

Heather Gault 33:35

Whether

More Human More Connected Future

Heather Gault 33:36

it's inviting audiences to become active participants, better understanding the people in our venues, demonstrating the measurable impact of the arts, or having the discipline to focus on what matters most, one thing is clear. The future of live experiences is becoming more human, more intentional, and more connected. We'll see you next time on Fandom Unpacked.