Enhancing Patron Experience, Revenue, and Efficiency

Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) is one of America’s most prestigious outdoor amphitheatres. Its tranquil setting draws lovers of arts, culture, and nature for performances by leading music and dance companies, concerts by Live Nation, community and education work, and much more. Eric Brower, Senior Director of Ticketing, Data, and Analytics, talked to us about the benefits of their move to Spektrix – from the positive impact on teams and audiencess, through to the efficiencies made possible by a wide choice of integrated partner solutions.

Before their move to Spektrix, the team at SPAC was spending a lot of time on repetitive tasks: exporting mailing lists to upload to Mailchimp, tracking donor notes in Excel, or waiting for custom coding before they could run even simple „buy one get one free“ incentives. Spektrix brings ticketing, fundraising, marketing, and donor data together in one connected system, so those manual steps are no longer needed.

The ticketing team got started with Spektrix quickly, and two years in they’re running a whole range of incentives, memberships, and subscriptions. The drag-and-drop offers engine is intuitive, and they save time through subscriptions that can be both purchased and redeemed online.

This gives them the flexibility to mix and match offers for different strands of their programme. For chamber music concerts in the Little Theater, there’s a fixed series subscription; for regular visitors there are year-long memberships; and to drive reattendance, there are multi-buy discounts for customers buying for three events or more.

In year three, they plan to keep growing audiences‘ understanding of what’s available, aiming to further increase reattendance through audience segmentation. Easy access to system reports on desktop and mobile will help them track and report on sales at every step – connecting day-to-day activity to longer-term audience relationships. As Eric says:

„I can do anything in Spektrix on my cell phone that I can do on the computer. It’s great to log in and be able to pull a report if I’m out of the office.“

They’ll also create more touchpoints to remind audiences about relevant events and offers, including targeted cross-selling in the purchase path and special promotions designed for Community Programm participants.

A major factor in the move to Spektrix was the need for better software for the development team. Previously, donor notes and records of pledges were managed in Excel, and only added to the system when a payment was made – meaning paid and unpaid pledges were tracked in different places, a confusing and inefficient system.

„We love the Opportunities interface and the pipeline where you can move people between stages easily and see where everybody’s at. That’s been a huge help for us in increasing donations and strengthening relationships with our donors and members.“

With every interaction taking place in one connected system, donor notes, pledges, and transactions are now tracked instantly against customer accounts. And with real-time updates to the patron record, membership and subscriber benefits apply instantly – even with those items still in the customer’s basket.

One instant benefit of an integrated system was the ability to add targeted donation asks in the purchase path. SPAC had always asked for add-on donations, and raised around $7,000 each year. Since their switch to Spektrix, they’ve begun suggesting donation amounts based on cart value, and have seen donations rise to over 700% of their previous revenue.

With Spektrix, support and training are included as part of the solution, with a growing library of online materials and a team of more than 40 experts on hand to help users across the US and Canada. That doesn’t just mean help to fix hardware issues or implement new ideas within the system. Where many other software providers charge consultation fees, limit the speed or scope of support, or focus only on the technical aspects of their platform, Spektrix provides expertise in arts management, web integrations, strategy, reporting, and far more – helping Eric and his team get the most value not only from their technology, but across every aspect of their work to drive donations and build reattendance. It’s a shared success model: Spektrix only succeeds when the organizations it works with do.

Eric and his team used to dread each new season going on sale. Each year, they launch a full program of ballet, orchestra, and jazz, including major performers like John Legend, who in 2024 appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra – boosting an already popular event to arena-level demand. Five different priority booking periods are designed to give access to customers with different membership levels. But three years in a row, at every presale and at general release, their system crashed. That left the ticketing team dealing with calls from frustrated audience members about a cumbersome purchase path that saw them lose their place in line, struggle to apply membership benefits, or fail to log into their account. With Spektrix, those pain points have been resolved, year-round.

Eric and the team are excited by the possibilities Spektrix offers to integrate additional tools and features around their specific needs. They’re already working with dynamic pricing partner Vatic, and will shortly add integrations with Shopify, for merchandise and concessions; and with Sawyer, a platform for class and course registrations.

As with every aspect of Spektrix, the team is on hand to help find the right partners, get integrations up and running, and continue building a stronger partner network. Eric said:

„By having this partner ecosystem you can choose what’s best for you, but it still works with your main CRM. I can go into the Spektrix Partner Directory and look for a web developer or another partner, and it definitely opens up more possibilities. Our development team are looking at a text-to-give program, and I’m talking to the partnerships team about how we can integrate that so it will add data to their Spektrix account as well. Fantastic.“

In 2022, SPAC introduced dynamic pricing, after discovering a number of integrated partners on the Partner Directory. Eric spoke to two or three potential partners before settling on Vatic, who brought a deep knowledge of the arts and culture sector and were able to guide messaging for patrons and teams.

„It’s been like adding another full time staff member. We’ve seen great, huge results. We increased our revenue by 18%. Over the past two years we’ve been using it, for us, that’s a million dollars.“

The introduction of dynamic pricing for SPAC’s main summer events program has meant a few changes, like removing pricing from press releases and printed marketing materials, but with help from the team at Vatic it’s created little or no friction with customers. By maximising income from the most popular seats and performances, it’s easier to offer price points that work for every audience member – a balance that protects both access and long-term revenue.

„If you want to come to Yo Yo Ma, and you want to sit in Section 1, you may pay $300. But you can also sit on the lawn for $30. By raising prices at the highest end, we’re still able to offer accessible seats at the lower end. And really we haven’t had much pushback from customers. Sean from Vatic has given us talking points like, ‚What were you expecting to pay? $80? Well, here’s a great seat we have for $80 in the back of the orchestra centre. Still a great view of the stage.‘ And that usually satisfies them.“

Teams right across the organization benefit from a centralised CRM. Previously, to reach education and community participants, the marketing team had to wait for lists to be uploaded to the system. In a busy office, that often fell off the radar, creating delays in communicating with participants.

From summer 2024, classes go on sale using the integration with Sawyer. This means full booking details appear against the customer record in Spektrix, including contact information, the classes patrons attend, and how much they spent. With no manual uploads, data is more secure and instant, and every team member works from one shared CRM – no more Excel spreadsheets for education or other activities.

Next on the list is an integration with Shopify to improve the audience experience when buying merchandise from the online store. This will make it easier to identify existing customers, apply membership benefits, and track purchases and revenue, giving the team an even fuller view of average spend and lifetime value for every customer.

„If people are coming to a dance class, we don’t want to wait six months until they come again, we want to get them to the New York City Ballet this summer, or at the very least one of our other ballet dance performances at the Little Theatre in the fall.“

We closed by asking Eric to sum up the key elements that would make him recommend Spektrix to organisations looking to switch providers for ticketing, marketing, fundraising, and CRM.

• Support that’s included as part of the solution, designed to help you make strategic plans and put them into practice.
• Enhanced customer experience and online sales, especially during busy periods.
• At-a-glance reports and real-time data on desktop and mobile.
• A growing partner network of integrated solutions, tailored to the needs of arts, culture, & in-person experience organisations.
• Earned income and philanthropic giving have increased many times over, more than covering the costs of the service charge within a few years.

A connected solution brings ticketing, fundraising, marketing, and donor data together – so organisations can work more efficiently, strengthen audience experience and relationships, and build for the long term.