How Contemporary American Theater Festival Strengthened Donor Relationships with Audience Segmentation and Targeted Campaigns

The Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) was introduced to Spektrix in 2019 by TRG Arts, when the organisation was looking for a system that could bring together ticketing, CRM, and development tools.

With an adventurous annual programme managed by just six permanent team members and ambitious fundraising targets, CATF needs to make the most of every customer relationship, from first-time visitors through to major sponsors.

Spektrix gave the team a customer relationship tool designed around the needs of arts, culture, and in-person experience organisations, with ticketing, marketing, CRM, and fundraising working together in one connected solution.

Vicki Willman has been Director of Development at CATF for several years, with much of her focus on creating a more professional, formalised development programme. Responsible for the festival’s relationship with every donor, from $5 gifts through to $1,000 pledges, she is also the point of contact for major sponsors and senior stakeholders who play a vital role in the festival’s success.

With so many relationships to manage, Spektrix supports smoother service and stronger recordkeeping, helping her keep personalised records for each patron and donor relationship. That connected view makes it easier to turn day-to-day interactions into stronger long-term relationships, with a clearer structure for donor and VIP stewardship over time.

Bringing ticketing, patron records, and development activity together, along with straightforward transaction management in Spektrix, has helped Vicki support VIP patrons directly with ticket requests and changes. For the first time, she feels confident making reservations herself rather than relying on the box office for every adjustment.

It is also simple to hold tickets in the system and restrict access to certain users, so there are always seats available if a major donor calls. That gives the team more control over the patron experience while supporting the relationships that matter most.

As Public Relations Manager, Gabrielle Tokach is responsible for setting up and ticketing CATF’s events. She finds Spektrix easy to use day to day, which makes it possible to test different approaches and find the best fit for both patrons and colleagues.

Within the first two years, the switch to Spektrix had already brought major benefits to CATF by connecting ticketing and fundraising data in a single CRM system, improving the patron experience, and giving the team and its funders better reporting.

Gabrielle has continued building on that progress by using on-demand training resources, which are available to every Spektrix user as part of the relationship and help organisations get more value from the system over time.