The Digital Stage

Andi Graham (00:08.061)
Yay. Today we are very excited to have Sarah Ateek here with us. Did I pronounce that right? I don't know that I've ever said your name out loud. That's so funny. So Sarah and I have known each other for quite a long time through a variety of different social circles. And recently, we've been talking in a more professional context, which has been interesting because I didn't realize how similar our sort of paths have been. So Sarah works in marketing for the Straz Center, one of Tampa Bay's largest performing arts centers.

Sarah Ateek (00:14.675)
You did.

Andi Graham (00:38.281)
Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, Sarah?

Sarah Ateek (00:40.606)
Yeah, so as mentioned, I am Sarah Atik. I'm the marketing director at the Straz Center, the marketing director of events. We have another different side of my coin. Her name's Stephanie Pamerton and she's a rock star. But yeah, so I've been at the Straz for going on 10 years this May. I got into the industry when I was about 18. I asked for an internship at a local concert promoter and that's really how I got my foot in the door. And then as one does, I applied for a job.

And then how I got into the role I'm in now is the person who had my role, she moved on to something else and it was during a big time of year and I went into my boss's office and I said, oh my God, she's leaving. How can I help? What do you want me to do? Do you want me to take Broadway? And she was like, hold on what? She was like, you want to? I was like, well, it's got to be done. Like, did you want me to do it? I can do it. And that's how it happened. And I'm really good at it as it turns out. So.

Andi Graham (01:31.553)
Thank you.

Sarah Ateek (01:39.414)
It's just, I always say if you'd said 10 years ago, you're going to be a marketer at Broadway, I would have laughed and said, no, I'm going to stick with my punk rock stuff. But the universe finds a way and is always right, it seems.

Andi Graham (01:46.67)
Yeah.

Warren (01:47.276)
Hehehe

Andi Graham (01:53.057)
That seems like, who wouldn't want to take Broadway? That seems like such a fun product to sell, you know?

Sarah Ateek (01:58.918)
Yeah, it's just not what I would have ever expected for my life, but I love it. So we'll take it.

Andi Graham (02:08.441)
So Warren doesn't know, go ahead Warren.

Warren (02:10.466)
Oh yeah, I was gonna say, you know, I'd love to hear more about the Strat Center in general and how it sits in the whole Tampa Bay cultural landscape. I've never been, but it sounds like a fascinating place. So I'd love to hear more about it.

Sarah Ateek (02:22.446)
Yeah, so it is one of the largest performing arts centers in the southeast. We have, I'm gonna try to get this right, I believe we have five venues. TECO J, other one, other two, so five venues in an outdoor stage. So on any given night, six different things can be happening. We also have restaurants on site. We have a conservatory, the Patel Conservatory, which, you know, Dream Reach Create, we're building up the talent for the years to come.

But yeah, on any given night there can be at Broadway and Morsani Hall with an opera in Ferguson Hall, Jobsite Theater, a regional theater company could be doing something in Schimberg. We could be having a one night event in the J.A.B. Theater while the Riverwalk stage is popping off and then TECO Theater has some of our Patel Conservatory students putting on a thing. Yeah, it's not boring.

Andi Graham (03:13.049)
So where do they all park?

Warren (03:13.27)
That's a lot.

Sarah Ateek (03:15.27)
Where do they all park? I mean, downtown Tampa is growing every day. So you get creative, you take a ride, share walk, ride a bike, choose your own adventure. Y'all.

Andi Graham (03:20.823)
No, no.

Andi Graham (03:27.434)
That's true. Well, so one thing you and I have talked about a little bit, but I'm curious to hear about is performing arts centers specifically during the pandemic. We work with a lot of museums and cultural institutions and I get that it's now almost four years back, but I think things have changed in a more permanent way. So I'm curious to hear, first of all, what happened in 2020? What did you guys do? How did you pivot? What sorts of new programs or approaches did you take?

Sarah Ateek (03:53.198)
Yeah, I vividly remember the day that happened. It was, oof. We pivoted really hard and there are things that have stayed with us. Like for me, I focused on email marketing a lot more. Keeping in touch with our consumers, our patrons. I'd send out an email about Broadway and like, here's some behind the scenes stuff just to keep them excited and engaged and to remind them we're here. I also did something, we had the National Geographic Live Program so I do something similar of like, here's their explorers, here's a cool podcast.

And National Geographic was also doing something similar where they were doing Facebook live streams. So that kind of tied into what I was trying to do anyways. And again, we're still here, we're alive. We really, really need you. And then we went to doing events on Facebook live, really utilizing our Riverwalk stage when it got safe enough to do so. And then eventually we did social distancing performances in our smaller Jave theater. And then, you know, pivoting.

left and right with all the mask mandates of we needed you to wear masks and just really getting used to changing. I think one of the strengths of performing arts is that it's always live, right? So your principal could get sick and your swing comes in and that's the nature of who we are. So I think if anything, it made those muscles stronger and it made us as the administrative team get more creative, get more, I know the term is resourceful, but I prefer the term scrappy. We got scrappier.

And we really came together as a team. And I would say like when we fully came back, like the breath of fresh air, it was like a giant hug. Like everybody was like, oh my gosh, I can experience something with someone else and we can share the same laugh, the same moment. Because I know like on a music scale, music saved my life at points in my life, right? I was having bad days and it was that one song that saved me. Theater does the same thing, y'all.

Warren (05:43.878)
I understand that feeling. I mean, I played in bands up until my like late 20s. And when I first went to my first concert after the pandemic, you know, kind of was subsiding, subsiding to a point. I remember just that kind of tingly feeling of, oh, my God, like that feeling of live music kind of like hitting you in your chest is just something magical.

Sarah Ateek (06:00.662)
Mm-hmm. I mean, I vividly remember, it was before I was the marketer of Broadway. I was watching Matilda with my older sister in my venue. I brought her on a sister date. And there was a little girl behind me and she was singing every song and crying. And it was like, this is why we do what we do. And I still, like, it was years ago, y'all. And it was just like, this could be the moment that changed that girl's life. And I hope, I hope to God it was.

Andi Graham (06:15.833)
No.

Andi Graham (06:25.721)
That's such a sweet memory. Have you stuck with any of those, like doing Facebook lives, doing things online? Have you stuck with any of those practices?

Sarah Ateek (06:33.094)
Yeah, so our community engagement team has. So if you were to go on stratscenter.org and you were to look at some of our events, you might see something of like community town hall. Those are Facebook live events. And that's a really great way to engage our community and maybe portions of our community who maybe have a harder time getting to the Strats Center or they don't live here anymore, but they still wanna feel engaged with the Tampa Bay area and specifically the Tampa Bay arts community. And just, I know, Marketing 101, meeting people where they're at, y'all.

Andi Graham (07:04.177)
Yeah, it's marketing, but it's also accessibility, like you touched on. I think it's really important to talk about how we can make those programs and performances accessible to folks who can't park in downtown and then walk in things like that. So it's such a nice way. I do think that that's been a long lasting win from the pandemic that so many institutions have learned how to communicate to a broader audience and using different tools.

Sarah Ateek (07:17.727)
Yeah.

Sarah Ateek (07:29.158)
Yeah, I would have to agree with that. And I think too, a win in a sense is because everything was taken away, everyone woke up and said, this is so important to me. And maybe the importance of live theater, live performing arts, concerts, and more in this case, I didn't realize how much that meant to me and how much that meant to my soul.

Andi Graham (07:51.737)
How are ticket sales now? Are you back to pre-pandemic levels or are you amongst the rest of the cultural institutions who are still trying to build back?

Sarah Ateek (07:58.23)
I'm sorry.

Warren (07:58.35)
Yeah.

Sarah Ateek (08:03.098)
It's a mix. We're seeing people are really gravitating towards the titles they know. They're more willing to spend the money on a sure bet, whereas titles where it's maybe taking a little bit more education, they're more hesitant to spend their dollars. And life is expensive. I'm not going to fault anybody for that, but that's on us, the marketers, to educate more, maybe mess around with price points a little bit. If we do this price, doesn't matter. If we do this messaging with this price, is that what moves the needles? It's just...

Andi Graham (08:08.195)
Yeah.

Sarah Ateek (08:32.338)
It's making us better at our craft, but it's also making, it's just taking a little bit more time, but the Blockbusters are the Blockbusters and people are like, oh my gosh, of course I'm gonna see that show. I've loved it for eons.

Warren (08:43.747)
Is the audience profile any different of people that are showing up, or is it roughly the same?

Sarah Ateek (08:49.286)
It's looking to be a little bit younger these days, which is great. That's always been on I mean the moment I stepped in the stress and I was like we need younger audiences. So I've noticed it's getting younger and I think with our Riverwalk programming we're getting a more diverse crowd That's like oh this place is rad Because it's funny. We're like a big old performing arts center and in our in our

Warren (08:51.339)
Oh, that's great.

Andi Graham (08:58.444)
I think that's every single client we work with.

Sarah Ateek (09:17.274)
industry. We're a big old deal. But it's fun. Like the first show I ever saw at the Straz y'all was Black Star, which is a hip hop group. And otherwise, like I didn't, I went to the State Theater in Janus. Like I was the concert kid. So it's interesting, like anybody's entry point to the Strat Center and to performing arts.

Andi Graham (09:39.121)
So I want to learn more about your team because you've, you and I have talked in the past about how you have a unique team at the Straz that's working on marketing. You know, a lot of our clients work with a lot of agencies and you were like, no, we do everything in-house. So I'm curious to hear about that. Yeah.

Sarah Ateek (09:52.974)
Oh yeah, we're in. Yeah, so we're an in-house agency. We have marketers that specialize in various things. I have, we have somebody who does opera and she's amazing. I'm always going to say these things of like, they're amazing. Cause I just really value everyone on the team. Um, like I said, there's another, um, marketing director who handles internal clients, so like any development messaging, the Patel conservatory, anything that's an internal client. That's her realm, her and her team do amazing, amazing things and create such compelling messaging about like.

Andi Graham (10:04.642)
Yeah.

Sarah Ateek (10:22.558)
this is what your donations go towards. And then, and my team, it's, we have, I have someone who specializes in longer runs and finer art and dance, finer art, like dance and cabaret. And then someone who's more like the one-nighters and the co-pros. And then we have the group sales department, which, you know, is a really good indicator of how something's gonna sell. The groups are all about it. It's gonna be great. If they're not, all right, that's a good.

traction of this, I'm just gonna have to get more crafty. And then to your point, we're an in-house agency, we make our videos, we do our art, we have a PR team, we do all the things.

Andi Graham (10:53.73)
Mm-hmm.

Andi Graham (11:01.505)
What do you not do in-house? What do you outsource?

Sarah Ateek (11:04.138)
What do we outsource? We lean towards digital specialists. We'll do our social media in-house, but like SEM and retargeting OTT and all that, we'll give that to a specialist because that, Andy, you know, it changes every five minutes. I would rather have somebody who lives in it do that every day and then we bounce ideas off of each other and say, this is how my plan's working, this is what I think, and then them coming back and saying, cool, this is what we're seeing.

Andi Graham (11:13.989)
Mm-hmm.

Andi Graham (11:19.149)
Mm-hmm, yep, yep.

Andi Graham (11:32.601)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Ateek (11:32.678)
and how we mesh that together. But that might just be the only thing we do out of house.

Andi Graham (11:38.201)
How about the website?

Sarah Ateek (11:39.994)
Web, so yeah, we had somebody lead it internally, but yes, the website was recently redone in the last few years and that was an external client, of course, working with the internal team with objectives and goals and what we see for the strategy and how we want to move forward and all that fun stuff.

Warren (11:42.238)
that

Andi Graham (11:52.207)
Mm-hmm.

Warren (11:56.078)
I'm always curious, what's the breakdown of, let's say, marketing for digital versus traditional media?

Sarah Ateek (12:02.538)
So that's, I think, one of the parts where it pivoted during the pandemic, because traditional media was everything. We would do print, we would do big broadcast buys, because that's what we did. And then, yeah, we'll figure out these buys and then we'll come to digital. And now with the marketing plan, that's, all right, I'm going to start at digital and then the rest of the money is going to go to the rest. So that's a really big pivot that's happened is when I'm starting an ad plan legitimately, I'm starting with digital and out of home.

and saying, let me start here and then everything else we can figure out.

Warren (12:34.994)
That's fascinating. One of the things we're working on right now, which is interesting, is we've had one of our clients actually come to us and say, you know what, not only are we doing so much less traditional media, we actually are trying to get rid of certain things. So we're actually in the middle of developing like playbills, digital playbills, so that we're not even printing things anymore.

Sarah Ateek (12:52.498)
Yeah, yeah. And that's, I mean, I like it cause I'm all about being green, but that's a really cool pivot. And hearing people too be like, hey, we'd really like a digital version of this. And being like, okay, noted. We'll make that and maybe eventually we can transition to less paper, which I would love.

Warren (12:58.027)
Hmm, that too.

Andi Graham (13:11.477)
It would be neat to give people the option. I'd love if I were walking in through the door to see, here's a QR code if you want the digital or you can take the paper. I mean, in my opinion, it would be a big expense upfront to build that platform, but then eventually it's cheaper in the long run, I would guess, without having to print them. Oh, you do, okay.

Sarah Ateek (13:28.574)
Well, we have both options actually. So you can get the physical Playbill and then if you go on the Stress Center to Go app, the Playbill is also there so you can look through it at your leisure.

Andi Graham (13:35.541)
Okay. Yeah. I always think I'm going to want that thing as like a leaf behind, like take it with me as a souvenir, and then it gets thrown away almost immediately. So. Yep. That's about it. Exactly. So do you guys do any influencer or UGC type of marketing? Are you actively invested in that? What does that look like?

Sarah Ateek (13:44.798)
You want it for the photo. It's the playbill in front of the stage. That Instagram thing, y'all.

Warren (13:48.13)
Hehehe

Sarah Ateek (13:56.082)
Yeah. I really like influencer marketing. That's something we're putting a bigger emphasis on this year. And it's not just me. It's across the industry. Because like, I'll talk to colleagues, and we'll just be like, Hey, what do you do? I think that's one of my favorite part of the industries is like the I call it Broadway camp, camp Broadway.

Andi Graham (14:01.029)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Ateek (14:16.722)
But yeah, working with influencers and getting them content before to really engage because the show's here for a week. But man, if I can get you to buy a ticket two weeks out, I'm great. So getting them content is this an influencer we haven't used before? And is there a little wiggle room with the show? So can I give you a promo code and track it and see, like, is this something your fans care about? Like, what were the stats in real time? And then when they're in town coming to opening night?

Andi Graham (14:36.677)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Ateek (14:45.174)
using having my social media team's great. They give me a whole folder after opening night of like all this content so that we can use it in emails and that we can use it personally. And then we can send it to the show and be like, look how cool this is. And the show's like, oh my God, it's a party. So yeah, we love it. It's great. It's a good way to build word of mouth. If you're following the influencer to a degree, you trust them and trust is everything.

Andi Graham (15:05.239)
Mm-hmm.

Andi Graham (15:10.617)
I have to imagine with a sort of regional footprint, even going so far as to say a broader footprint in the Southeast, you could potentially have a one-on-one relationship with influencers in a way that a lot of organizations and brands cannot. That's why they've got to employ agencies and all of that. So that must be, do you foresee having somebody on your team who just manages those relationships at some point? I can see that getting really time consuming. Or is it pretty easy so far? Okay.

Sarah Ateek (15:38.014)
I mean, we kind of do. Our content coordinator, that's her gig. And it's great. She's been like, I'm actually having people reach out to me now. She's like, it's working. I was like, that is great. Love to hear it.

Andi Graham (15:43.925)
Oh, she does that, cool.

Andi Graham (15:48.809)
Yeah, yep. As soon as you have something to give, they all want to take. So it's, yeah. They trade in attention. They know, they know their value. So yeah. So that leads me to sort of a little like, what's around the corner in arts marketing? What are you seeing that sort of, maybe you haven't been able to jump on yet, but you wish you could. Is there anything sort of cool that you're seeing?

Sarah Ateek (15:56.734)
Amazing fellow.

Yeah, right.

Sarah Ateek (16:11.466)
So something I've wanted to do, and I really, really wanna do it, is something that movies do really well, is like, and tourism campaigns tend to do really well, it's like, here's this piece of content, but then it leads a story. So it's like an if then choose your own adventure of like, this was the piece of content, you interacted with this. So these are the three things that you could potentially get now. Because we can not only do it to tell the story of like an event. So like you really, you watch this B-roll, cool, we're gonna serve you two different ads, you engage with this one.

In my brain, it's like a stem plot thing. But also doing that to tell the story of the Strat Center as a nonprofit, like telling our story. This is how we impact the community. These are all the heart. This is the Matilda moment. That's something I really want to see, because movies do really well. Like you mess with a Marvel ad, and you get like three different options. And then clearly, you like this Marvel side. I'm not a Marvel person, but like.

Andi Graham (16:55.576)
Mm-hmm.

Andi Graham (17:06.553)
Hehehehe.

Sarah Ateek (17:07.302)
Yay, Captain America. So I'm going to get like Captain America-y stuff. And it's going to, I'm going to continue the journey and I'm going to be more invested and more stoked. And I would love to see us do that. It takes a lot of time and effort, but I think that could be a really engaging and great way to continue the story.

Andi Graham (17:13.326)
Mm-hmm.

Andi Graham (17:24.309)
If you use those in your evergreen campaigns, in nonprofit, in a lot of the fundraising marketing that we do, we consider those incomplete stories. So we're just telling little snippets at different stages and you don't actually get the wrap up until you've accomplished the goal. So maybe it's a, you've given, finally given to this campaign. And so now you're getting the, here's how you impacted this particular human or here was the intervention that happened because you were able to contribute.

Sarah Ateek (17:30.698)
Mm-hmm.

Andi Graham (17:48.317)
And it sort of ties your audience or that particular audience to whatever that storyline or that narrative is in a way that's particularly powerful, in my opinion, for the nonprofit sort of evergreen campaigns versus the single events. Don't get me wrong, they're fun and adventurous, but like you can really tug on the heartstrings with those emotional appeals when you have that backing you. So that's cool. Yeah.

Sarah Ateek (18:15.17)
Yeah, so those are my hopes and dreams. And of course the industry is getting more and more digital. You know, we're leaning harder into that. We're leaning harder into content, content. And that's something I will always go back to a show and say, cool, love it. I need more and here specifically what I would like to see. And having those open conversations about, cause we're all cheering for the same team.

Andi Graham (18:32.376)
Mm-hmm.

Warren (18:38.398)
Yeah, I love all of this because actually one of the questions that I had for you is exactly what you've just been talking about, which is like storytelling online, you know, how to tell effective stories and how to just reach out at that emotional, you know, the hard strings and it's just great to hear.

Sarah Ateek (18:52.542)
Yeah, I mean, we live in the world of imagination and we're storytellers. Like, let's really lean into that and let's play up the imagination and let's play up to the stories. And let's, I mean, how cool is it? You go to a theater for like two and a half hours and if it's a really good show, you don't even remember your phone's on you.

Like how often does that happen? I mean, like just, it's like such a sweet release y'all. Like it's, you don't, this moment matters. And we live in such a world where there's so much noise and you don't often get it. Like I remember seeing To Kill a Mockingbird. It was silent. It was amazing to see, like being in a room with so many people so engrossed in the story and so believing. It's cool.

Warren (19:10.646)
That's a rare thing to be able to do to somebody, to get somebody to actually not get on their phone. Ha ha ha.

Andi Graham (19:12.205)
Hehehehe

Andi Graham (19:39.677)
Do you go to all the shows?

Sarah Ateek (19:41.542)
No, I do not. I go to some of them. I really, I like going home.

Andi Graham (19:47.241)
Yeah, I know. I think that would be such a...

Warren (19:49.259)
When you're there all day.

Sarah Ateek (19:52.238)
I like my life outside of my job too, y'all. It's cool.

Andi Graham (19:54.633)
I know, that would be so hard though, because you wanna go and you have the opportunity, but yeah, that's a tough line to draw for sure.

Sarah Ateek (20:03.218)
Yeah, and sometimes I do go see the show. Sometimes I might pop in on opening night to see what the guests are seeing. And maybe I'll stay till intermission to eavesdrop on what they're saying. But yeah, I mean, I'll go to some every once in a while, but I really do like my home life too.

Andi Graham (20:19.053)
I wonder if there's not some level of audio surveillance that has AI detection of sentiment analysis that you could be using to do that. So you can stop having to show up to get that information.

Sarah Ateek (20:28.994)
Oh, no, our blessed house management team gives me performance reports so I can just read them the next day too. I'd be like, cool!

Warren (20:29.642)
Hahaha

Andi Graham (20:33.811)
Ah, that works, yeah. Yeah. Are you using AI at all?

Sarah Ateek (20:38.634)
We are not. I know we're at we want to, but we are not. We are in full blown season mode. So we are just like, whoa, all the time. But yeah, I think that's a long term goal, especially when it quiets down to really do a little bit more digging. But it is something we want to try out, like just even if it's just please, I make this subject line because I can't be creative.

Andi Graham (20:50.329)
Yep, I know it.

Andi Graham (21:05.861)
Oh, you should be doing that already. That's, yeah, that's a two second. I'll send you my webinar that we, I just delivered a presentation on Tuesday that was how to use AI in nonprofit marketing. And it's, I'm shook at how so many people haven't, they're so scared to sort of dip their toe in the water or like where to begin that I realized we need to talk about.

Sarah Ateek (21:10.066)
Yep. But yeah.

Andi Graham (21:29.929)
literally just how to set up an account and where to start at the very beginning because so many people haven't. But yeah, exactly. Subject lines. I mean, that's the one of the number one uses in email marketing is just developing, give me six variations on this using really great persuasive language, make it a little more casual, add an emoji, you know, et cetera. So it's really good at doing that kind of stuff. So cool.

Warren (21:50.594)
Well, I'd love to see the presentation. I mean, I know we do what we can with it, but I always run to people who are like, oh, they're doing substantially better than we are with it and always up for learning.

Sarah Ateek (21:50.728)
Awesome.

Andi Graham (21:54.2)
Uh huh.

Andi Graham (22:00.893)
You are, I am, I'm actually shocked that more, so we did a survey of about 900 nonprofit marketers back in the fall and we found that about 51% were actually using AI in their day-to-day. 95% of those people are using it in content production specifically, helping with writing and content production. And then there's a lot of other options like data analysis is a huge one. We're going through research on a museum right now and being able to take.

Sarah Ateek (22:01.026)
Yep.

Andi Graham (22:29.497)
We use walled garden, so we're not feeding the public LLMs or anything like that, but you can run analysis on your audience really fast and pull out some behavioral and psychographic data that is otherwise pretty laborious to comb through, especially when you're looking at qualitative information. It can really pull trends and sentiment and find all kinds of things from that. So anyway, it's been really fun playing with that for us and figuring out how we can empower ourselves to get deeper.

then we could, with the limited amount of time we have, servicing all the clients that we have. So, it's been fun.

Sarah Ateek (23:05.598)
That's rad. I cannot wait to watch that and send it to my team and be like, look, we're going to get smart together.

Warren (23:10.254)
Hehehehe

Andi Graham (23:13.373)
We want to talk about the Boundless campaign. I'd like to hear a little bit about that.

Warren (23:16.854)
Yeah, I'd like to hear that too.

Sarah Ateek (23:18.086)
Yeah, so the Boundless campaign, the Strat Center is going to go under construction and become even more amazing. And I'm excited about it because how many times do you think you're driving through whatever town you live in and you see a new building and you're like, what's that? That looks cool. What's that? So I think that the Boundless campaign, it's going to spark that, ooh, what's that? Or I thought that was the Strat Center, but it looks different or I've never walked past this beginning, but now I'm interested. So I'm excited to see how it increases the awareness of the Strat Center throughout the community.

or how it goes, you know what, I haven't thought of the stress center in a bit. I'm gonna go on their website and check out what's up. I think it's gonna help. I think it's just gonna be awesome. And the renderings of what's to come look incredible. Like it's a more open space. It's more inviting. We like to say that our aim is to have the stress center be Tampa Bay's living room where they just come and hang with us. And I think the new space will hopefully do that.

Andi Graham (24:15.813)
Tampa Bay's living room, that's such a sweet, yeah. I think you're gonna want people to take their feet off the coffee table sometimes though, and maybe clean up their dirty coffee mugs, so you might wanna think about the boundaries, yeah. That's very true. I know it was.

Sarah Ateek (24:17.398)
Thank you.

Warren (24:18.017)
Hehehehe

Sarah Ateek (24:25.258)
But it's a living room, right? It's not the play room. You have to be different. So yeah, that's the hope. And I think it'll happen. And we're such a good location. We are on the Riverwalk. I mean, it is gorgeous.

Warren (24:28.386)
Hehehe

Andi Graham (24:39.893)
Oh yeah, that is gorgeous. Yeah, it's neat to watch. So are you following any other of your peers in other locations that are doing anything really cool that you think we should pay attention to?

Sarah Ateek (24:45.429)
Yeah.

Sarah Ateek (24:56.214)
Yeah, I mean, I have some friends, like I said, I call my industry Camp Broadway, that are doing all sorts of cool things. Cleveland does a really, really great job about just about everything. We'll follow email. We'll be on other people's email accounts just to see how they're setting up. Deepak does really pretty emails, so does Denver, and really looking at...

how do you do things? My very dear friend is the marketing director in Minneapolis. They just do cool stuff. And anytime a venue launches a tour, too, I might call them and be like, hey, how'd it go? What'd you do? So it's really, really neat to be able to have friends all over the United States and be able to say, hey, I'm having this. How did you handle it? Or celebrate each other's wins. When my friends have great things, being able to be like, hey, you're awesome. Good job. It's a community that I...

could have never guessed would be so supportive. And I don't know, I'm really lucky to be in a part of it.

Andi Graham (25:54.829)
That's really neat to hear. I think Warren and I feel the same way. I mean, that's how we're here doing this together is we have a community of agency owners that we regularly lean on for support and talk about. And even though we might be competitors in a lot of ways, I think we recognize that the high tide rises all boats and that we can, there's an, you know, we both have an abundance. Most of us have an abundance mindset and know that there's enough work that we're the right fit for that maybe Warren's not or Warren's agency is the right fit for and we are not. And that.

It's been really a beneficial relationship for me too. So finding that support network I think is so important across your professionally.

Sarah Ateek (26:32.788)
Yeah.

Warren (26:46.698)
Yeah, I

Sarah Ateek (27:00.87)
Yeah, and I love it too in an industry with Broadway in particular, but in the performing arts, you tend to get a lot of lifers. So you have this whole trajectory. So like, I have people that I look up to and that I'll be like, I'll call and be like, Hey, I really need some advisor. Hey, I'm having I'm having a moment. Can you just help? I'm not. I'm better than I think I am, right? Because right now I'm not feeling too hot. I mean, we all we're human, right? We don't always feel like rock stars.

Andi Graham (27:10.155)
Yeah.

Andi Graham (27:23.225)
Ha ha ha. Yep.

Sarah Ateek (27:27.638)
And then it's cool, like I'm mid-career, so I have a mentee. So when she announced her season the other day, I sent her a text and said, Oh my God, it looks so good. I'm going to come over and see when the Wiz is coming out. And she's like, sweet. Um, but it's, it's nice because it's nice to be able to pass the torch and to have each other's backs and to spitball ideas and to say, I'm having a great day. I'm having a bad day. How did you, how did you do this? Um, it's just, it's really, really cool. And to a degree, I know I said I came from the world of punk cause I did, but it reminded me of the punk growth.

Andi Graham (27:45.749)
Yeah.

Sarah Ateek (27:54.218)
punk rock ethos of like, you have each other's back, it's community, it's do it yourself, write yourself. And these are all really good foundational blocks for any human. So to be able to find those punk rock sensibilities that mean everything to me in a world where I didn't expect to find them, how cool is that?

Andi Graham (28:10.733)
The theater kids knew all along. I know I wasn't either, but they, it is a very similar ethos of just sort of support and camaraderie and you know, I watch now having a high school daughter. It's I'm watching her friends who are theater kids and just that whole group is it's really something special for sure. So, all right. So Warren and I are heading to the nonprofit technology conference in Oregon in two weeks, right? Yeah. Two weeks.

Sarah Ateek (28:13.372)
Yeah, see I wasn't one of them, you know?

Andi Graham (28:40.141)
But I'm curious, I am very excited because there's certain, I think, weak spots in the tech stacks that I see across of our client portals. I'm curious, I have two questions, Sarah. Number one, what is your tech stack? What are you guys using for ticketing? What are you using on your backend sort of tools? Are there some of them that you absolutely love that you want to share? And then are there any that you, well, I don't want you to publicly disparage anyone. So let's not go there. But are there any that are worth sort of us taking a look at that we should?

Warren (29:03.478)
Hehehehe

Andi Graham (29:09.785)
pay attention to that you think are kind of neat, especially if you've got a brand new website, you might have some new tech.

Sarah Ateek (29:15.138)
So I'm in the very privileged position of having people smarter than me who deal with all these things. So ticketing, we ticket in-house. I think that's pretty cool because when I want something changed, it could be done in like 24 hours because my ticketing team is amazing. But yeah, like I said, I am in a very privileged place. I have people smarter than me that I can be like, hey, I want a thing. And then they will make it happen or they will say, what if we did it this way? Because that's what will work better for what we have.

Andi Graham (29:18.777)
Mm.

Andi Graham (29:42.575)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Ateek (29:44.906)
Don't have the best answer there, I am sorry.

Warren (29:48.544)
Yeah

Andi Graham (29:48.61)
Well, I'm even thinking like what platform do you use for your email marketing?

Sarah Ateek (29:52.874)
We use Prospect too. Yeah, and I think it works well. Again, I have a digital marketing team. I tell them exactly what I want and they make it pretty. And I say, cool, you're the best, high five.

Andi Graham (30:00.673)
Yep, they handle it.

Warren (30:05.87)
That's leadership.

Sarah Ateek (30:06.958)
Love it. Find people smarter than you and hire them.

Andi Graham (30:07.989)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, for sure.

Andi Graham (30:15.501)
Lauren, do you have any other questions?

Warren (30:17.63)
Um, yeah, just a couple last things. Um, you know, you know, how do you use, or, you know, I think given what you just said, you might just say the way my team knows the answer to this, but, um, like what kind of tips do you have for using digital marketing to like increase donations?

Sarah Ateek (30:34.266)
Ooh, yep. I would say I've been in a few meetings where we've talked about this, because it's just good to have a bunch of brains in the same room. Really just being creative with telling your story. And it's like marketing 101, meet people where they're at. Why would this person care? Give them the right story. Give it the right 15 second clip or the right photo or the right, is it a reader? Can I give them this narrative that's really beautiful? And

Andi Graham (30:45.178)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Ateek (31:02.678)
and really says that, that is why. So it's that one-on-one. It's who is this person? What do I think would make them tick? Why do I think that would make them tick? Do I have content? Do I need to get the content? Because we're in a giant performing arts center. We could go downstairs and in theory, shoot that video class. We know when community engagement is gonna go out. The show is about to load in. Like, can we work with the show to say, can we film your load in? To say like, look at this magical thing that happens.

Warren (31:31.662)
That's great. Go ahead, Andy.

Andi Graham (31:34.561)
I was going to ask the budget question because it sounds like you have ample budget. It sounds like you have a pretty decent budget to play with. Because you're doing a lot of things that I think if I were thinking about all the things I wanted to do, it sounds like you're doing a lot of those things. But let's say you had a ridiculous budget. I have previously said unlimited, but then they were like, can I buy Twitter since it's unlimited? And no, let's assume you can't buy Twitter, but you have maybe three times your budget or five times the budget that you're working with right now.

Warren (31:36.618)
Ah.

Warren (31:57.07)
Hehehehe

Andi Graham (32:03.865)
How would you spend it?

Sarah Ateek (32:06.95)
I would have even more content creators. And I think to your budget note, sometimes I have a great budget. Other times I just have really awesome people on my team who can get what they need. And I think it's really just to, I mean, I work in the nonprofit space. So it's really utilizing my resources in the best way possible. It's one of my superpowers is being scrappy I got it from my blessed mother. So like figuring out a way, but I would hire more content creators. I would get people who can put it.

Andi Graham (32:14.394)
Mm, that's great.

Andi Graham (32:23.69)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Ateek (32:34.57)
together a really beautiful video for me. Because if I can have the right content and I can get it formatted the right way, world's mine, y'all. And I'd have a really good creative writer and copywriter and line editor. I'd have really, really good people at that. And maybe somebody who specializes in more factual stuff and somebody who can get really creative and fun and really utilize their superpowers.

Andi Graham (32:43.713)
Yep, saturate.

Andi Graham (32:50.53)
Yep.

Andi Graham (32:56.325)
Cool. Yeah, I love that.

Warren (33:00.774)
Amazing. I wanna come back, just, I have one last thought that comes back to where I started, which was I've never been to the Straz, and it gets me thinking always about the idea of like, do you or do you have any plans to serve people who might not ever visit the venue in person? I mean, I know that the in-person experience is always what every single performing arts theater is all about, but do you have plans, or are you working on anything to take care of people like me?

Sarah Ateek (33:28.982)
I mean, we do out of area campaigns to really get people excited of like, if you're coming to Tampa Bay, come hang out with us. That's something we do. And I would say that's probably the extent I don't have, I can't tell you the full answer because I also don't know like, I don't have all the answers at the stress center. You know? But yeah, and I think with the Balance Campaign in particular, we're putting ourselves more out there. We're trying to build the awareness of like,

Warren (33:48.046)
That's fair.

Sarah Ateek (33:56.638)
What a great staple is this, because you never know, Warren, you might want to move to Tampa Bay tomorrow. We don't wait anymore. It's Sonya and Beauty's vlog today, and spring training.

Warren (34:00.63)
might or I might visit at some point.

Andi Graham (34:02.313)
Mm-hmm, during spring training.

Warren (34:06.174)
Yeah, that's true. It's gonna happen eventually.

Andi Graham (34:11.735)
Well, Sarah, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. I love talking about marketing and arts and cultural centers. So this has been really fun.

Sarah Ateek (34:19.978)
Thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure and I cannot wait to see your AI deck. I'm going to get so smart.

Warren (34:25.75)
Hehehe

Andi Graham (34:27.578)
I'll send you a recording for sure. So as soon as we have it done. Good. Thank you guys.

Warren (34:30.893)
Thanks for doing this. Bye.

Sarah Ateek (34:32.114)
Thanks y'all, bye.