Tessitura Arts Enterprise Software Adds Ballet To Its Repertoire

Houston Ballet Joins Performing Arts Users Of This Fully Integrated Application Developed By Not-For-Profit Users For Not-For- Profit Users

HOUSTON, TX and NEW YORK CITY, NY, Jan. 17, 2002 -- Houston Ballet Foundation, a large and innovative ballet company, recently became the latest licensee of Tessitura Arts Enterprise Software. Tessitura is a proven enterprise-wide, fully graphical and fully integrated management system in use by major North American arts organizations including The Metropolitan Opera, the Kennedy Center, San Francisco Symphony and other leading organizations.

Andrew Edmonson, Director of Marketing for the Houston Ballet, commented, "We wanted to upgrade to an enterprise software system that not only handled the box office, but was also a feature-rich fund raising application and an advanced marketing and customer relationship management program. We felt that Tessitura would allow us to enhance significantly the high level of service our customers have come to expect. After an exhaustive evaluation of the providers in this market, we concluded that Tessitura met all of our criteria. We were impressed with Tessitura's user-friendly, intuitive approach and their successful implementation for very demanding clients."

Tessitura, originally developed by The Metropolitan Opera for its own use, was implemented in 1998 and replaced multiple separate systems that handled ticketing functions, fund raising, marketing, customer care and performance reporting. Other performing arts organizations, after seeing the powerful features asked if they could license the product. Smeeta Sharon, who is responsible for Business Operations at The Metropolitan Opera indicated, "We saw that many other arts organizations were just as frustrated as we were with the path that most of the ticketing software companies had taken to concentrate less on maintaining an integrated application approach and more on expanding outside of the arts world into sports, rock concerts, colleges and other unrelated areas to performing arts. We decided to offer Tessitura to capable arts organizations who needed the features as much as we did and were rightfully concerned about the focus and financial stability of many of the other software providers."

Jack Rubin, who handles marketing for Tessitura, commented, "We have a low key approach and have been very gratified with the strong interest in the product by a growing number of arts organizations. After experts at the Met spent three years designing and building this premiere software application, it has performed flawlessly for multiple seasons and The Metropolitan Opera is truly giving something back to the arts community with its unique business approach. We welcome Houston Ballet to the network of Tessitura users and are appreciative of their confidence in the software."

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