Boston Symphony Orchestra To Conduct Business With Tessitura Arts Enterprise Software

BOSTON, MA and NEW YORK CITY, NY, [March 6, 2002] -- The world renowned Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) recently became the latest licensee of Tessitura Arts Enterprise Software. Tessitura is a proven enterprise-wide, fully graphical and fully integrated software management system in use by major North American arts organizations. Tessitura seamlessly handles all ticketing, fund raising, marketing and customer care and service needs of arts organizations.

The activities of the BSO include performances by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops Orchestra in Boston's Symphony Hall as well as performances at Tanglewood, the BSO's summer music festival located in Lenox, Massachusetts in the Berkshire mountains.

Bob Bell, Director of Information Technology for the BSO, commented, "The demonstration of Tessitura wowed everyone. When we learned that our current system, which we have used for 16 years, had met its end of life, we feared that we would be forced to go through a painful conversion only to wind up with a system that did not really meet our needs. After seeing Tessitura, then carefully evaluating the software features and database structure and conducting intense due diligence with current users, we realized that a powerful system for the arts had been developed in recent years and was proven by demanding organizations. We are excited about the opportunities that Tessitura will provide."

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. A Metropolitan Opera subsidiary, Impresario, L.L.C. was established to license the product to other arts organizations with the Santa Fe Opera being the first to implement the software in 2000. They were followed by the San Francisco Symphony, the Kennedy Center, Seattle Opera, and the Chicago Lyric Opera. Other major arts organizations, such as the Houston Ballet and City Center of New York, are currently in the installation process.

Jack Rubin, business and marketing director for Tessitura, commented, "The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an extremely significant addition to the Tessitura network of users. They asked many questions before reaching their decision and we are thrilled they selected Tessitura. We are finding that most arts organizations are very concerned about achieving true integration between their ticketing, development and customer service functions in order to offer the highest level of service to all constituent groups and increase the customer retention rates, ticket sales and fund raising efforts. Tessitura was designed in recent years just for that purpose and enables significant productivity improvement as well."

Mr. Rubin added, "Like our other licensees, the Boston Symphony Orchestra was also looking for a software solution that enables web sales and all other transactions to take place without dealing with a vendor who bases their business on transaction fees that go on forever. The Tessitura business model involves a perpetual site license with a one-time license fee. We are finding great acceptance in the arts community to both the power of our software and the simplicity of our business approach."

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