Tessitura Software Launches in Australia with Sydney Opera House

Sydney, Australia & New York City, NY –April 21,2005 — Sydney Opera House extensively reviewed ticketing and fundraising system functionality needs before selecting Tessitura® for box office operations, fundraising, reporting, marketing and customer relations management. In selecting Tessitura Software, Sydney Opera House joins over 100 leading North American and United Kingdom arts organizations including The Metropolitan Opera, Royal Albert Hall, The Kennedy Center, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Center Theatre Group, National Ballet of Canada, and the Wales Millennium Centre.

Commenting on the selection, Sydney Opera House Chief Executive Norman Gillespie said, “Tailor-made for the performing arts industry Tessitura provides the unparalleled integrated functionality required to accommodate our diverse audience and multiple partner business model. Tessitura will provide Sydney Opera House with a unified customer support system allowing us to better serve our diverse customer base. For the first time we will be able to comprehensively collect valuable data from our customers to help us plan and respond to changing patterns of demand,” he continued.

Tessitura, originally developed by the Metropolitan Opera for its own use, was implemented in 1998 and is now widely used in the arts field. Smeeta Sharon, who is responsible for Business Operations at the Met, noted that "The rapid acceptance of Tessitura by a growing number of arts organizations is highly gratifying. The Met designed Tessitura to enhance customer relationships, and improve business practices by efficiently driving revenue transactions and boosting fundraising productivity. The end result is organizational improvement. We are pleased to share this powerful technology with other arts organizations through our Impresario, L.L.C. subsidiary."

Jack Rubin, business and marketing director for Tessitura and President of the Tessitura Network, Inc., commented, “Sydney Opera House like many other licensees, selected Tessitura for its ‘best of class’ functionality in the arts enterprise software market and the attractiveness of our nonprofit business model. Licensees have been rapidly switching from competitive box office and fundraising systems since 2000 when the Metropolitan Opera started offering their proprietary system to other arts organizations under license. Tessitura takes 'constituent management' to another level. Customer service is considerably enhanced, customer retention is improved and fund raising and marketing campaigns are able to be more targeted and efficient. Tessitura licensees also receive an integrated Internet interface that provides real time transaction capability with no fees whatsoever due to Impresario or any 3rd party company."

About Tessitura®
Tessitura is an enterprise software application that enables an integrated approach to “constituent management” for arts organizations. Using a single database of information, the system empowers the user organization to record, track and manage all contacts with its constituents, conduct highly targeted and cost-efficient marketing and fund raising appeals, handle all ticketing and membership transactions and provide detailed and flexible performance reports. Besides seamlessly providing efficient business, ticketing and development department operations, a key benefit of the system is its ability for relationship managers to have a full view of each constituent – their history, preferences and all contacts with the institution. Tessitura is owned by Impresario, L.L.C., a wholly owned subsidiary of The Metropolitan Opera.

The Tessitura Network, Inc. is a nonprofit company established to further enhance Tessitura Software over time and to provide ongoing support and consulting services for Tessitura licensees. Licensees become “members” of the Tessitura Network once they start using Tessitura to process transactions for their organization.

Tessitura Software Contact: Jack Rubin www.tessiturasoftware.com
Phone: 214.265.1908 jrubin@tessiturasoftware.com

Sydney Opera House: Corporate Communications
Phone: +61.2.9240.7411 spinferi@sydneyoperahouse.com