In this episode, AMT Lab Podcast Producer Angela Johnson interviews Andrew Recinos, President and CEO of Tessitura Network; Kathleen Barrett, Senior Vice President of Enterprise and Head of Creative Success at Vimeo; and Emma Keith, the Director of Digital Media at the National Theatre in London, about the recent strategic partnership between Vimeo and Tessitura that syncs Vimeo OTT and Tessitura's platform so that organizations can easily give audiences access to gated video content.
RESOURCES
TRANSCRIPT
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B: Hello, AMT Lab listeners, and welcome to an interview episode of Tech in the Arts, the podcast for the Arts Management and Technology Lab. My name is B Crittenden, and I'm the Technology & Interactive Content Manager. In this episode, AMT Lab Podcast Producer Angela Johnson speaks with Andrew Recinos, President and CEO of Tessitura Network; Kathleen Barrett, Senior Vice President of Enterprise and Head of Creative Success at Vimeo; and Emma Keith, the Director of Digital Media at the National Theatre in London. They discuss the recent strategic partnership between Vimeo and Tessitura, which syncs Vimeo OTT and Tessitura's platform so that organizations can more easily give audiences access to gated video content. They also chat about integrating video media and the performing arts going forward. Hope you enjoy.
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Kathleen: So, I'm Kathleen Barrett. I'm from Vimeo. Vimeo is the world's leading all-in-one video software solution and our platform enables any professional, team, or organization to unlock the power of video. This includes everything from video hosting, to review and collaboration tools, distribution across platforms, and monetization, as well as live streaming tools. And Vimeo OTT is our direct-to-consumer platform. So that's everything you need to launch a Netflix-like experience across devices. Everything from entertainment channels, fitness influencers, and cultural institutions, they're all on the platform and we empower them to have a best-in-class viewing experience and an easy way to monetize their audience. At Vimeo, I overlook that OTT business and our enterprise business and also work with our support and solutions teams that onboard our clients, help them with technical troubleshooting, and make sure that they're getting the most out of the platform.
Emma: I'm Emma Keith. I'm Director of Digital Media at the National Theatre in London, and I oversee the digital distribution of plays and productions produced by the National Theatre. So we launched about 12 years ago National Theatre Live, which is our offering to cinemas around the world, and then during the pandemic last year, pivoted the business and looked at ways in which we could continue to engage our audience digitally, and initially, we launched a program of releases through our YouTube channel and then very quickly wanted to look at ways in which we could make that sustainable financially for the organization and for the artists that are involved in the work that we produce, and that's when we came to Vimeo and to the OTT solution, and we launched National Theatre at Home in December 2020 to really great response from audiences. So we have a selection of National Theatre productions available for audiences to view around the world, both on a subscription and on a rental, so a kind of pay-per-view, process. And we've just been amazed by how well audiences have taken to the platform, and it's provided a really valuable opportunity for the National Theatre during this time to continue to engage with audiences whilst keeping closed, and we've been in another lockdown in the UK And also to generate a revenue and income for the organization.
Andrew: Thank you, first of all, for having us and for having me. I'm Andrew Recinos. I am the President and CEO of Tessitura Network. Tessitura is a member-owned nonprofit technology and services company. We provide customer relationship management, ticketing, fundraising, e-commerce, and analytics software exclusively for arts and cultural organizations, including the National Theatre and 733 others. First and foremost, we develop software and develop and support and upgrade, and then we provide any number of services around the software as well as around advancing the business of arts and culture. And we have partnered with Vimeo as our goal is always to help our members succeed. We call our users members because we are a member-owned organization. So organizations like the NT, or the Royal Opera House, or Carnegie Hall, or much, much smaller organizations get the most out of their system. And we do that by either developing software ourselves or partnering with a great partner like Vimeo that has a world-leading solution.
Angela: Yeah, that's awesome. So, I do want to talk specifically about this partnership. How did this happen? And, like, why is it so impactful? And why does it matter so much?
Kathleen: We probably both have stories about it. I'll try to do a quick one, which is, you know, I think, right when Covid hit, we were seeing a lot of companies come to us trying to figure out what to do next. You know, they couldn't have in person experiences, they knew video was maybe an option, and we started to see that as a trend. And so we started to have more conversations with ballets and opera houses and all sorts of theaters, and they were, you know, really looking for guidance. We were trying to provide that guidance, and as we were having conversations, it was very clear that Tessitura was also a very important partner with all of these different organizations. And we heard a lot of desire from them to want to be able to have these two platforms work nicely together so that their audience could get the most out of the experience and their video and digital property could be kind of an extension of that in-person experience. And so I think some of our sales engineers actually raised it with me first, and we started some conversations and saw a really great opportunity here to kind of join forces and support these organizations as they were navigating really challenging new waters. And that's how we got here!
Andrew: Yeah, I would agree with that sort of from the Tessitura perspective. A couple of things to talk about our journey there: first of all, as most organizations when the quarantines began in March of 2020, almost every one of our organizations immediately wanted to have some way to stay in contact with their constituents, with their ticket buyers, with their donors. And so there was a lot of really fast work to get something onto the internet so that folks could continue to interact with ballet or dance or theatre or music. There were pathfinders like the National Theatre who had already been doing this for years and so they had a wonderful catalog and they had a wonderful way to reach their audiences. I remember watching "One Man, Two Guvnors" within, you know, a week or two of the lockdown and that is actually one of the things that I remember most about sort of those early, early weeks. At the same time, unfortunately people thought that this was going to be kind of a short term thing. So from our perspective, at Tessitura, we didn't...you know, we kept an ear to the ground about the need to go to a digital delivery model for arts and culture, but it wasn't a real priority until the summer when it became clear that the pandemic wasn't going to be over in eight weeks and that those stopgap measures were going to have to become more mature. Like even with Emma talking about starting with YouTube and then moving pretty quickly to Vimeo, that was happening writ large across our organizations, pretty much in all 10 countries that we operate. We polled our users. There are a lot of streaming services and platforms out there. It seemed like Vimeo was one of the ones that was being used the most by our organizations for a variety of the reasons that Kathleen has already said. They are an industry leader, and we even had a few come to us directly and say, "We really ought to talk to Vimeo." Opera Philadelphia, actually, in Philly was one of the first. They're a very forward-thinking organization in Philadelphia. They think outside the box all the time as far as, you know, should we have a regular season versus should we have a festival season versus the kinds of programming that they do. So it was not at all surprising to me that they were one of the first to want to really get more involved with a more permanent solution like Vimeo.
Angela: Yeah, we talk on the podcast so much—especially just in the last year—about, you know, streaming and arts organizations and how important it is to, like, find a way to integrate that and do something that's not just, you know, just stream a performance. You gotta, like, do more and interact with users and everything, and I think it's really cool what you guys are doing. And also, Emma, I want to talk to you, because you've been using this platform. If you would just want to talk about your experience, both using this platform but also just, in general, integrating digital media with theater.
Emma: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's one of those...like I said, we launched NT Live back in 2009, which feels like a complete lifetime ago now. It was very much kind of groundbreaking at the time. We did model ourselves on what the Metropolitan Opera were doing with their Live in HD program, but we're very much the first theater to really embrace capturing our productions. And I think, like you say, it's about more than just...it is about capturing the productions, but it's about how do you make people who are watching remotely and aren't in the room with the performers or musicians or the dancers feel like they're having just as good an experience, albeit different. We often say it's akin to a sports match. So it's great to be in the stadium and watch live, and that's one sort of experience. But if you can't be there and you can watch at home on your television or you can watch remotely, that's still a really great way in which to experience that. And that was very much kind of how we approached NT Live. And so when the pandemic hit, we were very fortunate that we were in the position where we've got about 85-90 titles, all recorded multi-camera, high definition, 4K, really high quality sound values, as well, so all of the performers are radio miked, it's specifically sound-mixed for watching digitally. But we've spent 12 years investing in that and kind of building that up. But what it did mean was we could move really quickly and agilely when the lockdown hit. And, as Andrew said, it was about two weeks from the lockdown in the UK, theaters had to close, to announcing our releases on on YouTube. So that really was a kind of quick adaptation for us. But we announced four shows. We thought that was all it was going to be. It was just a bit of a stopgap and a way to keep audiences engaged whilst they couldn't attend live theater. And sort of the same thing, we very much took it kind of day-by-day in those early days. We announced four. Three weeks later, we announced another four. We were sort of very tentatively keeping ourselves going but, within that first 8-10 weeks, very much realized that the pandemic wasn't going to be over anytime soon and that, actually, if we came out of this, things were going to be different. There wasn't going to be going back to the old normal, there was always going to be a new normal. And that is really when we kind of turned to Vimeo and very much saw them as the world leaders as an opportunity and a way in which we could continue to engage our audiences. It gave us a huge degree of flexibility to brand it, to make it feel National Theatre, to make it feel an extension of that in-person experience, and for it to fit in our kind of brand and our suite of web offering, whether that's our own website or another mini site that we have that gave us that ability to do that, really, and to make it something that felt within our family that we offer to our audiences. And with reliability, stability, it was like a safe pair of hands, really, I think, from that perspective of our audiences expect world class. We deliver world-class theater and they expect world-class digital products, as well. So it was really important for us that we had that kind of partnership that we were working with of, this is going to be a service that's going to be available 24/7 that is supported, that is available to our audiences wherever in the world they may be watching. And then we really did kind of embrace Vimeo, and the OTT solution just addressed all of those things from our perspective. It really kind of gave us the reassurance to move forward with a streaming platform and to offer something that we'd been talking about and thinking about for many, many years and had never felt ready to, kind of, take that step in.
Ultimately, the pandemic broke down barriers and a number of us the philosophy of, is it right to have theater on the phone and to be able to take it everywhere you go? But also, what would it look like? Who do we work with? How do we make it happen? We just had to look for options and find solutions really quickly, and that's where it was great working with Vimeo to kind of go like, "What is it? What does it do? How does it work? How can it deliver for our audiences? Right, let's make it happen, and let's really kind of launch it and give it a go and see what happens." And we were cautiously optimistic when we started in terms of how we thought it would go, and, yeah, audiences have just really taken to it and really enjoyed the experience—not only of watching that great, high-quality theater but also where it's housed, how it's housed, what the experience is in viewing that content. And then, obviously, the upcoming integration with Tessitura is fantastic for us as an organization because Tessitura provides our systems. I always joke that, for NT Live, we have this real challenge because the cinemas sell the tickets so we know very little about the audience, but for the National Theatre itself, I joke that we almost know their inside like measurements because Tessitura provides so much data and insight. Like, we know a huge amount of information about the audience members and we're able to really kind of have that insight and that knowledge about them. And that's, again, like I said, a challenge when cinemas are selling the tickets and we don't have that. So to be able to find a way of bringing our digital audience together with our in-person audience and being able to kind of understand our whole interaction with audience members is a really great boost and a great opportunity because I think we know that things aren't going to go back to normal. It's going to be interesting to see how digital sits alongside in-person when it resumes, as well, and I think there's going to be more changes to come down the line, but getting that really rounded picture of audience members and how they're engaging with our organization—whatever platform that may be on, however they may come across us—is a really valuable tool as we move forward.
Angela: So, speaking of, like, the new normal, this is definitely a partnership that was clearly born out of the pandemic and the world that we live in right now, but how do you think it's going to be used going forward? And what do you think is going to change about the way that we all interact with arts organizations? Give me some predictions.
Andrew: You're reading about this and you're hearing about it and it sounds like, Angela, you've been talking about this on the podcast, as well. I mean, the world was heading into the digital sphere pretty quickly before the pandemic, and the pandemic accelerated it all to levels nobody saw. I have a colleague at the New York Philharmonic who summarizes it all by saying that, before the pandemic, you know, not everybody could use a QR code, but today, even your grandmother uses a QR code. So the idea of audiences or donors or members or consumers are sort of split between those that use digital technology and those that don't: that divide no longer exists. Everybody uses digital technology. And when I think about that at Tessitura, we were originally, like any ticketing and fundraising system, we were originally built to help connect people with culture physically. So, sell them a ticket so that they can go into a hall and have that amazing live experience. And I have no doubt that that will not only continue, but I think, you know, as things start to open up, that there will be a rush back to those live experiences—to that tangible, the frisson that you get when you sit in the theater when the curtain goes up. And people have figured out that if it is done well, like the NT does it, like Opera Philadelphia does it, like lots of other of the Tessitura organizations have figured out how to do this with multiple camera angles and really high-grade equipment, the digital version of that live experience is really, really rich. And it's far more convenient, you know? The ones that are doing it really well, I think, are proving that they're not going to be poaching their live audience. It's going to be a "rising tide lifts all ships" kind of thing. I mean, the stories that we're hearing, and I'm sure, Emma, you're seeing this, like, the size of audience outside of London who is participating in NT Live, I can only imagine where those folks are coming from including Portland, Oregon, where my family and I watch. So I think it's here to stay and I think that's a good thing because I think it's also allowing culture to get to more people and to allow them to participate in that incredible part of our world even if they can't get in a car and go to the theater, even if they live 4,000 or 5,000 miles away.
Kathleen: I'm sure we all have lots of perspectives and I want to hear Emma's, for sure, but I do share a lot of the views Andrew just shared. You know, we think of it as an accelerated adoption of video technology and digital experiences. So Emma mentioned, you know, they thought about having this sort of experience but when was the right time? And suddenly, no one got to choose anymore. Some folks were more prepared, I think, you know, like, Emma and NT here had at least a lot of beautiful things to work with and a strategy, while others were navigating very, very new territory. I think the most inspiring part of this is, you know, people were looking for a solution to a really challenging problem and what they found was kind of this limitless new world where you no longer are limited to the confines of a theater or someone who can afford a ticket to different types of experiences. Suddenly, the whole world is your stage and your audience, right? And so I think people have found that to be really exciting and empowering for them. And the feedback we've received from a lot of folks that have gone this direction is that they don't think there's any turning back and people that don't adopt this in addition to in-person experiences will kind of be left behind. But I do think, you know, there's a lot to think about of, what is that digital experience? How do you make it rich? No one thinks we're going to lose in-person experiences. People are just so hungry for getting back into that, right? And really feeling that energy. Something we think a lot about is how do we build technology to replicate that even further, right? And give that reaction of the audience and make it feel like there's a little bit of a feedback loop. So I think there's going to be a lot of really exciting things to be developed over time to try to make this even more rich, but we certainly think and hope that, you know, it will be maintained because that broader reach, that kind of different experience, is something that people have seemed to really enjoy and respond to over the last year.
Emma: Yeah, I think I'd concur with everything that both of you said. I mean, it definitely feels like no one was in control. We didn't get to choose. It was very reactive and responsive. And I think from that perspective, it also gave lots of people opportunities to try things. And I'm not sure anything that's been tried during the pandemic is going to last beyond the pandemic, but I definitely think what it has done is push things forwards…I sort of say, in our world, perhaps three to five years. I feel like I've done about three to five years worth of work in the last 12 months, and it has really kind of shifted things forwards from that perspective. And so there isn't going back from that, but what there is is refinement and evolution, and I think the arts as an industry, generally and as a sector, are innovative and creative, and it's really fed that kind of thing and given us an opportunity to try things. Digital really does break down barriers, whether they're geographic, whether they’re price, but also, particularly for us, other things. So on the Vimeo OTT platform, all of our productions are available with captions. So, from an accessibility perspective, the opportunity for audiences to be able to engage with us is phenomenal. We also offer a selection of titles available with audio description, so that's where there's a narration and a narrative that goes alongside and describing the action for people who are blind or hard-sighted, as well. So we are trying to break down as many barriers as possible, and digital really offers an opportunity to do that. Of course we do captions and audio description on the live performances, as well, but to be able to do it at complete convenience, at the touch of buttons, on laptops, on phones, and in people's homes...for them to be able to do that in that way, I think that's where digital opportunities really provide a future opportunity. But I think what it also really comes back to—and we have a separate department at the National Theatre that looks at kind of digital innovation and AR and VR and all of those things—but whether it's them or whether it's my work within digital media, we are fed by a live theater experience. So, at the heart of all of the things that we do are bringing people together to tell stories. And, yes, the digital experience is great, but it stems from that initial live experience. And I think that's where we were fortunate that we have a catalog to draw on. But I can't wait until we can get back to making live theater again because that is just going to give us more opportunities and the programming and the future work that we make, and then think about how we could distribute that and engage an audience digitally. That's, for me, what's really interesting. And I think what's different about theater and the arts, particularly the performing arts, than perhaps just making content for television or the cinema, is really that there is that live experience at the heart of it, and that's really what drives it. And, so yeah, I'm so excited for when theaters can reopen and we can get back to doing what we do with this digital layer woven through and embedded in a way that's completely different to how it was 12 years ago.
Angela: Yeah, you're definitely not alone in looking forward to theater returning. We've talked a lot on the podcast just about how, obviously, the pandemic has changed all of our lives and it really has forced a lot of arts organizations to develop media, like digital content and everything, and how some organizations that do it really well it's, like, leading to better accessibility and just, like, different content in a way that I think is really interesting. And it's definitely not going to take away from the live experience because that's, like, so much of what the arts is and why they matter. But just adding another element to it in a way that I think is interesting and it's really going to change the industry, in my opinion.
Andrew: I have a question, actually, for Kathleen and Emma that I was just thinking about as you were giving your answers. This idea of creating a unique digital-only experience—I wonder if...it sounds like, Kathleen, that the Vimeo team is thinking about this a lot, I got that sense from you. But I think about, you know, the idea that when you were sitting in a concert, let's say a classical music concert, and there's an amazing solo that happens, it would be really rude to sort of say out loud, "That that was an amazing solo," right? You know? But if you're watching it live at home and you have a chat window or whatever else, all of a sudden, if you want, at your discretion, you can actually interact with the other audience members in real time, and I wonder...that feels like there's something there, you know? To get back to what Kathleen says about how digital can provide experiences that live can't, I'd just be interested in either of your thoughts on, what is there beyond the presentation of the work itself that you think about as sort of an accelerator on digital delivery?
Emma: That's a really interesting question and actually something that I was having similar thoughts about, as well, because one of the things we found...we don't have the comment feature enabled on our Vimeo platform just because the management of it 24/7 is beyond our capacity as an organization. But we did have live chat alongside our YouTube performances, and when you see how engaged the audience are and how much they do want to, like, talk about their experience, it's one of the things that I've said elsewhere is, like, how do we keep up that almost second-screen experience or that chat window in live theater when you're not really supposed to have your phone on and don't talk to the person next to you? It was like that interval moment where you kind of go, "Oh, are you enjoying the show? What do you think?" But it was just happening continually and we're able to talk to people all across the world. So I don't have the answer and I don't know exactly what the outcome of it is. But I do think it's something really interesting about how we harness digital and live together. I think it is something that we are thinking about with our OTT platform is—are there moments that we can create? Because it actually launched, it's been fantastic, but the UK has been in lockdown or a version of lockdown the entire time that NT at Home has existed and, for us, we do want to have longevity alongside our in-person offer and I think that is where we are thinking, like, how can we make that also feel special? How do we give it moments? And things like that. Like, sort of watch-alongs or let's all kind of tune in at the same time, creating that real kind of talking moment and that sense of people coming together to have a collective experience, albeit everyone's watching remotely, is really the thing as we move forward. Because the arts are so powerful, but part of that power is the collective experience that people have and the coming together. And that’s partly why we did NT Live in the beginning because we were still watching with other people. You still bought a ticket and there's still a sense of event about it, and I think it's how we can keep some of that in the digital sphere as we move forward, because actually, we're social beings. We want to come together and have that collective experience. So how can we then use technology to engender that? And, hopefully, this is where Kathleen comes in and says, "This is Vimeo's solution to the world's problems." [laughter]
Kathleen: Well, I'm not sure I have all the answers yet, but, you know, I think it's something that we're certainly thinking about and then something we've seen our customers already do today to an extent right? It's why we saw this huge uptick in live streaming, right? It was because people were hungry for some sense of, you know, "I have to get up and I have to get to this event. Otherwise, it's going to be gone." And that replaced one of those feelings. And then I think, yeah, that when you're in the audience, there's this collective experience, as you said, Emma. And that's where sometimes the interactivity tools help bring that experience back on board. I think the other things we've seen people experiment with is, like, basically, the proximity to the talent or the proximity to the content and saying, "We're gonna have, you know...we have the LA Dance Project, they have Benjamin Millepied teaching dance classes now to the audience," right? So it's something that you would have never had access to before or some kind of views through some of these camera captures that you wouldn't be able to see if you were, you know, way back, 12 rows back, even, right? So we're seeing that already. And then I do think we're thinking about all of those emotions and those feelings of in-person. And sometimes I do think it's moments, right? You don't want to have people chatting all the time for every event that exists, but there are certain moments where you want to be interacting with the other people watching it. Then there's events where I think the people performing are hungry for the feedback loop they weren't getting, right? And so in those moments, you want the person that's live streaming or putting the content out there to be able to get an assessment of what's coming back. You know, are people liking what I'm saying/I'm doing? Are they not? Are they excited? Are they asleep? And so, you know, those are the other kind of elements that we're certainly thinking through, but I'm sure it'll be in partnership with a lot of our customers that we start to think about the things that are really going to be driving that engagement and that excitement and provide another layer of experience when you have the digital experience that you can't have, you know, that you have in person and you want to try to replicate it, I guess, or make richer.
Angela: Yeah, I think that this is definitely a super relevant topic, especially in the integration of live streaming and just integrating streaming and digital content into the theater and just creating a different experience.
Andrew: Yeah, I mean, I guess I would just sort of finish by saying that Tessitura's mission is to connect people with culture. And we believe that knowledge leads to engagement, so learning about your potential customers/donors helps you engage with them, helps you figure out what makes sense for them to engage. Engagement leads to revenue, just to be blunt about it. None of our organizations can survive without money. Revenue advances your mission, so allowing you to pay for all these incredible productions. And then, you know, by fulfilling your mission, it is taking you all the way back to knowledge because you're learning more about what your audiences want or what audiences are missing. And I see this combination of Tessitura, which is very much a customer relationship knowledge system, in conjunction with Vimeo, which is really about delivering digital culture, is one of those ways to really elevate the ability to connect people with culture and all over the world.
Kathleen: Well put. [laughter]
Angela: Alright, so, where can everyone find you?
Andrew: So tessituranetwork.com is our website. We're also on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and Instagram. And I am Andrew Recinos, and you can find me on LinkedIn or on Twitter. My name is my is my handle, so it's pretty easy to find.
Emma: We are National Theatre, so NT at Home is on ntathome.com or nationaltheatre.org.uk. We're across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
Kathleen: And then we are, of course, vimeo.com. Our Vimeo OTT product has its own website, too, if that's of specific interest and you're trying to launch a channel. It's hopefully easy enough for pretty much anybody to do with the technology. And definitely available on all the platforms. I'm Kathleen Barrett, and you can reach out to me, too, I'm personally happy to help with anything people are exploring in this space.
Angela: Well, thank you all so much for meeting and talking, and this was a really great conversation.
Andrew: Thank you, Angela.
Angela: Thanks for listening to the AMT Lab podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and to leave a comment. If you would like to learn more, go to amt-lab.org. That is A-M-T dash L-A-B .org. Or, you can email us at amtlabcmu@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at Tech in the Arts, or on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn at Arts Management and Technology Lab. You can find the resources that we referenced today in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
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