Beth Aplin
Partner, The Henderson Aplin Partnership

Beth Aplin, an information and knowledge management specialist, has spent 18 years working with a huge range of arts organisations to help them select, implement, review, refine, and evaluate their systems and processes. She feels that in order for an organisation to work effectively and efficiently systems should be explored in their widest sense – both people and technology.

She is a ticketing system expert and during her eight years at Select Ticketing she installed PASS in 44 venues worldwide and then as Customer Service Manager worked with these same organisations over a long period to help them manage and exploit the system. During this time the critical importance of staff involvement, collaboration, skills and empowerment became clear to her.
Since becoming a consultant in 1998 she has worked with a wide range of arts clients helping them in the following ways:

* Customer Care exploration, benchmarking and collaborative training
* Train the trainer training
* Exploration of the working relationships between departments
* Systems (in their widest sense) audits and troubleshooting
* Facilitating board and management retreats
* Staffing reviews
* Change management and guidance
* Project management and guidance
* Reviewing how audience data is gathered and used practically & strategically
* Internal communications re-evaluation and guidance
* Web site and e-marketing reviews and exploitation
* Ticketing, marketing and fundraising system audits and stock takes
* Ticketing, marketing, fundraising and CRM system selection
* Region wide ticketing system feasibility studies
* Region wide audience analysis and benchmarking exercises

She co-authored “The Thirst for Knowledge” report in 2003 funded by Arts Council England, Scottish Arts Council and Arts Council Wales a country wide review of how arts organisations had responded to the ability to gather substantial audience data. Audience Data UK (ADUK) was established as a direct result of the reports recommendations. She contributed to “Lend us a Tenner” the recent ACE publication considering pricing strategies for arts organisations. She regularly speaks at conferences and seminars, delivers national training tours, is vice-chair of the Arts Marketing Association, and chairs AMA conference.

Rae Bassett
Audience Development Manager, QPAC

Merryn Carter
Project Manager, ADVICE, Australia Council for the Arts

Merryn Carter has over 20 years experience in arts marketing, having worked as a marketing, development and audience research consultant with performing arts companies and venues, festivals, galleries and visual arts organisations around Australia. She has both a Bachelor of Music and Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Melbourne. Merryn has also worked as marketing manager for the Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Theatre Company and the Australia Business Arts Foundation. She is one of the most experienced arts marketing researchers working in Australia today, and is currently working for the Australia Council for the Arts as national manager of the ADVICE project (audience data and visitor information collection enterprise).

Tony Faure
Previously Regional Vice President, Yahoo (South East Asia) and CEO ninemsn
F ounding shareholder in MyTickets

Tony is a digital media entrepreneur, investor and advisor. After more than a decade as a magazine publisher he became passionately interested in internet media in the mid nineties, and subsequently sold the first ever banner ad in Australia, for which he is admired and despised in equal measure! He founded Yahoo! Australia in 1997 and went on to become Regional Vice President for South Asia. Later he founded and then sold online DVD rental company HomeScreen, and was most recently CEO of ninemsn from 2006-2008. Tony has been a board member of several digital media companies including Seek, ninemsn, i-select as well as the Internet Industry Association and the Internet Advertising Bureau. He is a founding shareholder in MyTickets and advisor to the board. He lives in Sydney with his wife and four children, from whom he learns more about the internet than he does from any of his colleagues. He is passionate about entertainment of all forms - but especially music and movies - Chelsea football club; and cars.

John Paul Fishbach
Director, Auspicious Arts

John Paul has a long history of producing and directing theatre, festivals and site-specific events, from the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles to the International Puppet Carnival in Melbourne Australia and now the Australian premiere of The Santaland Diaries. John Paul is passionate about Independent Theatre. Author of the Auspicious Arts Incubator's mantra, "The Market is Security, Funding is Insecurity" he created a two year pilot project aimed at improving marketing and audience development for the independent theatre companies of Melbourne. He is currently working with Arts Victoria to assist small/ medium independent companies with ticketing, building patron data bases, working with privacy legislation and e-marketing. He has lived and worked in the U.S., Denmark, England, Bali and Canada and now makes his home in Melbourne where he works directing, producing and creating festivals. In partnership with John Paxinos he is helping small independent arts organisations with business skills marketing and audience development through the Auspicious Arts Incubator.

Andy Gray
Account Manager (QLD), Pacific Micromarketing

Andy manages the Queensland business of Pacific Micromarketing, a consumer marketing services business that helps its clients acquire, grow, retain, reactivate & optimise customer relationships. With eight years experience of applying geodemographic segmentation across three international markets, Andy is well-placed to advise clients on how to maximise the application of tools such as Mosaic®.

A member of the Australian Marketing Institute, Andy has presented to diverse groups who share a common interest in augmenting their customer & market data with Mosaic® to deliver truly actionable insight. With its broad client base across Australasia, Pacific Micromarketing draws upon the shared experience of these clients to drive successful outcomes for the arts sector.

Amalia Hordern
Customer Services Manager, The Australian Ballet

Amalia Hordern is Customer Services Manager with The Australian Ballet, overseeing the ticketing of annual subscription seasons in Melbourne and Sydney which attract over 28,000 subscribers, as well as working interdepartmentally to integrate the Ballet’s customer relationship management. She has been instrumental in The Australian Ballet implementation of Tessitura and the development of the company’s online ticketing and database management.

Amalia has previously worked on the St Kilda Festival and St Kilda Film Festival, and spent five years with the Canberra Theatre Centre and Canberra Ticketing, where she managed the ticketing requirements of a wide range of presenters, from professional to community based and across a variety of artforms.

Prior to entering the world of ticketing, Amalia worked as a dancer, dance teacher and Pilates instructor, and was Artistic Director of Canberra Dance Theatre from 2002-2005. Amalia holds a Bachelor of Arts from the Australian National University and is currently completing a Masters in Arts and Cultural Management through the University of South Australia.

Craig McMaster
Chief Executive, The Showbiz Group

Prior to joining Showbiz, Craig held a variety of senior positions in the entertainment and leisure industries including senior management roles with Ticketek Australia and New Zealand, culminating with Craig’s appointment as Ticketek CEO from 1999 - 2001, and the securing in excess of 25 major contracts under his leadership, including the operational ticketing management for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Earlier in his career, Craig has also held senior or general management positions with some of Australia’s leading entertainment and services companies; including Village Roadshow Corporation, Hoyts Cinema Corporation, Pepsico International and McDonald’s Corporation. Showbiz is Australia’s leading event packaging and premium ticketing provider. It specialises in the sales and marketing of premium ticket, travel and accommodation packages with theatrical and entertainment events, tourism campaigns for events, and sales and marketing of packages to major corporate clients. Showbiz also services many of Australia’s leading customer loyalty programs, including Qantas, American Express, NRMA and the Commonwealth Bank. Craig holds positions as Special Advisor, Major Events for TTF (Tourism and Transport Forum, and roles as both Executive Councillor and member of the Helpmann Awards Organising Committee for the LPA.

Tim Munro
Chief Executive Officer, Theatre Royal

Tim has lived and worked in Hobart for most of his life, primarily as a lighting designer, production manager and theatre technician. After a career in the public sector, he joined the Theatre Royal’s technical crew in 1995 and becoming head of the lighting department in 1998. Tim was Operations Manager of the Theatre Royal from 2000 – 2004 and was appointed to the position of CEO of the Theatre Royal in April 2004.

As a theatrical lighting designer he has toured theatre productions extensively to most states of, (and many festivals in) Australia and also to the UK, Canada, Malaysia and many times to New Zealand.

Tim is a member of the APACA executive, sits on several Arts Tasmania panels, and was formerly chair of the Australian Script Centre and a board member of is theatre ltd. He also teaches theatrical lighting and runs workshops for many primary secondary and tertiary students and consults on theatre development.

Stuart Nicolle
Managing Director, Purple Seven

Stuart is the managing director and founder of Purple Seven, a U.K.-based tickets analysis software firm that offers the award-winning Vital Statistics box office analysis system. Vital Statistics is currently used by more than 100 venues and audience development agencies across the U.K. and Europe, America and in Australia.

Stuart is an experienced market researcher and data analyst and has worked for many prestigious arts organizations in the U.K. He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Warwick on the subject of quantitative research and is a frequent speaker at arts conferences and consortium meetings in the U.K. and Europe.

Destry Puia
General Manager, The Events Centre

Destry has worked for a variety or organisations in Australia and New Zealand including independent theatre companies, festivals, large metropolitan arts organisations and regional and metropolitan Councils. For the past three years Destry has held the position of General Manager of The Events Centre on the Sunshine Coast. Destry began his theatre career as an usher and has worked in most parts of the theatre including bar, box office, technical department, wardrobe, marketing and on stage.

Destry is a previous committee member of the Arts Industry Council of Victoria, previous member of the Victorian Association of Performing Arts Centres (VAPAC) and is current President of the Northern Australian Regional Performing Arts Centres Association (NARPACA), the key peak body responsible for collaborating with the Queensland Government on key venue management challenges, arts industry matters and regional touring strategies. Destry has an Arts Degree in Social Science and in 2006 was named “Young Manager of the Year” by the Australian Institute of Management for the Sunshine Coast region. Destry is the proud dad of three beautiful daughters and husband to his exceptional wife Poppy.

Tina Rettke
Customer Services Manager, Geelong Performing Arts Centre

Tina started working in the theatre industry in 1977 in Canada. Although employed as an usher, she very quickly found her way in to the Box Office. She has continued to work in Box Offices her whole working life. Her current role as Customer Services Manager at the Geelong Performing Arts Centre includes the management of the Box Office and Front of House operations, the co-ordination of the IT infrastructure and the phone system as well as being the Privacy Officer. Tina was also Chair of the VAPAC Box Office Managers network for 6 years.

GPAC is a regional Performing Arts Centre located 75 kms south west of Melbourne, consisting of a 300 seat flat floor theatre and an 800 seat proscenium arch theatre. GPAC also manages a 1500 seat concert hall in Geelong for Deakin University. GPAC’s Box Office has a staff of 10, 2 Ticketek terminals and 5 Provenue terminals. Tina joined the Ticketing Professionals Conference committee in February 2006.

As a member of the Geelong Repertory Company and has enjoyed many lead roles over the last 20 years. Some favourites include Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, Amanda in The Glass Menagerie, Christine Vole in Witness for the Prosecution and Sylvia (the dog) in Sylvia.

Tim Roberts has over twenty years experience in ticketing and arts marketing throughout Australasia and internationally. Tim specialises in CRM and audience development and analysis for the arts and has undertaken ticketing and marketing projects for clients throughout Australia, New Zealand, USA, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey and Great Britain. He regularly consults with arts venues, organisations and arts ministries around Australia. He lectures for the AIM Master of Arts Management degree presented at Sydney Opera House, School of Arts Management at the West Australian Academy of the Performing Arts (WAAPA) in Perth and has lectured for the School of Arts Management LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts in Singapore and presents regularly at numerous industry conferences nationally and internationally. Tim is co-author of FULL HOUSE: Turning Data into Audiences with Roger Tomlinson with editions published in 2006 by the Australia Council, Creative New Zealand and two other international editions planned for 2008.

2009 National Conference Committee

Tim Roberts, Chair
Principal Consultant, ARTS Australia, NSW

Tina Rettke
Customer Service Manager, Geelong Performing Arts Centre, VIC

Brenda Fehlberg
Box Office Coordinator, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, TAS

Amalia Hordern
Customer Services Manager, The Australian Ballet, VIC

Peta Bazzo
Box Office Manager, Bunbury Entertainment Centre, WA

Destry Puia
General Manager, The Events Centre, QLD

Chris Patrick
General Manager, Capella Cultural Centre