Intern AP Speaks!

Intern: a person who works as an apprentice or trainee in an occupation or profession to gain practical experience, and sometimes also to satisfy legal or other requirements for being licensed or accepted professionally.

I know what your thinking – interning is the worst – you’re on the bottom of the totem pole, do work no one else wants to do, no responsibility!

Breathe! I’m the one doing it – you’re not!

I must brag a little bit because interning with the Performing Arts Center has been one of the best experiences of my life! Not only am I included in some pretty great projects, meetings, and brainstorming…but the performing arts are something I am truly interested in! Trust me – its way better to be doing something that interests you than not.

Plus think about it – sure you have to work twice as hard as everyone else, (HELLO – they’re getting a paycheck, you’re not! Why wouldn’t you want to work harder?) but hopefully, especially in that “dream job” it will all pay off in the end. So let’s keep your fingers crossed for me and turn in to see what happens!

Here’s to great perks and great times ahead!

Test Drive Your Social Networking

Today was Test Drive Your Seats - a great opportunity for the community to run around Morsani Hall and see the available seats for the Broadway Season.  It was a bit of an early morning for most of us on the marketing staff.  We all had the "best intentions" to go to bed early last night - but I think the average bedtime was between 1:30 and 2 a.m.  

Bleary eyed but eager, we opened the doors to scores of waiting patrons at 9:30. We answered questions, talked of sight lines (Is stage left better than stage right?), levels (is the Mezzanine better than the Orchestra?) and season ticket options (Silver package v. Platinum package?).  Our Development team assisted patrons who saw the benefits of becoming members and ensuring the best seats in the Broadway Circle.

There are still great seats available for all performances in the season.  If you missed Test Drive today, don't worry, your perfect seats might still be waiting for you!

As the event wore down - we realized that in our quiet time, we were all posting Tweets.  This is what happens when an account has multiple users and too many marketers with iPhones.  Ah technology!

TBPAC's social networking contributors is expanding.  It's only going to get more interesting.  In the coming weeks TBPAC will be giving you, our readers and fans, a multi-dimensional look at all aspects of the world of a Performing Arts Center.  Staff from all areas of TBPAC will share their world with you.

Social Networking channels for TBPAC will still be one of the first places to gain information on discounts, show announcements and reminders of public on-sales, but we want to add to that knowledge a glimpse into the experiences we have at TBPAC.

Follow us on Twitter @TBPAC and get the news as it happens, from all corners of our organization.  Friend us on Facebook and MySpace for photos and contests that will be exclusive to our Friends.  Subscribe to Culture Shock and find out what we're up to and comment back with your thoughts and questions.

There is a Native American proverb that "It takes a thousand voices to tell one story." We're adding more voices and we need your voice as well - come to the discussion.

Have a great weekend - and if you haven't seen RENT yet, you still have 4 performances left.  If you're going to the Tampa Bay Rays game tonight - Anthony Rapp is singing the National Anthem - then rushing back to do the evening performance.  How cool is that?

-Kari G.  

Test Drive Your Seat

You know what we love to do more than anything else in the TBPAC marketing department?

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That's right! We like to wake up early and work on a Saturday morning!

Actually that's a lie. A big old lie. But we do care enough for you to have the best seat possible for the 2009-2010 Bank of America Best of Broadway season.

That's actually true. We really do care. We care so much that we are going to be in the Carol Morsani Hall tomorrow morning from 9:30 - 11 a.m. to answer your questions and help you find the perfect seat for you and your friends, loved ones and/or the people you have in your life that quietly sit with you and suffer your love of Broadway.

It's okay. We like people like you. We also like that there are people in your life that like you enough to buy another seat and suffer for you all season.

Come on by tomorrow morning - we'll be here. Hopefully we'll be standing upright, but be prepared for a couple of ponytails and baseball caps in the mix. Marketers are night owls. We only do this for you good people.

Points if you bring us coffee. Just sayin.

-Kari G.

New, new media

NYC -- Those of us in marketing spend a lot of time worrying about the fragmentation of traditional mass media, as well as the seemingly endless universe of new web 2.0 tools.

In a morning session today, many of us learned more about twitter, tagging and "crowdsourcing" as new marketing and management techniques. The two presenters, Adam Broitman and John Lanasa from Morpheus Media and Situation Marketing respectively, found a room full of dutiful students.

The session reinforces that we'll be trying to reach you in new and different (and inoffensive and non-intrusive) ways to get you the info you want when you want it.

What's the best way to reach you? Drop me a line and let me know. Email me at michael.kilgore@tbpac.org or just respond to this post.

(Of course, if we were truly early adopters, I would have sent this on Twitter in real time.) -- MichaelK