If you care, SHARE!

We have a feature on our website and our eCenter newsletters - no matter what the information - announcements, shows, discounts, classes, dining opportunities, you name it - there is always an icon nearby that looks like the one above.

That's the ShareThis option. Click on it and you can share our information with your friends on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, Blogspot, Technorati and more!

Be a Performing Arts Social Media Maven! When you see a show, event, class, or blog post you like - let everyone know. You'll be rewarded with new fans flocking to your Social Media Mecca. If nothing else, you'll look tres sophisticated and well versed in the arts scene in Tampa Bay. We all win!

-Kari G.

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.  

Are you a WAISTWATCHER? Can you give us a hand?

One of the core components of good show marketing is knowing who your audience is and planning smart to reach them. You can buy all the TV, radio and print you like and still miss people though (as was evidenced this weekend when overheard at the Watchmen was "they should have an intermission in three-hour movies, you know, like back in the day when they had plays"). Some shows come with built-in niches. For a show like Motherload we'll obviously reach out to mom groups and play-date services. For HATS! we located all of the Red Hat chapters in a 100-mile radius.

For WAISTWATCHERS: The Calorie-Free Musical we've been reaching out to health and fitness organizations: Weightwatchers, Anytime Fitness, Shapes and the like. Still, it would be a virtual impossibility for us to hit up every single gym, weight loss center and health food store in the whole DMA.

And this is where you might come in ...

Grass-roots level marketing is important. It costs nothing in dollars usually, but is often the most labor-intesive and elusive. Our patrons operate on a grass-root level when they see a show then tell their friends who would like it to make a plan. They help us by posting links in their blogs or on their social networks. They can also help us out by taking a poster or some flyers to a relevant business they frequent - in this case like those gyms, weight loss centers or health food stores I mentioned previously.

Can you give us a hand?

If you've seen the show already, you know what folks are in for. Maybe you'd like to come back again and bring a friend? That might be possible for us to work out. You scratch our back and maybe we can scratch yours. Maybe you haven't seen it and you'd like to. Pitch in and we can probably take care of you, too.

So let me know if you can lend a hand. Any and all help is appreciated and we're always working on a show like this that's here for such a long time to help make sure that the show stays top of mind with folks.

Help like this isn't valid just for WAISTWATCHERS (though, admittedly, it's my most immediate need), but you can always help any show at TBPAC by doing any of the following:

• Request a poster or flyers to put at a relevant business, your work or church
• Follow us (tbpac) on Twitter, friend us on MySpace or join the group/become a fan of us (tbpac) on Facebook
• Use the forward to a friend feature on an eCenter newsletter that you think someone else might be interested in
  
• Post tinyurl links to your Twitter status
• Post links to our blog or our videos or photos to your Facebook or MySpace profile.
• Post how excited you are to see a show or what you thought of a show to your blog or social network

TBPAC is here for the community, and the community can also help us continue to bring the best of touring shows and regional productions by pitching in to get the word out!

Next Club Jaeb show: Bethany & Rufus

"There's some Cowboy Junkies here, a dash of Tuck & Patti there and an overall otherworldliness more akin to a David Lynch movie." - Amazon.com Editorial Review

Bethany Yarrow is the daughter of Peter Yarrow (who you might remember from his days of making music with Paul and Mary) who sings in a haunting style you might liken to Nina Simone or Cassandra Wilson, and Rufus Capadoccia plays the cello with a sick skill that will keep you guessing if he's in fact playing a classical cello, an upright bass or possibly even an electric bass. Together their music pushes standard American folk far past the edge into the territory of hypnotic groove, jazz and psychedelic soul.

You can take a listen to some of their music at their MySpace page.

Or watch this video:



I know it's almost a hackneyed expression, but watch this clip and you may even say yourself that Rufus rocks it like a Hendrix on the cello:



Need more convincing? Watch this solo video of his:



Bethany & Rufus play the Jaeb Theater on Jan. 28.

On MySpace? Facebook? We are too!

If you have a profile set up on MySpace, why not friend us? Check us out here!

What about Facebook? We have a group set up over there which you can also join!

Aaaand ... we'll be launching a new texting SMS system in the next few weeks. I'm trying to learn the system right now to get it going on or around 11/1.

We try to stay on top of new technology over here at TBPAC. If there's any other great ways to stay in touch with you - let us know by leaving a comment!

Enter to win Hal Sparks tickets!

We're running a contest jointly through both CULTURE SHOCK and MySpace for the upcoming Hal Sparks show next week (3/22).

We're going to make this one easy on you. And you have 10 chances to win.

You remember that series of shows Hal did on VH-1, right? I Love the '70s, I Love the '80s and I Love the '90s?

All you need to do is post your favorite child/teen memory from that era that was very, very decade specific.

For instance, tell us about those nehru bell-bottoms you saved up for back in the '70s or the time you made out with your first girlfried to Nevermind in the back of your CRX.

If you haven't noticed, we've been begging for some comments, some conversation over here. I even got a promotion approved to try to help!

And while you're at it, check out the post I did full of Hal Sparks video clips. There's also one of him up on our MySpace page. He's a very funny guy!

TBPAC: A bit o' housekeeping

First, go friend our myspace profile if you haven't yet. You know you want to.

Also, a reminder of some show on-sales (we really do try to shill hard in the blog, but I'm also really tired of hearing people say that they don't hear about it when we add shows). These are listed in order of the show date, with the on sale info following:

• Dec. 9 - Jim Gaffigan - a 10p show was added a few weeks back, get em while they're hot! On sale now.
• Dec. 14-16 - One Slight Hitch - a staged reading of a play by Lewis Black. Come see the play then offer feedback to Lew yourself afterwards. On sale now.
• Jan. 20 - Jon Stewart - On sale now to donors, on sale to the public Dec. 1 at noon. Allow me to editorialize a bit here. Get your tickets in advance or pay a ridiculous amount to a ticket broker in order to see the show.
• Jan. 29 - LeRoy Bell and His Only Friends (Club Jaeb Series) - On sale now. Check out the link to listen to some samples. Good stuff.
• Feb. 14 - Joe Bonamassa - On sale now.
• Feb. 17 - Julio Iglesias - On sale to donors on Dec. 4 at noon, on sale to the public Dec. 8 at noon.

And finally, don't forget to go chime in on our open thread on holiday music!