Presenters

Diane Ragsdale

Diane Ragsdale is the Associate Program Officer at the performing arts programme at the Andrew W Mellon Foundation which in 2007 provided approximately $42m to arts organisations in the USA.

Before joining the foundation (in 2004) she was Managing Director for ‘On the Boards' in Seattle, a presenter of avant-garde and experimental music, theatre, dance and new media work. She has worked on several major arts festivals such as Bumbershoot, Womad USA and the Sundance and Seattle Film Festivals.

In 2002 she was one of 40 arts leaders in the US to receive a fellowship to attend the first Executive Programme for Non-profit Leaders at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.

Hon Judith Tizard 

Judith Tizard is Minister of Consumer Affairs, Minister Responsible for the National Library, Minister Responsible for New Zealand Archives, Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Associate Minister of Transport and Associate Minister of Commerce.

A member of the Labour Party since 1973, Judith was first elected to Parliament in 1990 and served as Member of Parliament for Panmure from 1990-1996. She was then elected as the Member of Parliament for Auckland Central in 1996, and has been re-elected in each General Election since then.

Judith is the patron of several cultural, community and sporting organisations, and is kept busy and interested by activities in her community and in theatre, dance and the arts, as well as swimming, gardening, cooking and spending time with friends and family.

Judith has a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of Auckland.

Alastair Carruthers 

Alastair Carruthers is Chair of the Arts Council following over seven years in various funding and chairing roles with Creative New Zealand. He is the Chief Executive of the national law firm Chapman Tripp. He is skilled in strategic planning and implementation, business development, public relations (including arts sponsorships), human resources, technology, knowledge management and organisational learning. He originally trained as a classical musician, playing the piano and flute, and is a former trustee of the New Zealand String Quartet.

One of his main interests in the 21st century arts conference is the discussion to be had about why excellence in the arts equals audience engagement and not elitism.

Helen Bartle

At Creative New Zealand, Helen is the National Audience and Market Development Adviser responsible for strategic initiatives to grow existing and new audiences for the arts nationally.

Over the past twelve years Helen has held a number of arts marketing positions in the UK and New Zealand arts organisations, including the Watford Palace Theatre, Lyric Theatre Hammersmith and The Oxford Playhouse. In Oxford she worked with MAX (Marketing the Arts in Oxfordshire) on audience development projects for The Oxford Playhouse including setting up audio description for visually impaired audiences.

The New Zealand Comedy Festival brought her to New Zealand in 2000. This was followed by five years as Marketing and Sponsorship Manager for Auckland Theatre Company during which time she won a Marketing Magazine Award for "txt2U", a mobile marketing campaign.

Andrew McIntyre

Andrew is one of the UK's leading authorities on arts marketing and audience development. He has devised some of the most innovative techniques, led highly successful projects and published widely read texts on how to attract, retain and develop audiences.

Andrew is a popular speaker and trainer, giving arts professionals real insight into the minds of the audience, a toolkit of skills and techniques and the inspiration and confidence to try them out. He doesn't just do theory - he is best known for devising the Audience Builder system and powerful tools such as TestDrive, TelePrompt and Audience Atlas.

Andrew is a co-founder of the agency Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, has served as Chair of the Visitor Studies Group UK and teaches cultural policy at Goldsmiths College, London. Recently he's delivered ten international training programmes in Austria, Australia, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal, Slovakia, Russia and the United States.

Andrew lives in Manchester with Helen, a primary school music teacher, and two young sons. He's a qualified FIFA soccer coach and at weekends can be found on a muddy touchline somewhere urging a bunch of 7 year olds to kick the ball.

Roger Tomlinson

Roger wrote FULL HOUSE: Turning Data into Audiences with Tim Roberts and Vicki Allpress-Hill as a practical handbook on turning data into audiences.

He specialises in working with arts organisations on their customer focus, especially to use 21st century technologies to enhance their relationships with attenders. With Vicki he also wrote A Practical Guide to Developing and Managing Websites.

He has given keynote speeches on the relationship with the audience across Europe and the US. This is his third visit to New Zealand to work 'hands on' with arts organisations.

Vicki Allpress-Hill

Vicki Allpress Hill has headed marketing departments in a number of internet and arts organisations globally, having previously held senior marketing roles with The NBR New Zealand Opera, Classical International Inc. (US), GMN.com (US), English National Ballet, The Royal New Zealand Ballet and Chamber Music New Zealand.

She is a regular international speaker, writer and consultant on the subject of using online technologies to attract and retain patrons of arts and music services. Recent speaking engagements have included Philadelphia Music Project, Intix Hollywood, Australia Council for the Arts e-Marketing Summit in Adelaide, Early Music America in San Francisco, Creative New Zealand's E-Marketing workshops, and the 2008 Ticketing Professionals Conference in Melbourne.

With Roger Tomlinson, Vicki co-wrote A Practical Guide to Developing and Managing Websites published by Arts Council England in 2004 and she was contributing author in 2006 for the New Zealand version of FULL HOUSE: Turning Data into Audiences published by Creative New Zealand.

Vicki is now based in her home city of Auckland as Manager - Online Marketing, Web & CRM for the new in-house ticketing service at THE EDGE®.

Debbie Richards

Debbie Richards is a Director of Baker Richards Consulting, which specialises in pricing research, data mining and marketing consultancy to help cultural organisations maximise their earned income and admissions.

The company's work comprises over two hundred projects for leading theatres, orchestras, opera companies, festivals, performing arts centres and visitor attractions in Europe and the USA. Current clients include the National Theatre in London, Glyndebourne Festival Opera (UK), Historic Scotland (including Edinburgh Castle), Cal Performances (a performing arts center in California), the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston (USA) and the Philadelphia Orchestra (USA). The company uses innovative data analysis tools to deliver rigorous pricing reviews and bespoke data mining.

Debbie has been consulting since 2002, prior to which she worked as a theatre producer with a site-specific theatre company in Oxford (UK) and in arts marketing for both an arts centre and a touring theatre company. She was a non-executive Director of the Arts Marketing Association for four years and has spoken at numerous conferences internationally.

For more information about Debbie and the company's work, as well as free pricing and marketing resources, please visit http://www.baker-richards.com/.

Tim Baker

Tim is a Director of Baker Richards Consulting which specialises in pricing research, data mining and marketing consultancy to help cultural organisations maximise their earned income and admissions.

The company's work comprises over two hundred projects for leading theatres, orchestras, opera companies, festivals, performing arts centres and visitor attractions in Europe and the USA.

Tim was previously Marketing Director of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Head of Marketing at the London Symphony Orchestra. He has spoken at numerous conferences internationally, and is author of classical music marketing book, Stop Reinventing the Wheel, published by the Association of British Orchestras.

Stuart Nicolle

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.

Tim Roberts

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 and Creative New Zealand with two other international editions planned for 2008. http://www.artsoz.com.au/