May 16, 2022 at 4:52 PM

The Broadway League’s Spring Road Conference 2022. The new stories being written.

By Marina Petrova and Bruce Amick

The Broadway League’s Spring Road Conference 2022 was special for everyone who attended. Producers, marketers, press directors, PR professionals, group sales managers, a total of 650 people from 150 markets, met in person after 3 long years since the last event. The “Come Together” theme was a perfect fit and added to the atmosphere of the conference.

Our top 3 key takeaways from the sessions and discussions at many of the Broadway League’s SRC 2022 networking events

Change.

The message of change was a part of every session, from the Welcome and State of the Road to Creative Conversations sessions to the Round Tables discussions.

It will take time for the performing arts to recover, but the industry will emerge even stronger by being flexible, resourceful, and resilient. Embracing change is the path to new opportunities.
The importance of DEI.

There is a growing recognition of the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in the arts. It is more important than ever to create a more inclusive environment for everyone and for diverse voices to be heard. The arts have always been a powerful tool for social change, and today we can help promote DEI not just on stage, but behind the scenes as well. There was a lot of discussion about how the arts can be a force for good and how theatre can make a difference.

“DEI is not a flavor of the month; we are not a flavor of the month,” was one of the many powerful statements made during the Forward Together: Creating a Road Map to Succession panel. Moderated by Chanelle Cotton (The Shubert Organization), the panel was an open and candid conversation between Mariela Dorado (Harriet Tubman Effect Institute), Gennean Scott (The Broadway League), and Jason Palmquist (Management Consultants for the Arts).
Finding new ways to engage audiences.

With so much competition for attention, it is essential to find creative ways to reach our audiences through multiple channels and platforms to get the message across.

In a world that is increasingly digital, the ways in which audiences engage with brands and organizations have changed dramatically. Merging online and print campaigns creates a more immersive and engaging experience for audiences and can lead to some outstanding results.
The focus of the Building your community: coming together online and IRL (“in real life”) panel was on the practical side of today’s marketing. Moderated by Marc Viscardi (Bond Theatrical), with panelists Lauren Rutlin (Disney Theatrical), Chandra Lewis (The Allen Lewis Agency), and Nick White (Meta), the discussion was around what’s new, what works, and what changes we might see in the future, e.g., the shows becoming less strict about online content rules.

Change is always hard, but it felt that most people at the conference not only welcomed the change but were looking forward to the opportunities that come with it. The energy of the Spring Road Conference was simply incredible. There are new stories being written in 2022.

Our company, Intentful, is writing a new story, too.

Intentful leverages data and AI to produce content that matches customer intent, and makes it possible to produce relevant content, times faster, and at a lower cost. Intentful is working with companies such as Broadway Inbound (a Shubert Organization company), HotelPlanner (top provider of group hotel bookings), Rakuten Viber (a mobile messaging app with 1 billion users), and others.

We have been invited to give presentations on our AI content creation platform by the University of Oxford, Mobile Marketing Association (The Future of Modern Marketing conference), and eTourism Summit, to name a few.

We are seeing some amazing results with what technologies can do to remove the content creation pains: budgets are down, organic search traffic is up, more content is being produced in a much shorter period of time, and this content is relevant to the brands’ target audiences interests.

And our story is not just about AI, but also about a special connection we have with the performing arts, Broadway, and innovations.

Who we are

Bruce Amick, the COO and Co-Founder of Intentful, has been at the forefront of the digital revolution for Broadway, leading the adoption of new technologies and bringing innovation to the industry. He worked with some of the biggest names in theatre and entertainment: Shorenstein Hays Nederlander (SHN), Cameron Mackintosh, and The Shubert Organization. Bruce was the President of Theatre Direct, Inc. and then Broadway.com since 1991. In 2003 he co-founded Broadway Inbound with Bob Hofmann and Charlie Flateman. In its first year of existence, Broadway Inbound created the first ever B2B booking platform exclusively for Broadway, including an API to access and book live Broadway inventory. Broadway Inbound was acquired by The Shubert Organization and Bruce oversaw all systems and operations aspects of the merger.

Marina Petrova (Intentful’s CEO) has worked at the intersection of audience insights and marketing for over 20 years, and her experience with marketing Broadway to audiences around the world started in 2012, when she launched New York Online, a website in 8 languages that promoted Broadway to international visitors from 50+ countries, from Brazil to China. She helped introduce Broadway to people who are coming to NYC for the first time and seeing their first show, deciding on what show to choose, as well as those who have seen most productions and want to learn what’s new. Prior to that, she had senior roles at Publicis and WPP, and her experience includes hundreds of projects launched for Colgate, Hill’s, General Mills, Air France / KLM, GM, National Geographic, HP, and many others.

We have always championed technical innovation and have been focused on helping brands get discovered.

Intentful was one of the sponsors of The Broadway League’s Spring Road Conference 2022 along with our strategic partners, Encore+ and Performances+. Together we connect companies with audiences through content creation (Intentful) and distribution (Encore+ and Performances+).