Our Client Success team manages our partner relationships from sign up to event production and beyond. Meet one of the newest faces in our Denver office, Taylor Gustafson, who comes to us with a unique background working with music festivals in the Midwest!
Taylor graduated from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Arts in Applied Behavior Analysis with a concentration in Early Childhood Autism. During college, she worked in customer service for Pipeline Ticketing and was later promoted to Box Office Manager. After college, Taylor moved to Denver to work as Operations Administrator for KAABOO Del Mar, a massive music festival. She also assisted with festivals such as Spring Awakening and Freaky Deaky Musical Festival.
After just a year, Taylor’s hard work paid off in the form of a promotion to Director of Ticketing and Credentials for KAABOO Del Mar. Simultaneously, Taylor continued working as an independent contractor for multiple events, assisting with everything from administrative duties to answering ticketing questions.
It’s safe to say that Taylor knows all the ins and outs of launching an event, so when Jason Mastrine, our Business Development Leader, connected with Taylor at a data and analytics conference, it only made sense for him to suggest working with ShowClix. Sure enough, Taylor became our Client Success Manager for our Midwest partners. Today she continues to promote our mission to help our partners fully leverage our platform to take their events to the next level.
You have worked in just about every aspect of launching a festival from start to finish. What are some early tips you would give to an event organizer looking to produce a festival?
Google Analytics is your friend – especially during year one! Knowing who visits your website and purchases your tickets allows you to create lookalike audiences to help push sales. It can also help nail down your demographic when deciding on street team locations, outdoors ads, and other marketing initiatives.
Overall, I think it’s really important to start off with a strong team that has a variety of experience. You’re never going to find someone who is a pro in production, site operations, ticketing, and business development. Spreading out the workload into efficient areas allows for everyone to succeed in what they know.
Walk us through a typical day for you in our ShowClix Denver office.
Since I’m in the Mountain Time zone, my start time is a little later, so I usually hop on Slack while I’m still at home to make sure everything’s running smoothly with my team. Once I get to the office, my first daily interaction is usually a five to ten minute greeting with the office pups. After that and a fresh cup of coffee, I am ready to start my day! Each day is a little different, but most consist of emails with partners, video calls with my team, and meetings with the other members here in the Denver office. I love having such a variety of partners because it means I’m always working with different aspects of our software. One day I could be uploading UIDs for an RFID partner in the morning, followed by creating a new reserved seating map for a live music partner in the afternoon.
In your role as Client Success Manager, you support many of our Midwest-based partners. What is some of your favorite feedback that you’ve received from a partner?
I think so far my favorite thing is having a partner request a feature that we already have and can immediately set up for them. Our software has so much to offer, it sometimes takes our partners a while to realize exactly how powerful it is. I like being that person who gets to say “yes!” and set up whatever the they are looking for. Personally, my roommate came to an RFID event I was working last week and had some really great things to say. She had never been to an event that had used RFID technology and she was extremely impressed with its abilities in terms of both access control, and cashless concessions.
You’ve been a huge part of many major music festivals in various locations, from Kansas to California to Denver. What was one of the most memorable experiences you had working with a festival?
This question is difficult to answer because it is so hard to pick just one! One great specific memory is seeing The Roots for the first time and being given Questlove’s drumstick after. Another is going up in a boom lift to help spot fence jumpers while getting a killer view of the entire event with the city of Chicago in the background. Overall, my favorite thing about working festivals is the relationships I’ve made over the years. It’s rare for me to travel anywhere in the US without having at least one friend in the city I’m in.
What do you like to do in Denver and what are some reasons that keep you there?
Well here’s the obvious one – Red Rocks Amphitheatre! Funny enough, it was a bigger bucket list item for me to go inside the Red Rocks box office than it was for me to go through the legendary tunnel underneath the amphitheatre. This summer, I was able to cross both off my list! I also enjoy hiking. There are so many beautiful places around Denver, I feel like every weekend I’m off to a new city to explore in the mountains. Overall, I find everything in Denver to be so amazing because of both the atmosphere and the people. Colorado folks remind me a lot of the people back home in Lawrence, Kansas. The people are so nice, always say hi, and are willing to help when they see a neighbor in need!