2024 boot camp Schedule
powered by digital, sculpted by humans.
Each session is packed with powerful data, transformative case studies, and actionable strategies to help you use the power of digital through a radically human lens to drive revenue, engage audiences, market smarter, revolutionize your leadership, and more.
Get access to sessions with Digital Catch-Up, available through February 2025!
day 1 sessions
Opening Remarks: The Bowtie Model for Building Engaged Audiences
The Magic of Hospitality: Creating Unforgettable Experiences For Our Audiences
Lindsey Peckham will share widely applicable lessons from her decade-long experience working alongside Will Guidara at New York City’s iconic Eleven Madison Park. You’ll walk away with actionable tips for attracting and retaining new audiences, leading a hospitality-centric team, fostering a culture of collaboration, and empowering staff at every level to create unforgettable experiences for your audiences.
The New Industry Benchmarks: What Digital Marketing Data from 150+ Arts Organizations Means for You (Part 1)
CI team members break down key findings from the new 2024 Cultural Compass study to uncover the latest digital marketing benchmarks and emerging trends for our industry. The data will help you inform optimizations to your marketing mix, build a case for investing in website improvements, and inspire strategic planning for FY25.
Next Level AI To Fuel Your Marketing Strategy
AI/ML leader Emad Hasan takes us beyond popular tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to reveal next-level AI capabilities that enable arts marketers to scale efficiently, maximize ad relevance, and enhance audience engagement—all without putting a ton of extra strain on our teams.
Google’s AI-Powered Ad Strategies For Building Audiences
This year marks an inflection point in marketing and a significant opportunity for growth. Get inspiration from Mike Abrams at Google on how to reach ever-changing audiences with tailored creative at scale, be confident that marketing investments are optimized, and maximize profitable growth for your organization.
Better Together: How Arts Organizations Win New Audiences By Joining Forces
In this Spotlight panel discussion, members of the Cincinnati arts community share inspiring examples of partnerships that have not only enhanced organizational visibility but strengthened the local arts and culture ecosystem as a whole.
Creative Inclusion: Transforming The Way We Communicate With And Welcome All Audiences
Renowned disability inclusion and accessibility consultant Dr. Shani Dhanda explains how accessibility impacts how we navigate the world and addresses common barriers that exclude people from experiencing the magic of arts and culture.
Closing remarks
day 2 sessions
Opening Remarks
Ballet Austin's Texas-Sized Welcome: A Case Study in Audience Engagement
Ballet Austin Executive Director Cookie Ruiz shares how her team cultivates audiences and drives organizational growth using data, determination, and a commitment to hospitality. Discover what the organization’s longitudinal research with the Wallace Foundation revealed about audience motivations and how they leveraged those findings to customize on-site experiences.
The New Industry Benchmarks: What Digital Marketing Data from 150+ Arts Organizations Means for You (Part 2)
CI team members break down key findings from the new 2024 Cultural Compass study to uncover the latest digital marketing benchmarks and emerging trends for our industry. The data will help you inform optimizations to your marketing mix, build a case for investing in website improvements, and inspire strategic planning for FY25.
Stellar Arts Marketing Reel
Meta Reports: Creative is the New Targeting
Recent data from Meta shows that 56% of all ad auction outcomes can be attributed to creative inputs, and how likely audiences are to respond to those inputs. The content you’re putting in front of your carefully targeted audiences matters–a lot! Helen Crossley of Meta will shares the latest research and best practices from Meta on how differentiation of content can help your campaigns perform better.
AI for Smarter, Enhanced Arts Marketing: A Case Study with Auckland Theatre Company
Joanna O’Connor, Director of Marketing at Auckland Theatre Company in New Zealand, shares how her team uses AI to streamline creative processes, build stronger relationships with artists and co-producers, and even supercharge box office KPIs.
Purpose-Driven Leadership in Uncertain Times
In the midst of unrest on both national and global levels, arts and culture must serve as the beacon of light for communities and larger society. Organizations must lead with exceptional purpose and clarity. In this session, visionary arts leader Terri Freeman joins CI’s President Priya Iyer Doshi in conversation to reflect on the power of purpose-driven leadership and importance of upholding values in times of uncertainty.
Closing remarks
For Boot Camp 2024, we enlisted the expert feedback of a few marketing leaders for a Programming Advisory Committee, and would like to publicly thank them for their contributions: Fatima Jones (Dance Theatre of Harlem), Sara Villagio (Carnegie Hall), and Tom O’Connor (Tom O’Connor Consulting Group).
WHAT KINDs OF SESSIONS will i watch with digital catch-up?
PRINCIPLE SESSIONS
In the arts, leadership often comes down to acting on principle—doing what best serves our communities, even if it’s not easy or popular. Principle sessions are powerful, rare, and illuminating conduits between arts marketers and leaders who have learned to trust their gut and drive personal care and intentionality into every decision, resulting in formative takeaways for our industry.
spotlight SESSIONS
Centering and inspiring, Spotlight Sessions are essential, stimulating opportunities to learn from some of the brightest minds across the industry in a focused format. Sculpted by ideas and powered by curiosity, these sessions will chart courses and inspire change at every level of your organization.
deep dive SESSIONS
The most tactical of Boot Camp sessions, Deep Dives are your key to unlocking data-driven ideas (often step-by-step!) with the people who have implemented dynamic strategies within their organizations and teams. Learn hard-won lessons, delve into insider opportunities, and ignite excitement for action items you can put into play right away.