2026 sessions
Capacity Boot Camp sessions are announced on a rolling basis. Sign up for the email list to be alerted when sessions drop.
This lineup is just the beginning. More sessions and speakers from across the industry are coming soon.
KEYNOTE SESSION
The Art of Data: Using Numbers to Tell Stories That Drive Action
Arts and cultural organizations are under growing pressure to demonstrate impact, but spreadsheets and statistics alone rarely move people to action. In today’s environment, data becomes most powerful when it’s translated into stories that create clarity, connection, and belief.
In this session, Giorgia Lupi, award-winning information designer and Partner at Pentagram, explores how data can become a powerful storytelling tool that helps organizations connect with audiences, inspire funders, and align internal stakeholders around a shared vision.
Drawing from projects spanning cultural institutions, global nonprofits, and mission-driven companies, Giorgia shares how design transforms information into meaning, and why that matters deeply for arts organizations navigating financial pressure, shifting audience behaviors, and growing expectations around impact.
You’ll leave with inspiration for:
Reframing data as a storytelling opportunity rather than a reporting obligation
Building narratives that resonate with both internal and external audiences
Creating visual communication systems that strengthen institutional identity
Helping stakeholders see not just the numbers, but the people and impact behind them
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Giorgia Lupi is an award-winning information designer whose work synthesizes data and storytelling in innovative ways to create unique and singular brand expressions.
In her practice, she designs engaging data-driven visual narratives across print, digital and environmental media that create new insight and appreciation of people, ideas, and organizations. Her vibrant and inspiring design work empowers leading global organizations to achieve their mission through data-driven storytelling and reflects her belief that data has the capacity to make us all more human—advancing our intelligence, engagement, and delight.
One of the most lauded designers of her generation and a prominent voice in the field of data design, Lupi was the 2022 recipient of the National Design Award from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and the first data visualization practitioner ever to be named in its communication design category. In 2022 she also received an honorary doctorate from the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Across her career, Lupi has built rich, visually driven experiences around data for international clients such as Google, the Gates Foundation, Verizon, IBM, Deloitte and Starbucks. Recent cultural clients include MoMA, TED, Triennale Milano Design Museum and Getty Museum. She has designed custom data visualizations for national and international publications like The New York Times, Wired, Popular Science, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and Italy’s Corriere della Sera. A proponent of using data to help bring awareness to some of the world’s most pressing problems, non-profit clients and causes include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Knight Foundation, World Health Organization and United Nations.
Lupi was born in Italy and received her Master’s degree in architecture from Università di Ferrara and her PhD from Politecnico di Milano, where she focused on information mapping. In 2011, she co-founded Accurat, an acclaimed data-driven research, design and innovation firm with offices in Milan and New York. She joined Pentagram as a partner in 2019.
Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and she has been commissioned for original art installations also by MoMA, Museum of the City of New York, New York Botanical Garden and TED. A former MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow, she is a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on New Metrics and a Fellow of the RSA.
Her TED Talk on her humanistic approach to data has over one million views. She has published four books: Speak Data (Princeton Architectural Press, 2025), exploring data as a language with a range of perspectives from experts across disciplines; This Is Me and Only Me (Corraini Edizioni, 2024), a children’s book introducing the concept of data to kids; Observe, Collect, Draw! A Visual Journal (Princeton Architectural Press, 2018), a guided journal for collecting visual data; and Dear Data (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016), exploring the details of daily life through hand-drawn visual data. Lupi has been featured in international media including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Washington Post, NPR, BBC, T Magazine, Vogue and Vanity Fair.
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Creative Strategy for 2027: Defining the Next Core Marketing Discipline
Creative strategy is one of the most talked-about terms in marketing right now. But most of that conversation is happening in the for-profit world—and it's time for the arts to make it ours.
In this two-part session, Aly Gomez, Director of Creative Strategy at Capacity, introduces a new framework for evaluating content and understanding how different storytelling approaches can support different marketing goals. Across both days of Boot Camp, we’ll move from the “why” to the “how”: first learning the framework and then exploring real-world applications by genre and campaign type.
You’ll learn to:
Understand the core building blocks of creative strategy—including hooks, formats, and messages—and how they work together to drive audience action
Identify where your organization may be over-relying on default creative approaches
Connect programming to audience needs, motivations, and moments of discovery
Design smarter creative tests across paid, social, email, and web
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Aly Gomez is Director of Creative Strategy at Capacity and a highly sought-after speaker on digital storytelling, content strategy, and audience engagement in the arts and culture sector. As a leading voice in the industry, she has helped shape and evolve Capacity’s Content practice, driving innovative approaches that connect organizations with audiences through compelling, data-informed narratives. Prior to joining Capacity, Aly served as Associate Director of Marketing at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, where she crafted marketing initiatives for one of the nation’s premier regional theaters. When she’s not thinking about marketing, she’s thinking about plot twists—usually with a romance novel in one hand and a Pink Drink in the other.
Arts Marketing as a Creative Act
Every day, arts marketers make decisions that shape how people encounter, interpret, and connect with artistic programming. This is, itself, creative work.
In this session, artists-turned-marketers Anna Scheider and Sanjay Saverimuttu explore an overlooked truth: the skills that make great artists and great marketers are often the same. Anna, a Senior Consultant and trained orchestral musician, and Sanjay, a Consultant and former professional ballet dancer, offer a new way of thinking about marketing not only as a communications function, but as a creative practice rooted in experimentation and discovery. Whether or not you consider yourself an artist, you’ll leave with a renewed appreciation for the creative dimensions of marketing and a deeper sense of purpose in your work.
You’ll learn to:
Reframe marketing as a creative practice that shapes how audiences experience art
Tap into an artistic mindset and return to your desk with a fresh perspective
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Anna began her career as an orchestral musician, but her focus shifted upon discovering how strategic marketing can amplify artistic storytelling and connect classical music with modern audiences. Today, she is a Senior Consultant at Capacity and a leading voice on digital marketing in the orchestra field.
Since joining the Capacity team in 2022, Anna has leveraged her dual expertise to help organizations thrive. She previously served the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra as both a professional musician and Audience Development Coordinator.
Anna earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music Performance from Duquesne University and a Professional Studies Certificate from the Colburn Conservatory. Now based in Buffalo, NY, she lives with her husband, daughter, and two cats.
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Sanjay Saverimuttu is a Consultant, Digital Marketing at Capacity. He formerly danced with Louisville Ballet for 11 seasons, and continues to work as a freelance choreographer and educator. Sanjay seeks to create diverse representations on stage, in ballet narratives, and in the classroom.
Since joining Capacity, Sanjay uses his artistic expertise to help clients connect to their audiences through impactful storytelling. He enjoys pushing organizations to leverage their content and expand their audience reach by exploring new platforms.
Beyond working as a digital marketing consultant and artist, he is an avid reader and has run an LGBTQ Book Club for over seven years. He is based in Columbia, MO, with his husband, cat, and two dogs.
Visibility in the Age of AI Search
AI-powered search is no longer an emerging trend. It’s a primary way people discover events, attractions, and cultural experiences. While the familiar list of blue links may be fading, organizations still have more influence than they think over how they’re represented.
In this session, Dan Titmuss, Senior Consultant, AI & Organic Search at Capacity, explores the mechanics of AI-powered discovery and what organizations can do to remain visible, credible, and recommendable. He breaks down the latest developments in AI and organic search, explains which traditional SEO levers continue to impact brand authority, and investigates the growing role of third-party validation in this new search ecosystem.
You’ll learn to:
Evaluate and improve your organization’s presence in AI-generated responses
Leverage the SEO fundamentals that still influence brand visibility
Make key web pages easier for both audiences and AI systems to understand
Identify the publications, platforms, and community conversations that shape AI-generated answers
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Dan Titmuss is a Senior Consultant, AI & Organic Search at Capacity. He helps arts and cultural organizations shine online through smart SEO and AEO, content strategy, and thoughtful uses of artificial intelligence. Dan is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and regularly shares insights on search and digital strategy with the field. He is also exploring how emerging tech and AI can support creativity in the arts, including a recent side project for Melville fans, mobydickbible.com. When he’s not talking about digital marketing, he performs comedy, magic, and other oddities in tiny basement theaters around NYC.