2025 Sessions
Session details can be found below. Sign up for the email list to get final session announcements on a rolling basis.
What to expect at this year’s conference
Cultural leaders and arts marketers can't afford to stand still. In a moment of seismic shifts—emerging technologies, changing audience behavior, tightening budgets—this year’s Boot Camp is designed to help you not only keep pace, but lead with purpose in a world where the rules are being rewritten daily.
We’ll dig into what matters most right now:
✓ Audience experiences that deepen engagement
✓ Actionable industry data and emerging trends
✓ AI’s expanding role in arts and culture and how to use it as a strategic partner*
✓ Content creation strategies and implementation plans for modern cultural brands
✓ Insights from experts at leading digital platforms like Google and Reddit
✓ Leading with integrity in times of change and challenge
*AI is not the future—it’s the present. Woven throughout the program, it will appear as a practical thread connecting strategy, creativity, and decision-making across sessions. Whether you're shaping long-term strategy, telling more compelling stories, or building community in an uncertain climate, these conversations will give you the clarity and tools to lead with confidence.
Principle Session
From Courts to Curtain Calls: Lessons from Sports for Building Audiences
What can arts and culture learn from sports about how to build passionate fan bases and engage new audiences? Join Amber Cox, COO and GM of the Indiana Fever, and Keia Clarke, CEO of the New York Liberty, in a dynamic conversation exploring the parallels between professional sports and the arts. Moderated by Christopher Williams, President of Capacity Interactive, this panel will dive into strategies that have fueled the recent undeniable growth of the WNBA and consider how arts and culture can borrow from these playbooks.
Whether it’s leveraging in-game entertainment, creating sponsored digital content during pauses in the action, or activating audiences during lines, lulls, or intermissions, discover innovative approaches to deepen audience connection and cultivate the next generation of arts superfans.
Deep Dive Session
First-Person Content: How Human Stories Power Audience Growth
Audiences don't crave promotion—they crave connection. What does it mean to be welcomed into your space, to see yourself reflected, to be part of the story? How can you convey this effectively through content?
In this session, CI’s Aly Gomez and Sana Colter show why first-person content (FPC) might be one of the most powerful and underused tools in your marketing toolbox. Together they’ll explore how FPC taps into the same storytelling instincts artists have used for centuries. You’ll learn how to create compelling content that centers your audience’s POV, and explore techniques for storyboarding and filming that don’t require big budgets or fancy gear. It’s not a workaround—it’s a strategy. HubSpot’s 2024 Consumer Trends Survey found that “it’s more important that brands post authentic and relatable content on social media than polished and high-quality content.” You’ll leave with the inspiration and tools you need to make content that doesn’t just promote your art, but invites people into it.
Spotlight Session
What Data Reveals About the Shifting Landscape of Arts and Culture
When uncertainty shows up at your door, it’s easy to look inward—at your strategy, your staffing, your systems—and wonder what needs fixing. But many of the challenges arts organizations are facing today aren’t internal missteps. They’re reflections of something bigger: a field in the midst of change.
In this session, Jen Benoit-Bryan, Executive Director of SMU DataArts, unpacks new data on the financial realities shaping the future of arts and culture. From shifting revenue patterns to rising operational costs, she connects the dots between what you’re feeling on the ground and what’s happening sector-wide. Jennifer also examines how factors like genre, budget size, and mission influence the pressures organizations are experiencing, and suggests ways to respond with creativity, courage, and care. You’ll leave with benchmarks to ground internal conversations, ideas to inspire new thinking, and insights you can bring straight to your board.
Spotlight Session
Permission to Wonder: Rethinking Strategy in the Age of AI
We’re living through one of the most transformational shifts in how we create, communicate, and connect. Instead of treating AI as a tool to master, this session invites us to approach it as a strategic act, one that begins with curiosity.
Together, we’ll explore the ethical tensions, organizational gaps, and creative possibilities that AI is surfacing across the arts. We’ll also rethink what AI strategy really means in this moment: the courage to wonder out loud, even if we don't have all the answers. You won’t leave with a checklist. You’ll leave with a clearer compass: a renewed sense of what matters, what’s possible, and what questions are worth bringing back to your team.
Spotlight Session
The Power of Participation:
How Reddit Helps Arts Organizations Build Trust and Audiences
In today’s world of endless entertainment options and easy distractions, arts marketers don’t just need to sell tickets—they need to build loyal audiences. What if the internet’s most engaged communities could show us how?
In this session, Sam Bednarchik, Sr. Client Partner, discusses how online community and peer conversation are becoming more—not less—important; and how Reddit’s direct connection to people seeking trustworthy guidance can be a valuable tool for arts organizations. Sam will share brand-new insights into what communities want and expect from brands, and how arts organizations can engage to build relevance in a noisy world.
Whether you're trying to reach new audiences or deepen relationships with current ones, you'll gain practical guidance on how and when to show up on Reddit, tap into existing communities, and start driving connections for better, more human marketing.
Spotlight Session
Feeding the Content Machine: Building a Digital Strategy That Never Stops Working
Ten years ago, the idea of an arts organization acting like a media company felt radical. Today, it’s essential.
Audiences are consuming content nonstop, and the organizations that stand out are the ones creating, adapting, and responding in real time. But building a modern content machine takes more than clever ideas—it demands investment, vision, and the willingness to keep evolving.
In this session, leaders from Kaufman Music Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the National Gallery of Art share their journeys of building powerhouse content strategies. You’ll hear how they balance resources, test new formats, and keep audiences at the center of it all. Expect candid lessons and fresh inspiration for fueling your own organization’s content engine.
Deep Dive Session
SEO + AEO: Navigating the Next Frontier of Search
In an era when audiences increasingly get their answers from AI agents, chatbots, and “no-click” interfaces rather than traditional search results, arts and culture organizations need to rethink how content is discovered and recommended.
In this session, Dan Titmuss, Senior Consultant, SEO at Capacity Interactive, will guide you through the AEO frontier: what it means, why it matters, and how to make it work for your organization. Dan will share quick wins and arts-focused examples to help make your content ‘answer engine friendly.’ The result: showing up in AI overviews and chat results where audiences are asking questions, and turning those moments of curiosity into ticket sales.
Spotlight Session
CI to Eye Live:
Deborah F. Rutter on Leading Through Disruption and Designing for Resilience
The future of arts and culture depends on leaders who can innovate, adapt, and inspire—and Deborah Rutter has been doing it at the highest levels. With five decades of experience leading premier cultural institutions across the United States, she knows what it takes to drive meaningful change while keeping artists and audiences at the center.
Join Monica Holt, Senior Advisor at CI and host of CI to Eye, for a live podcast recording with the former President of the Kennedy Center and current Vice Provost for the Arts at Duke University. Deborah will share lessons from her career on leading through periods of transformational growth and building the financial and operational resilience needed to sustain our organizations. You’ll walk away with actionable insights for strengthening teams, sustaining creativity, and driving institutional impact.
Deep Dive Session
Inside YouTube: Audience Insights and Cultural Trends for Arts Marketers
With more than 2 billion monthly users and a central role in shaping culture, YouTube is the most-watched streaming destination on television screens and one of the world’s most powerful platforms for storytelling. For arts and culture organizations, the opportunity is even greater, with work that is inherently visual, emotional, and rooted in human connection.
In this session, Maddy Buxton, YouTube’s Culture & Trends Manager for the US and Canada, will share how arts organizations can succeed on YouTube, backed by the latest audience insights and cultural shifts shaping the platform. You’ll discover who is watching, how viewing behaviors are changing, and what types of content are sparking global conversations.
Whether you’re looking to deepen engagement, reach new audiences, or translate your mission into stories that travel far beyond your walls, this session will help you reimagine your YouTube strategy through the lens of culture and trends.
Deep Dive Session
Beyond Ticket Sales and Grants: Reimagining How We Finance the Arts
Traditional arts funding models are reaching their limits. While ticket sales, grants, and donations remain important, the future of sustainable arts financing lies in expanding our definition of who should be investing in creativity and why.
Moderated by Mass Cultural Council Executive Director Michael J. Bobbitt, this panel brings together voices from government agencies, social impact investing, and cross-sector partnerships to explore how we stop competing for "arts money" and start creating value propositions that make financing the arts a strategic business and policy decision.
Deep Dive Session
Non-Billionaire Owned Social Media: A Look at Skylight Social
What happens when the power of social media shifts from billionaires to creators? That’s the promise of the AT Protocol, the decentralized technology behind Bluesky…and now, Skylight Social, a new short-form video app co-founded by Tori White and backed by Mark Cuban. As the politics of platforms like TikTok grow more complicated, apps like Skylight Social, built on Bluesky’s social network (Bluesky is used by over 38.4 million users) are more and more appealing to users.
In this session, Tori breaks down what the AT Protocol actually is (without the jargon) and why it matters for arts marketers and leaders. You’ll explore how decentralized platforms put ownership and control back into the hands of creators, what that means for artists and marketers, and how you can get ahead of a transformation that’s reshaping the social media landscape.
From understanding the mechanics of federated networks to imagining new ways to build community and audience trust, this session is your guide to navigating (and leading) the next wave of social media. You won’t just leave knowing what the AT Protocol is. You’ll leave ready to think differently about the future of social connection, creativity, and power.
Special Session
special performance by broadway start betsy wolfe!
Betsy Wolfe is the Tony-nominated powerhouse from & Juliet, the beloved lead of Waitress and Falsettos, and soon to star in the stage sensation Death Becomes Her. With a career that spans iconic Broadway roles, acclaimed off-Broadway performances, film, television, and symphony stages around the world, Betsy brings the brilliance, warmth, and wit that have made her one of the most celebrated voices in theatre today.
Expect an unforgettable performance, soaring vocals, and a reminder of why the arts matter so deeply.
session types
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.
