Open Forum

 View Only
  • 1.  Tessitura and Retail Software

    Posted 07-15-2025 08:24 AM

     

    Does anyone use Tessitura at their museum and if so what type of retail software do you use?  What are the pros and cons?

     

     

    Dorothy

     

     

     

    Logo  Description automatically generated

     

    A blue and white logo  Description automatically generated with low confidenceIcon  Description automatically generated with medium confidenceIcon  Description automatically generatedIcon  Description automatically generated

    Dorothy B. Hall

    Director of Visitor Services

     

    Email: dorothy.hall@scmuseum.org

    Phone: 803-898-4968   c. 839-218-2696

     

    301 Gervais Street | Columbia, SC 29201

    scmuseum.org

     

     



  • 2.  RE: Tessitura and Retail Software

    Posted 07-16-2025 10:26 AM

    The last museum I worked at, we switched from SRO to Tessitura. I remember all the training sessions. I felt the Tessitura team was very responsive but I did not like the software. It felt more complicated and less intuitive. I remember that one of the things I had to do with is was create rosters for the art school and the reports I could pull could not be customized enough to give me the things I needed all in one report. I asked Tessitura multiple times about this and it just wasn't something they could do for us. So I would have to pull two or three separate reports and hand-edit them in Excel. It was always a time-intensive activity that I had to do at the beginning of each "semester." 

    The museum I currently work at doesn't use this. We're part of a college and venue rentals and things like that go through the college. But I will say that I was not pleased with Tessitura. The team, however, did work with us and were responsive to us, so I think it's probably a good company. And it is probably great for ticketing or CRM management. I'm not sure. But for the reports and rosters I needed to create, it was lacking. SRO was better but I think SRO doesn't exist anymore. 



    ------------------------------
    Lindsey Knight
    Education Curator
    Windgate Museum of Art at Hendrix College
    Conway AR
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Tessitura and Retail Software

    Posted 07-16-2025 11:36 AM
    Hi Dorothy!

    At the Folger, we use Tessitura for admissions, ticket sales, and donations. Our retail POS is SalesVu, which for years has been sort-of associated with Tessitura. We chose SalesVu because it can talk to Tessitura for member lookup, and to be able to track the amount of money said members are spending holistically with the organization. I attended one of their presentations at the Tess Conference in 2018 and was really hopeful it would be exactly what I needed. It's great at looking up customers. It's ok with keeping track of total spending. However, I do not recommend it for retail sales. It is a restaurant software, so we've had to manipulate quite a bit of the software to make sense for retail. Our Shop Manager is often on the phone with one of their service people, finding out an update was pushed out, but the update broke something in our customizations or messed with incoming info from SalesVu to Tessitura. We've been using it for 2 years now, and I've encouraged the Shop Manager to look for a new software. 

    I've been making upgrade requests to Tessitura to find a retail software to partner with for years. They know some organizations want it, but they have bigger fish to fry, which I completely understand. If you find a good software solution, please let me know!

    Joy Johnson

    Director of Visitor Experience

    jjohnson@folger.edu

    Pronouns: she/her/hers

     

    Shape, arrow  Description automatically generated with medium confidence

     

    Folger Shakespeare Library  |  201 East Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003
    www.folger.edu | Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram