5 Minutes With... Gretchen Shugart

Since NY Report editor-in-chief Robert Levin interviewed TheaterMania.com CEO Gretchen Shugart in the spring of 2006, the business has continued to grow despite slumping ticket sales on Broadway and a decline in entertainment spending overall. In just over two years, the company’s revenue has doubled, due in large part to the success of OvationTix, their ticket sales technology platform that they license to box offices, theatres, and venues across the country. Managing editor Daria Meoli recently caught up with Shugart to find out how the rapid growth has affected her and her business.

Daria Meoli: How have you managed to grow the business in this recession?

Gretchen Shugart: We learned valuable lessons as a survivor of the dot-com crash earlier this decade. We have never leveraged the company and have tried to maintain a comfortable cash cushion at all times. We have a lean staff and look for ways to do things more efficiently without adding more headcount. The scalability of our web-based business is a big plus. We stay focused and try not to launch too many new initiatives at any one time. And when something’s not working, we pull the plug quickly. We are also taking advantage of some of the opportunities presented in the current economy. As luck would have it, we are in negotiations for office space. A year ago, we were looking at a 35% increase in our leasing costs; now it looks like our cost per square foot will stay even with our old lease and we can increase our footprint.

DM: As your company has grown, how has your role changed?

GS: I am becoming more and more strategic and less and less involved in the day-to-day operations. The staff has matured so much that a lot of problems never even make it to me because the staff handle issues on their own. It’s a real pleasure to not be involved in every single aspect of the business every single day.

DM: As a manager, how have you led your employees to step up and grow in their roles?

GS: I like to think that everyone here feels like they’re an owner or a stakeholder in the business. That is a culture that we try to maintain. For example, all of our managers have stock options in the company. Everyone who works here is listened to, because we make sure that the only people who are working here are people that you’d want to listen to.

DM: Do you have any tips for hiring people worth listening to?

GS: Historically, we hired people who weren’t very experienced in business, but were intelligent, had good educations, and were interested in theater. For a lot of our staff, their first or second jobs were with us and they have grown up here. Part of that growing up process has been becoming more professional over time without becoming bureaucratic. Coming from a career in large banks, I was a pretty hardcore businessperson and it was initally a challenge working in theater because it is so culturally different.

DM: What’s next for TheaterMania?

GS: We’re about to launch an industry site that will allow people in the performing arts and theatre industry to communicate with each other more directly by posting jobs, posting bios, and other social media applications.