Midland Center for the Arts Takes the Lead in Audience Experience with New Digital Ticketing Strategy

MIDLAND, MI / BOSTON, MA (January 15, 2026) – Midland Center for the Arts, Mid-Michigan’s landmark destination for world-class entertainment and cultural programming, today announced a new partnership with True Tickets, the secure digital ticket delivery service. Beginning with the 2025/26 season, the Center will introduce secure digital tickets delivered as dynamic QR codes, providing audiences with seamless mobile entry and protection against fraud, while giving Midland Center for the Arts real-time audience data through True Tickets’ deep Tessitura integration.

For Midland Center for the Arts, this is more than a technology upgrade; it is a strategic shift. By moving to True Tickets’ digital delivery service, the Center is enabling greater agility in how it serves its audiences, ensuring that communication and experiences can adapt quickly to their needs. The collaboration also gives the Center visibility into its shadow audience, meaning attendees who arrive on shared tickets but were previously invisible in traditional systems. With this new data, Midland Center for the Arts can foster stronger engagement, build new donor relationships, and grow loyalty across the Great Lakes Bay Region.

“Midland Center for the Arts has always been a place where creativity, innovation, and community intersect,” said Josh Holliday, Vice President of Marketing, Communications & Sales at Midland Center for the Arts. “Partnering with True Tickets gives us new agility in how we connect with our audiences, while also ensuring a smoother, more secure experience every time they attend a performance.”

How the partnership enhances the Midland Center for the Arts experience

• Serve diverse audiences across one campus. Secure digital tickets in a branded ticket wallet with password-less login make arrival simple and secure for families at the museum, concertgoers in the Auditorium, and community attendees across the Center’s programs.
• Communicate where audiences are looking. Custom Content Blocks deliver timely messages on the digital ticket, including parking information, weather notes, program highlights, or promotional offers.
• Real-time audience data through True Tickets’ deep Tessitura integration records each ticket delivery, share, and scan, including visibility into their shadow audience, so Midland can re-engage revealed attendees and follow up to re-engage with them afterwards.

“It is exciting to partner with a cultural institution that has been a cornerstone of Mid-Michigan for more than 50 years,” said Ken Lesnik, Chief Commercial Officer of True Tickets. “Midland Center for the Arts is making a strategic shift to put its audiences at the center of every interaction, and we are proud to provide the tools that enable them to do that with greater agility and insight.”

The partnership reflects Midland Center for the Arts’ ongoing mission to be a regional cultural destination where people of all ages find meaning and connection in their busy lives, while continuing the vision of founder and architect Alden B. Dow to create a hub where science, art, and history thrive under one roof.

About True Tickets
True Tickets is a secure contactless digital ticketing service that puts venues and event organizers in control of their tickets and in communication with their true audience. To date, True Tickets has delivered 25.6 million digital tickets worth USD $1.7 billion and enabled 3.5 million secure shares across 100+ arts organizations worldwide. Available to Tessitura Network members, True Tickets' business-to-business solution seamlessly integrates with primary ticketing systems, empowering its partners to leverage the advantages of digital-native tickets to ensure extraordinary live experiences for their guests. With True Tickets, ticket issuers can set rules and track ticket custody, limit the excesses of the secondary market, and restore direct relationships between their audiences and the live events they love. Learn more at True-Tickets.com, where you can book a demo or follow True Tickets on Twitter or LinkedIn for updates.

About Midland Center for the Arts
Midland Center for the Arts is a cultural hub for the Great Lakes Bay Region and State of Michigan. Imagine a place where you can experience the best of art, science, history, music, theatre, dance, and film, all under one roof. This vibrant and unique institution, housed within an architecturally significant building, is a haven for artists, students, historians, and audiences alike. With its impressive 1,500-seat auditorium, 400-seat theater, interactive museum of science and art, Midland Symphony Orchestra, Center Stage Theatre, Midland County Historical Society, and Studio School art studios, the possibilities for entertainment and enrichment are endless. Learn more at midlandcenter.org.

Media Inquiries

 True Tickets

Crystal Henderson, Head of Public Relations – crystal@thepresshouse.com

 Midland Center for the Arts

Alex Woody, Communications & Public Relations Manager – woody@midlandcenter.org