Alliance for Audience Announces New ShowUp for Veterans Program

Alliance for Audience, a non-profit arts and cultural organization, today announced it has been awarded a $20,000 grant from the Bank of America Foundation. The funds will be used for general operations as well as to launch a special ticket-discount program for active-duty and veteran military service members and their families as a way to facilitate arts and cultural access. The new program is called ShowUp for Veterans.

"Our primary goal is to build audiences for arts and culture in Arizona. Bank of America is an important partner for Alliance for Audience and for the entire arts and cultural community in achieving that goal," said Matt Lehrman, executive director of Alliance for Audience. "Funding from this grant will allow us to reach out and serve an important audience in Arizona that deserves our community's highest appreciation and invites veteran's participation in the state's vast and diverse range of arts and cultural offerings."

Since 2003, Alliance for Audience, under its statewide brand, ShowUp.com, has developed and operated a series of programs and activities to increase audiences for arts and cultural performances and events throughout the state. Among ShowUp.com's programs are the ShowUp.com Calendar of Events; the online Ticket Marketplace for last-minute discount tickets and special offers; You've Got Shows!, an e-mail and social media information network; the Arts and Culture Census and Database to track audience demographics and participation patterns; and Culture Pass, which offers passes at 30 public library branches for free admission to 14 Valley museums and cultural destinations.

ShowUp for Veterans is a collaboration between Alliance for Audience and Veteran Tickets Foundation (Vet Tix), another Phoenix-based 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, that provides deeply-discounted tickets to military families "as a way for Arizona's arts and cultural community to thank them for their service and to provide them with entertainment, relaxation and fun," Lehrman said. "Military families sacrifice so much to protect and defend this country, and the arts and cultural community is excited to partner with VetTix.org to thank them for their service."

ShowUp for Veterans is a special ticket marketplace accessible by military service-members through Vet Tix' online system for special offers exclusive to military families. "Veteran Tickets Foundation is always looking for new opportunities to reach out to the 24 million veterans in the United States," said CEO and founder of Vet Tix Michael Focareto. "This partnership with Alliance for Audience fits our mission of saying ‘thank you' to a tee."

For more information about Alliance for Audience, visit www.showup.com. For more information about Bank of America, visit www.bankofamerica.com. For more information about Veteran Tickets Foundation, visit www.VetTix.org.

Alliance for Audience exists to help Arizona's arts & cultural organizations work together to achieve critical audience development objectives that are beyond the capability of any organization to achieve alone: 1) to elevate the public presence of the entire arts & cultural sector; 2) to directly engage the participation of new audiences and 3) to supply an infrastructure by which arts & cultural organizations can innovate and collaborate. Alliance for Audience is best recognized by its flagship project ShowUp.com. To learn more about Alliance for Audience, please visit www.AllianceforAudience.org.

Veterans Tickets Foundation (Vet Tix) is a national non-profit, non-governmental 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization whose mission is simple: Give something to those who gave. The group gives without prejudice free tickets to all Veterans, Active Duty Service Members and their families as a way of saying "thank you." All contributions made to the organization are deductible under section 170 of the IRS Code. Veteran Tickets Foundation is proud to announce that 187,539 tickets have been given out in 45 states to our Active Duty Military, Veterans and their families. To learn more about Veteran Tickets Foundation, please visit www.VetTix.org.