About TeenTix

OUR MISSION

TeenTix builds a bright future for our region by empowering young people to take an active role in shaping their arts community as audience members, critics, influencers, advocates, patrons, and leaders.

OUR PURPOSE

We exist to break down barriers that prevent teens from accessing the arts, career development, and arts learning opportunities. We empower teens to engage in civic life through the arts.

OUR VISION

A healthy community whose diverse civic leaders value, support, and participate in a thriving arts sector.

OUR FOCUS AREAS

Arts Access: We see young people as the key to cultivating and preserving our region’s culture.

Youth Empowerment: TeenTix invites teens to the table and prioritizes uplifting their voice in program development, growth, and design. Similarly, we value equitable compensation practices and pay teens for their contributions to our Newsroom Blog, Teen Arts Podcast, New Guard, and program gallery showings.

OUR COMMITMENT TO ANTI-RACISM

TeenTix is an anti-racist organization that is actively working to identify, name, and correct institutionalized racism and constructs of white supremacy within our own organization, and to help our partnered arts and culture organizations do the same. Our programs work to uplift marginalized voices in arts leadership and arts journalism, and to increase access to art.

We have a multi-layered, hierarchical approach in addressing our equity work:

1. First, we use a racial lens because we know that the construct of race intersects with all aspects of inequity.
2. Second, we prioritize youth voice, need, and choice. By breaking down the hierarchical and exclusionary paradigm of high and low art, we offer teens an opportunity to explore wherever their interest takes them.
3. Third, it is our job to increase the visibility of art that is representative of different communities. In our marketing, programming, and community engagement efforts, we encourage young people to explore art that addresses diverse world perspectives. We believe experiencing different views creates opportunities for teens to become engaged citizens with the capacity to create equitable community.

OUR VALUES

• Genuine diversity requires early access.
• Teens should be influencers of culture, not just receivers.
• Arts attendance is arts education, arts attendance is civic participation.
• Technology and data can be positive, transformative influences.
• Live, shared experiences are inherently valuable, especially when they facilitate interaction that crosses traditional generational, ethnic, and socio-economic divides.
• Fun, leisure, and entertainment are crucial components of a healthy adolescence that need protecting.
• Much of art’s value cannot be quantified.
• Settle for nothing less than for profound inclusiveness and radical hospitality.
• The “underserved” are also the “under-invited”.
• Experimentation, exploration, and boundary-pushing inspire positive transformation.
• Create safe spaces for critical thinking and civilized disagreement.
• Youth empowerment means the elevation and prioritization of the youth voice.
• Embrace change, risk, and failure in order to stay nimble and responsive to the ever-evolving teen demographic.
• TeenTix is an anti-racist organization that is actively working to identify, name, and correct institutionalized racism within our own organization, and to help our partnered arts organizations do the same.

OUR HISTORY

TeenTix was founded in 2004 as a program of Seattle Center in partnership with 10 of the resident arts organizations on the Seattle Center campus. In 2006, Teentix began adding partners outside of Seattle Center in an effort to broaden the arts experiences we could connect teens to. TeenTix obtained its nonprofit status in 2015 and we now have 150 Arts and Cultural Partners throughout the Puget Sound including Tacoma Art Museum, Seattle Symphony, Seattle Art Museum, Edmonds Center for the Arts, Seattle Opera, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Tacoma Arts Live, 5th Ave Theatre, and A Contemporary Theatre (ACT), among more. We also have expanded our program offerings to now include 6 opportunities for teens to build skills in arts leadership, journalism, new media production, and seek workforce development opportunities in nonprofit administration, marketing, and community engagement.

To date, TeenTix has engaged over 170,000 teens in nearly 200,000 arts experiences at 150+ Arts and Community Partners.