Context

Maestro provides branded digital tools for orchestras and their audiences. Each organization offers its own app, giving patrons access to concert information, tickets, memberships, and updates under the orchestra’s identity.

Beyond the Seat extends the identity from an individual seat to the wider audience. The app follows the same idea by showing a patron’s concerts, memberships, and account information together. Patrons see the orchestra’s identity throughout; Maestro appears in sales materials and platform documentation, not in the app.

This prototype explores a mobile companion for Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. It focuses on the period between buying a ticket and attending a performance, with access to upcoming concerts, admission details, and information for the visit.

Core features are shared across organizations. Additional features are selected for each orchestra’s programs. In the Cincinnati example, a season subscription covers a set of concerts and Harmony Pass is a monthly membership giving access to selected performances. They appear separately because their benefits and renewal schedules differ. Harmony Pass belongs to Cincinnati; it is not part of every organization’s app.

Five questions, in the order a member asks them.

1. 01What am I attending next?Home
2. 02What should I know before I arrive?Home
3. 03Where is my pass?Member pass
4. 04What does my plan include?Your memberships
5. 05What needs my attention?Profile

Home answers the first two. The member pass answers the third, and Your memberships answers the fourth. The fifth is why renewal dates and unclaimed concerts appear on Home rather than waiting to be found. Purchases are not completed in the app; buying links open the orchestra’s website.

Audience

The subscriber

The prototype is built around a season subscriber: someone who holds the same seats each year and attends six or more concerts. They already have a relationship with the orchestra, so the app is about using a booking rather than making one.

Subscribers still buy. They add single tickets outside their package and claim concerts included with Harmony Pass, which is why Events shows prices and an All events view. Those buying links open the orchestra’s website.

How they read it

People often open the app in a busy lobby, shortly before a concert starts, in low light. That sets the requirements: readable text, fast access to a ticket, and section, row, and seat large enough to read aloud if scanning fails.

Who the brief also names

The brief also names donors, students, first-time attendees, and non-subscribers. This prototype does not cover them. They appear on the navigation map, marked as planned.

Output

Eight app screens and a marketing screen for organizational buyers. Five destinations in the bottom bar: Home, Events, Subscription, Membership, and Profile. The navigation map shows the whole product, separating screens that open in this prototype from features that are proposed.

Subscription and Membership are separate tabs because they are separate plans with different benefits and renewal dates. Home opens with both, so a patron can see what each one includes without choosing a tab first.

Two reference sets accompany the app. The identity system covers the mark, color, typography, photography, motion, and voice. The design system covers layout, components, and the values used to build them. Both describe Maestro’s own identity, used for sales and documentation. Inside a patron app, the same structure carries the orchestra’s branding.

Implementation notes. The typefaces are trial and desktop licenses and need to be cleared before any public release. The member pass shows no admission code, because it is not connected to a scanning system. Time-based and location-based notifications are an intended capability and are not built here. An organization-facing management toolkit is a separate proposed project; its scope is not confirmed and none of it is included in this prototype. Screens show how a task would look; they do not complete purchases, renewals, or redemptions.