Kevin Costner – he built it, and they actually did come
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Whoever said ‘if we build it, they will come‘, wasn’t a web designer.
He was, in fact, the ghost of a baseball player, speaking to a farmer from Iowa. However, ghostly apparitions aside, as anyone who has built a website (started a facebook page/ Twitter account/ Ning community, etc etc) will know, putting something up online is only half the battle, it takes work to get the word out, and to get traffic in.
So while the arts in Ireland is seeing an increasing amount of high quality work occurring online, these endeavours aren’t always getting the attention they deserve. We’re looking to provide a platform to showcase new work in this area, and with any luck to help bring this work to a wider arts public, nationally and internationally.
So, if you’re using the internet to present work in a new way, if you’re launching a dynamic new website, if you’ve a new and imaginative ways of engaging with new audiences online, drop an email to james.kelly(at)artsaudiences.ie. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Hotel Modern’s homepage
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It’s said that the eyes are the window to the soul. Perhaps by extension, a well made website is a window to the soul of an organisation.
If this is the case, well Hotel Modern is a pretty far out place. Their website (well worth a little visit) gives the visitor a strong flavour of the creativity at the heart of the organisation.
Not being familiar with their work, my first visit to this website made me realise I wished I’d attended their show in last year’s Dublin Theatre Festival – it’s pretty rare for me that a website would have this effect.
Below, a still from Kamp, which was performed in the Samuel Beckett last year, as part of this festival.
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(thanks to Caroline Williams of Dublin Dance Festival / Dublin Theatre Festival for passing on the link).
Sinead Mac Manus, originally from Dublin, is a London based creative business consultant and trainer.
A regular contributor to the London Theatre Blog, she’s worked in management in a number of art organisations, including Frantic Assembly.
Of interest to Arts Audiences readers will be posts she has written outlining how to get going with a wordpress website. It’s actually very easy, and in these posts, she lays it all out very clearly;
How to start a wordpress site – part 1
How to start a wordpress site – part 2
In another post, Sinead gives a simple introductory explanation of how Theatre companies can use social media.
If people want to be kept up to date with the rest of the series – blogging is next – they can subscribe by RSS and email.
Finally worth mentioning that she has also set up a website called startatheatrecompany.com which provide a series of training modules for those looking to set up a theatre company, giving practical advice on business plans, budgeting, strategy as well as on audience development, marketing, and all that jazz!
While the subject matter may not be for everyone, Michael Scott’s forthcoming production of My First Time is using the internet imaginatively to generate content and build audiences, bringing the term User Generated Content to a new level.
The production is similar in format to the Vagina Monologues (another format which Scott very successfully brought over from the US). In the case of this coming production, the public have been invited to submit stories of an intimate nature on the production’s website. These submissions are then used as material for inclusion the production; 4 actors through the course of the performance take turns to read out a selection of these stories.
I imagine the call for stories could have legs virally (if viruses have legs) and that those who submit their stories would be keen to turn up to see if their story features.
In another example of using UGC to produce material, The Royal Opera Company in London produced Twitterdammerung: the Twitter Opera last month. Composed entirely of tweets from the public, the production was designed to make opera more widely accessible. The Telegraph critic wasn’t bowled over, but concluded “as cheap gimmicks go, this was a good ‘un”.
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