Patrons of the Arts? Search no More!

A Round Lake Area Resident Melanie Fuhrmann and her husband Ed sent me this link to a wonderful site called the Lake County Performing Arts website. I spent quite a bit of time on the website last night and am VERY impressed, as I am sure you all will be. As all of you know we have plans to develop a cultural arts program and center in our soon to be renovated downtown development district. I will let Ed and Melanie explain it in their words.

My wife Melanie and I have lived in the Round Lake Beach for the last 8 years. She is a professional musician (including 5 years with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Chorus and now teaching at CLC) who was frustrated that so many residents of Lake County thought they had to travel to Chicago for a "real" performing arts event, when in fact Lake County has so much to offer (and not just Ravinia, either).

Part of the problems is that individual performers, as well as small and medium sized groups, frequently don't have much advertising budget, or they rely on volunteers who don't have the experience or contacts. Area groups frequently perform to half-empty venues because so few people get the word. The newspapers usually are short-term in focus, and are only good for those who receive them. Then there's the Lakeland Media vs Pioneer Press aspect, where adjacent communities get different news (and calendars). Interested parties could look up performing arts websites (which have to be found first, and there are literally dozens of them... I know).

Melanie's answer is the recently started website: "Lake County Performing Arts" www.LakeCountyPerformingArts.org

Our hope is that as more and more people gain web reliable web access, the site grows to become the "Look Here First!" resource serving anyone having anything to do with the performing arts in Lake County. Right now, the searchable Events Calendar is the main content.

Other content, such as directories of instructors and schools, performers, venues, etc., is still being populated, but with so many events on the calendar... we didn't want to wait until everything was "perfect" before letting people use the site. Kind of a "soft-start" as opposed to a big official launch.

This is a very very cool site, in fact it went into my favorites instantly. I think this kind of site is what makes the web the single most fascinating thing to happen in my lifetime.