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Post by ukuleleron on Jun 11, 2010 10:11:44 GMT
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Post by Bondee on Jun 11, 2010 16:56:10 GMT
Thanks Ron. Wilko Johnson and Alexei Sayle in the same weekend, eh? I think I might have to book a couple more days off work for another visit to the town.
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Post by accykeef on Jun 11, 2010 18:15:25 GMT
Thanks Ron but just how many websites are the public expected to trawl through in order to find out what is going on in the local area. There are loads of events taking place but I think the main problem is nobody knows they are happening. Another question - is the Dome open or closed? I was under the impression it had closed but there is a Spring and Summer events list on Lancaster Council's website - all very confusing.
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Post by WillowTheWhisp on Jun 12, 2010 8:46:27 GMT
Thanks for the nformation Ron.
I've been rather surprised to see that things seem to have been happening at the Winter Gardens. I thought that had been written off. I'm a little confused.
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Post by ukuleleron on Jun 12, 2010 10:16:35 GMT
Thanks Ron but just how many websites are the public expected to trawl through in order to find out what is going on in the local area. There are loads of events taking place but I think the main problem is nobody knows they are happening. Another question - is the Dome open or closed? I was under the impression it had closed but there is a Spring and Summer events list on Lancaster Council's website - all very confusing. That page is just one page from my own website, accessible from the menu on the homepage. Anyone is welcome to link to any pages on that site. It would be loverly if all the info was available under one roof, but sadly gleening info out of many venues is like pulling teeth. The Dome is definitely closed and has been since the beginning of April, as far as I know, there are no plans to demolish the building yet. Can you give me the address of the page on LCC's website where you found reference to events at the Dome?
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Post by ukuleleron on Jun 12, 2010 10:19:15 GMT
Thanks for the nformation Ron. I've been rather surprised to see that things seem to have been happening at the Winter Gardens. I thought that had been written off. I'm a little confused. Morecambe Town Council are running a series of events at The Winter Gardens in conjuction with Steve Middlesbrough, several have already taken place. You can find details of these on Steve Middlesbrough's Morecambe Live site www.morecambelive.com
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Post by accykeef on Jun 12, 2010 16:10:56 GMT
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Post by accykeef on Jun 12, 2010 16:26:45 GMT
Ron With regard to the teeth pulling. If the venues do not actively advertise their events, how are we, as the general public, supposed to know what is taking place. The Council website is a perfect place for all of this information but as been shown in another thread, the blind are leading the blind as far as a serious website is concerned. Local information could be pooled together in one place if the people in authority had enough gumption. Websites such as yours are informative but the general public are just not interested in trawling around. The only hope, is that people stumble across the central information source as they try to complain, to the Council that an ostrich has tried to eat their wheelie bin or some other such crisis. It is such a shame because there are events but we don't know about them. Are the events attracting reasonable attendences or not?
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Post by ukuleleron on Jun 12, 2010 18:25:42 GMT
Quite so, but that is the current brochure which is shared between The Platform and The Dome. You'll notice that the last event at the Dome was in February. I`m reliably informed that next seasons brochure is being prepared at the moment. I`m not sure whare you want a nav bar. If you mean my site (Beside the Seaside) if you enter by the front door, it has one. If you mean the city council's website, I have no control whatsoever over that. Beside the Seaside is a very old site now, over eleven years old, was originally created in Word and still uses frames! A couple of the newer pages are done using a wonderous program called Xara Xtreme which can do things you couldn't normally do without knowing a lot about coding. I spose I could redo it, but it`s labour intensive enough as it is - I often have to update the gig guide several times a day.
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Post by ukuleleron on Jun 12, 2010 18:39:46 GMT
Ron With regard to the teeth pulling. If the venues do not actively advertise their events, how are we, as the general public, supposed to know what is taking place. The Council website is a perfect place for all of this information but as been shown in another thread, the blind are leading the blind as far as a serious website is concerned. Local information could be pooled together in one place if the people in authority had enough gumption. >< It is such a shame because there are events but we don't know about them. Are the events attracting reasonable attendances or not? All the local venues, pubs etc. who provide live music know about the site, I can't force them to tell me what's on. A lot of the bands who play locally, let me know where they are playing, but a lot of them don't. If you hear of an event that's not on my gig guide, let me know. I reckon my website is about as comprehensive as I can make it, I spend a lot of time on it every single day and remember it`s all free, I don't get a penny of revenue from it, even the City Council events are advertised FoC. As far as attendances at The Platform are concerned, just about every event provided by LCC exceeds the target figure for audience numbers (remember, not all events are expected to sell out, a folk music or jazz concert for example might be expected to draw a hundred or a hundred and fifty and in general exceeds the expected figure)
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Post by WillowTheWhisp on Jun 12, 2010 20:20:46 GMT
But wasn't one of the reasons put forward for closing the Dome the claim that it lacked support? Perhaps if the council did promote things better then more people would attend. I don't just mean a few posters up round town either. People like us would travel from elsewhere if we knew there was something we wanted to see.
In the early stges of this forum, before we were ever aware of your website Ron, one of our hopes was to be able to advertise upcoming events etc but we couldn't persuade people to contact us even to get free advertising of their event so I fully sympathise with your predicament. Frustrating isn't it?
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Post by ukuleleron on Jun 13, 2010 10:21:11 GMT
But wasn't one of the reasons put forward for closing the Dome the claim that it lacked support? Perhaps if the council did promote things better then more people would attend. I don't just mean a few posters up round town either. People like us would travel from elsewhere if we knew there was something we wanted to see. In the early stges of this forum, before we were ever aware of your website Ron, one of our hopes was to be able to advertise upcoming events etc but we couldn't persuade people to contact us even to get free advertising of their event so I fully sympathise with your predicament. Frustrating isn't it? Interestingly, the core audience at The Platform are from out of town. We get regulars from as far away as Carlisle and North Wales - one chap comes regularly from Settle- yet very few from Lancaster or Morecambe - I don't know why that is, we don't seem to be able to drag the locals away from their tellies. You wouldn`t believe the amount of times I hear "I didn't know it was on" or "I would have come if I'd known" What do you have to do to let people know what's on short of going round knocking on everyones door? Advertising is expensive, promoters don't trust 'free' advertising, not as many people read The Visitor as you might think. There are very few public notice boards in the area. My website has a regular local following of several hundred individuals. a facebook and MySpace presence, and last minute events, changes etc. go out on Twitter. That's not a lot really and It's taken eleven years to build that up. The trouble with almost all forums is that they start off with an enthusiastic group of contributors, but soon dwindle down to a handful of regulars - I've just removed the forum from my website as it has become more or less dormant - that's just the way it is, Facebook has taken over...
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Post by accykeef on Jun 13, 2010 12:03:06 GMT
I am not knocking your efforts Ron, far from it - events in the area need to be promoted if they are to be well attended.
People from outside the area will travel to see events in the same way that we travel to The Lowry quite regularly to watch plays. We are better informed about events at The Lowry than we are about local events. They do send some very expensive mailshots out but the main advertising method is a monthly email highlighting the next few month's events.
We don't attend many 'concert' type of events as it is not really our thing but we could be tempted if we knew well enough in advance what was happening. I know we should make more of an effort to find out but there must be thousands more like us who just don't know what is happening or where.
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Post by ukuleleron on Jun 13, 2010 12:11:21 GMT
I am not knocking your efforts Ron, far from it - events in the area need to be promoted if they are to be well attended. >snip< I know we should make more of an effort to find out but there must be thousands more like us who just don't know what is happening or where. So what do you suggest we/they do about it?
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Post by brian on Jun 13, 2010 12:35:45 GMT
The problem is we all have different lifestyles. If you posted it on twitter or facebook, I'd probably see it. If you printed it in the visitor, I wouldn't. The complete opposite goes for a lot of people while some don't go online or buy a newspaper. You could post notices in the tourism office and around town, you could do flyers under car wipers. We'll never cover everyone but surely we should be using the cheapest methods that reach the widest audience i.e. online. Cover the local forums, send it to the gov.uk sites, ask other sites to add links and tweet it.
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