When we first approached the task of creating a comprehensive national on-line listings service the task seemed incredibly daunting. Now, after over four years of work and development we realise we underestimated the job we took on!
Way back at the end of 1994 we created a small web presence for our theatre group, Flat Four. For fun, and to make it slightly more interesting, we decided to list what was on at the local theatres in Oxford and then the West End. What we found was, even though the web community was still quite small, we had a growing number of interested readers from around the world.
From that small beginning we moved into more regular updating in February 1995
and started to extend our coverage to every theatre we could find
details on on a regular basis. At the time, because of the technology
available to us, we were hand editing HTML pages on a weekly basis,
something we kept up until around October 1995 when we switched to
a database driven system. Not that the database was on-line, we used
it for data capture and each day generated static pages for upload.
On-line database access only came about in 1996 through a relationship
with What's On Stage who published the information on their site,
though they didn't carry any archive material. Eventually, the growing
archive went live in mid-1997 and we haven't looked back since.
Fortunately, we took a very early decision to view the listings from the users perspective and to collect and present the information in the way that answered the questions that they want to ask. The main question remains, as the Liverpudlian vultures in The Jungle Book asked, “What we gonna do then?”, and that is what we’re geared up to answer, better, faster and more accurately than any one else. To achieve this, it has always been our goal to provide as comprehensive a coverage as possible. This, in itself, dictated much of the design of the system as it required us to be highly efficient in our coding of information. The other main influence on our strategy was the level of information we received. Much of the information we get is sent to us by theatres and theatre companies, but the information is often incomplete; sometimes only title, date and venue name - this can be challenging as we may not even know if it’s a dance, concert, play, musical or talk! Of course, over time, more information may be filled in, but comprehensive coverage and great detail are often incompatible bed-fellows!
Using custom-built distributed databases, tuned over the years, and
the considerable experience of the listings team we are now able to
collect, collate and standardise the information we receive so that
it is easily searchable and readily used by the wide variety of organisations
which we supply. The standardisation of the information is one of
the benefits of this approach, it helps us to track plays over the
years as their productions and sometimes even titles change, and to
unify listings where different titles are used by different venues
(you should see the variety of titles for The Complete Works
of William Shakespeare (Abridged) that we have been sent!)
Let’s not forget, the Internet is an incredibly information hungry medium and its users have less patience than any other reader group. What they want, as the most successful sites will confirm, is easy access to rapid answers, based on comprehensive and up-to-date information sources. We have always worked in this medium so we’re geared up to update the central systems several times a day and respond to new information within minutes rather than hours, days or weeks as may easily be the case with print and other media.
How can we do this? Well, a skilled team is the best starting place but that alone is not enough. Information has to be gathered and channelled to the team and it arrives in many forms (both on and off line), with differing levels of detail and with priorities that vary from now to next year!
Stage one for the team is the collection of information, this can involve our contacts inside theatres, press and mailing lists for venues, faxed information, emails, or even just listening to the radio! Wherever information comes from it is next prioritised based on it immediacy and our own users’ expectations.
The team then manage on-line listings entry into the database, adapting information to ensure that it is as consistent and ‘clean’ as possible. In our case, cleanliness is next to usefulness rather than Godliness as the database also allows archival searching and re-use of synopses and production details. But it doesn’t stop there, every time a new piece of information on casting, direction or added dates, is received the entry is looked at again to ensure that we are up-to-date.
Finally information is checked and uploaded. It may sound long-winded
but the whole process can take less than 10 minutes if we need it
to - beat that on paper! Publication of the information is undertaken
directly from the database and also through a growing number of syndicated
outlets from the Electronic Telegraph, Infospace
and What's on Stage to local radio sites. Because the
information is used by people we avoid 'qualitative' input such as
the best musical ever but we do provide brief synopsis details and
notes.
Our initial coverage of performing arts has been expanding over the years and now covers films, concerts, Gigs and Major Events. We are always looking to expand the fields we cover. Over 2000 venues are included in our database with details for over 16,000 plays, operas, musicals, concerts and films (with around 30,000 sets of production details). At any one time well over 20,000 active performance runs are available, a number that is growing all the time as the service expands. With this level of information, and an archive of 45,000 performances and 1200 people and companies, we provide a powerful central resource for the exploration and display of performance details.
Access to the database is free and the current interfaces provide extensive
searching and cross-linkage. In addition to new material, we have
an on-going background task to check the database for consistency,
duplication and incomplete information. Why not come and see us, and
if there are additional features we can add, then let's know!
