It’s our birthday

This week AussieTheatre.com celebrates seven years online and if you would have told me back in 2003 that this venture would last this long, or I would still be here, I probably would have handed you the stereotypical straight jacket.

It has been a great seven years and the future for the website is as bright and prosperous as its strong past. There will always be changes, of course, but the core of the site will remain the same.

I could of course go into an array of thankyou messages and highlights from the past but I will leave that for now and simply talk about the future.

However, I will just quickly mention our major sponsors – APO, Showbiz, Jigsaw Theatre, Your Management, Jon Nicholls Productions and Showfit – who do so much to ensure we remain online.

The one big change in AussieTheatre.com from when it started back in 2003 to now is its corporate face. Yes, the site is very advertising-heavy and that is one of the reasons it is a success – we are able to fund the site in a way that others are simply unable to do.

The one thing I will assure you is that the advertising will remain related to the theatre industry. Sure, not everything will interest everyone but you won’t see Pepsi or Vodafone advertising here – we’ll keep it related to theatre, and that way even the advertising is interesting and intriguing to look at.

Without advertisers and sponsors, this website could simply not exist. While sometimes you may think the site hasn’t been updated for a day or so, I assure you that it most likely has, you just need to dig deeper. And if it hasn’t, then obviously a heavy paperwork day has greeted us!

Our overhaul has been an expensive one, and the ongoing costs of keeping the site online continue to grow, but I am confident that AussieTheatre.com will always be here and will always have that industry support.

So what of the future?

Well, firstly there is little doubt that social networking is a part of our future. It provides such a strong way to engage with readers and provide real-time breaking news, so there will be a huge concentration on that.

If you would like to follow us on Twitter, go to www.twitter.com/aussietheatre. As for Facebook, just check out http://www.facebook.com/pages/Penrith/AussieTheatrecom/191941113094 and become a friend.

As part of our future, our memberships will be very important and we are doing all we can to build our Site Members. Site Members have access to great competitions, excellent industry discounts and of course our job site. It is a great way to support AussieTheatre.com and get something back at the same time, so I would urge everyone who isn’t a Site Member to sign up, if you can afford it.

We are also working very hard on the implementation of the Aussie Theatre Network. AussieTheatre.com will always be the key element of the Network, but we want to create a ring of websites and a service, so to speak, that links the theatre industry better. We want to become the central hub for the industry and we believe that within a few years that will be possible.

In the next few weeks we will be launching, in conjunction with LastTix, a new ticketing website that will allow AussieTheatre.com readers to snap up cheaper theatre tickets. We will of course continue our relationship with Showbiz, which allows you to purchase great stay & see packages and premium tickets.

We have many other plans for the future as well, and we of course want you to be a part of it. Hence, we always welcome your feedback and suggestions. You can contact me directly at [email protected].

Happy Birthday to us – here’s to the next seven.