Note:I wrote this in 2000, it was late yet still a long time ago. I'm not sure if this was the exact version I gave to Jeremy or not back in 2000, I have some variants, but it's good enough. Everything about the Fringe website came after this. I didn't have foresight, I was fighting to try to make change, deal with those small audiences not be part of the hip, not interested in making the Fringe bigger. There must have been another bit, I remember a front page that said the Fringe could put up a history on the webpage as content to lure people so they'd see any news, and that we could get the URL out into view by printing it out on paper and just sticking them up everywhere, something I did for some years in the form of bootleg volunteer posters. I also don't know where the appendixes are.
On one side, we have a small group of people who are too busy to interact with all kinds of peripheral stuff, and on the other the need to get people involved and improve the Fringe.
This introduction is lousy because I'm trying to finally finish this off, but the internet is the way to do this, if only people can see the potential.
I've broken this down into three areas. The first is some examples of bad use of the internet, and I've tried to find neutral ones where the subject is less important than the way the site is used. This could be skipped over, but since the whole point is that people aren't looking at the internet but listening to people tell them about the internet those examples are supposed to speak.
The second section is a history of the Fringe and the online world as I see it over five years. I may be missing things, but since I am one of the constant participants, I surely have more to say than most.
And the third section is about taking better advantage of the internet, to see it not as a passive place to put the printed program online, but as an interactive community space that helps promote the Fringe and helps to move the Fringe forward.
SOME EXAMPLES
This is a bad website:
http://www.yellowdoor.mcgill.ca/Coffeehouse/coffeehouse.htm
It says nothing that someone who would know
about the site doesn't already know. The one thing of value, who's
performing in upcoming weeks, isn't routinely updated. Of course,
this reflects the lack elsewhere, since this year, and other years
in the past, the Yellow Door doesn't bother making sure that this
information gets listed in the papers. And further, the site doesn't
take advantage of the space available on the internet, to take who
is playing this week and provide a bit of a blurb to entice the
audience in. They can't always get articles in the paper, and
the listings allow nothing more than who is playing, but the
website is not so limited. There is an email address for contact
purposes, but like many websites, the email is either unread or
ignored; that's not so important, but if they aren't going to deal
with email, there's no sense in putting the address on the website.
This site is slightly better:
http://www.marc.qc.ca
for the simple reason that it does say a bit about amateur radio, and that
is a topic that isn't out in the world much. But of course, the
usefulness of that information relies on people getting to the site, and
like all websites, people either stumble on it, or one has to be out
working the crowd to ensure that people know about it. The club is having
a big event this weekend, and the site does provide details. But again,
that isn't useful unless someone knows in some way to check the site. Two
years ago, the event was cancelled because not enough people signed up
for tables in advance. But information never got out beyond a small
segment of people. The website is not a replacement for traditional
routes of information, yet amateur radio has traditionally been horrible
at reaching out to the public. I used to assume that I'd miss things
because groups were unable to get into the newspapers, but with the
internet I see the missed opportunites and realize that the work
isn't being done to get into the press.
This too is a lousy website:
http://www.clublibertel.qc.ca
Most of the structure has been in place for three years, but with
virtually no content filling that structure. But they perceive the
website as a product, something to be finished at some point in the
future. Virtually nobody knows about the site, or the project,
because they aren't out working the crowd. Indeed, they
have decided not to be very visible until things are just right. They
are operating in isolation, away from the people they intend to help.
This lack of interaction is their very problem. So they sit around
having meetings about how they can get people to "volunteer", and how to
write things about how to use the tools, not realizing that by interaction
these things are solved. They aren't using the site for bootstrapping,
starting small and throwing it away as things get better. So there's no
page about promotion including contact information as email links,
something that they themselves would benefit from, and groups such as
the MARC above could also find useful. It is a very static webpage,
that does not make for return visits even when somebody knows about
the page in the first place. They do have a news section, but it's
embedded in a number of layers which is hardly conducive to getting
the latest news. Not that they actually put news there.
Both Studio 303 http://www.studio303.net and Infinitheatre http://WWW.CAM.ORG/~infinit/ have websites, the former certainly was launched with fanfare last year. But neither group, and they merely represent many others, is updating their sites. Studio 303 seems to be due to lethargy, while Infinitheatre seems to treat the website like a written catalog, printed once a year for the upcoming season. So the websites are not a source of updated information. Not that it matters all that much, since I don't see the URLs to the websites in high visibility. In both cases, they occasionally send out emailings of upcoming events. This deals with the sudden events, but it doesn't deal with the problem that you have to already know about the group and it's activities in the first place; this is no different from twenty years ago when political groups would get people to sign up so the organizations could keep people informed. It may be helpful to the insiders, but it does nothing about reaching a new audience. Infinitheatre even stopped sending me email when my membership ran out, almost as if they saw the announcements of upcoming shows as a product I had bought.
And http://www.montrealfringe.ca is also a lousy website. A main reason is that it's seen as a product, a product that only exists for a week, maybe two, and then becomes useless. It has nothing that isn't out in the public eye in some other form. It does nothing to move the Fringe forward, and nothing to extend the Fringe onto the internet.
Note that in none of these cases have I defined a lousy webpage in terms of flash or layout. All of the flash, and much of the layout, is lost to me since I use a text-only browser. But this points out that no amount of flash is a substitute for substance.
In all these cases, I see groups having webpages for the sake of having webpages, so they can say they are hip and on the internet. The internet is something they've been sold, instead of being seen as a solution to existing problems. I don't see any indication that these, or any of the groups behind so many other lousy websites, have spent time on the internet first, looking around and differentiating between good and bad websites. They aren't coming to the internet because they admit existing problems, they come to the internet so they won't be left out (see the Gazette ads). The webpages are often nothing more than a marker, with contact information that can so easily be had through traditional routes. In many cases, the webpage isn't even put together by the group, but handed over to a third party to do the work, which may result in a "neat product" but which probably doesn't reflect the group itself.
Groups see promotion as something needed to get the crowd/audience to an event. But as an outsider, I see the lack of promotion as a loss because of all the times I've had to work to find out that something is happening, or all the times I've missed something because I didn't hear about it until afterwards.
I don't particularly care if the Yellow Door is bringing in small audiences; I do care that there have been plenty of times when I was't sure if there was a show on a given night because there was no listing, or missed someone I did want to see because I didn't know they were playing.
And from that point alone, I will tend to spread information, be it on the internet or through interaction or by spreading some posters around. But in order to do that, I have to know in the first place, and it sure helps to know that the organizations are actually concerned about reaching out.
I waited at least twelve years to get access to what became the Internet, so I haven't bought into the latest fad because a company or society thinks I must have internet access. I came to the internet with a long time realization that most groups do a lousy job of reaching out beyond their inner circle. And I had a vision for the potential of the internet.
Coyote (aka Peter Coyote, recently seen as the announcer with the microphone at the Oscars) in his book "Sleeping Where I Fall" talks about an event about 1967, where a couple of people including Richard Brautigan, set up a mimeograph machine and almost instantaneously issued news bulletins about what was going on, "Linking the participants in a prototypical World Wide Web".
Coyote was writing about political theater and/or performance art, changing the relationship between the "performers" and the "audience", and that mimeograph machine became a means of reporting not what had happened but what was happening.
He isn't jumping on the internet bandwagon. That mimeograph machine was famous, and for those of us who knew about it, it created a certain vision of the potential of the internet. Abbie Hoffman once wrote that he who had the mimeograph machine won, indicating the power of being able to print your own material, but he stole the idea from that mimeograph machine and the people who used it.
The internet in effect gives everyone their own printing press, but too many don't have the vision to see it's potential, and indeed perceive the internet as a passive experience.
The Fringe Goes Online
The Fringe and the Internet have great similarities, yet I don't see the natural progression from the Fringe onto the Internet.
The Fringe has grown because it builds on the year before. I knew about the Fringe the very first year, but I only had a very vague idea of what it was or where it was taking place. Each year it got more noticeable until it was somehow safe to attend, either '93 or '94, and the growth has continued ever since. But if a different group had done it each year, or the date moved to different months, or one year was skipped, it would have had to be restarted. starting pretty much from the beginning each time.
But that is the situation when it comes to the Fringe and the online world.
Maybe there was something before, but the earliest memory is in 1995, when there was a message area on the Mirror's Babylon BBS. There was also website that year, I think nothing more than the program, but I had no access. I thought the idea was to have a public terminal at the Fringe, but I never saw it, though that was the year the "Beer Tent" was inside, above the Second Cup. It was relatively lively that year, since the oldtimers hadn't yet left the BBS, and there was an existing theater conference so people were already there when the Fringe conference opened. And there were early notices from the Fringe, about the need for volunteers and about the benefit and Fringe For All, because the existing space was there. Once the Fringe conference opened, close to the actual festival, we did get messages from Fringe central, and that year to some extent the Buzz from the Beer Tent was posted to the conference. I don't know how complete it was (and I'm not even sure how complete a record I kept), but apparently they were typed in before they went up on the wall, and posted in batches. I entered a few online Buzzes that year, using it to put a little more detail than the cute paper buzz.
The idea didn't go very far beyond the people who were already there, maybe because it wasn't promoted or maybe because it was too much trouble to get registered at Babylon in order to post.
In 1996, Babylon was used again, but it didn't really go much further, I count sixty posts, from a handful of people. We did get a post from the ACME Flea Circus, because it was seen as a space for shameless self-promotion. I decided the printing press was there, and did regular, maybe even daily, reports. They weren't really great, but at least I was using the potential, reporting on the Fringe as soon as I got home. The system let you know who had read the messages, so I knew that only about five or six people were viewing them, mostly insiders. Not that we were pulling in the audience at large, either to post or read. That was the year I started printing out the messages myself and giving them to David Gobeil Taylor. It seemed like the sort of thing that might be forgotten to more important things, and I thought the potential should be promoted. It wasn't so much what was said in those posts, but that here was a chance for people to self-publish about the Fringe and to reach the potential audience before they actually arrived at the festival. There was a Fringe website, apparently with the program, and I gather the webspace was provided by the Iguanas.
In 1997, the Mirror had a message board on their website, though the memory is faint enough that I had forgotten it until last year. I can't remember much of it. I don't seem to have saved the messages. I had started doing the cookies on a small scale, and I was posting to the local newsgroup, mtl.general in an attempt to reach a wider audience. Gaetan Charlebois started his Fringe Diary that year, since that's when he started raving about Mari, but it wasn't interactive. He had posted the year before, but I always thought I had showed him the potential in 1996. I started printing out more copies of the online stuff, for better distribution at the Fringe.
In 1998, Gaetan's Fringe Diary became interactive and was the only Fringe-specific message area. I wasn't posting as much, what with the cookies and printing out copies of the online stuff for all the venues. The Fringe had a website that year, but it was nothing more than a copy of the Fringe program, and if I recall it wasn't even accessible until the printed program was available. As soon as Fringe 1998 was over, a message appeared on the website saying that information about the next Fringe would appear soon, but that never happened.
In 1999, the Fringe had a website again. But it had been handed over to someone else to do, and it hadn't moved forward from the year before. I had assumed that Ira didn't want to do it, but I asked him at the end of the Fringe, and he didn't know why the change happened. It was again only an online version of the program, with the added "feature" of online ticket sales. The Fringe Diary was interactive again, maybe bringing more participants than any of the earlier attempts, though who knows about the number of readers. I believe Gaetan started in 1999 to have his own flyers for the Diary, which may have helped bring people to it. I posted some things, like I had the year before, to mtl.general And of course, someone put up a page of independent reviews; I still have the URL, but the page has disappeared in recent months.
I believe I have all the material from the Fringe Diaries, including the interactive stuff. I think I have all the Fringe messages from Babylon in '95 and '96, but I may have missed a post or two. Also, since 1995 one could email Buzz in, and those I don't have (except my own) because they never showed up online in the public spaces. My newsgroup posts about the Fringe going back to 1997 can be viewed by by going to http://www.dejanews.com and using the keywords "blackm00@cam.org" and "fringe".
Working the Internet Crowd
Which brings us to 2000, and I gather the webpage is being put together by yet a another party.
Each year, the online presence of the Fringe has started from scratch. It doesn't get better, and in fact the people who are really bringing the Fringe to the internet have no official capacity, and are operating with no connection to the Fringe site.
I kept showing Jeremy things I had posted to mtl.general not in the hopes of getting a SuperPass or some other approval, but in an attempt to show the potential that the internet provided. Who else could I show them to since there is no way to interact with the troupes until the Fringe is already in progress, when it is too late? And even the flatness during the Fringe brings distribution problems, such as finding the troupes and having to interact with them individually.
But then Jeremy admitted two years ago that he knew nothing about the internet, so it's no wonder the webpage is seen as a product, or an online version of the printed program, but not as a tool to get things organized, and as a means to work the crowd.
And I have no idea how to get this message through, because it dates to as early as I first got online.
The simple solution is to give the webpage back to Ira, if he wants to do it. He's done it once before, and can build on that. He's been at the Fringe for years, not as "webmaster" but as a Rover and in other capacities. The webpage would then reflect not only the atmosphere of the Fringe, but would better be a solution to what needs solving. Handing it over to some slick graphic company may have some ulterior reason, but all it will give you is a nice webpage that isn't very helpful.
The next important thing is that a webpage is only a text file sitting on a hard drive somewhere. It is nothing magical. If someone can type something up, it can be a webpage. Learn a few little tags, and anyone can turn that text into a form readable by a browser. Or have someone make up some templates so that text can be pasted in when needed. The important part of this is that whoever is making the content can put it online, meaning that news and updates can be posted instantaneously. If you've got Craig Francis off somewhere doing the webpage, then if a show is concelled or something really special comes up, it won't be on the webpage. The internet gives you the printing press, but then groups give the press away because webpages are seen as "too technical".
We here at fringe labs have uncovered something we had long wondered about, namely that the WWW is mainly a passive experience. It turns out that this was not envisioned by the inventor of the Web, and he saw it as a method of exchange, not broadcast. The first browser had the ability to write webpages besides reading them, but that was dropped as commercial concerns wrote their own browsers. I can't run it to check, but he says that AOLpress is not just a browser but makes for easy webpage making. It is worth checking.
The website should be seen as making the Fringe live on throughout the year, as I told Maeve two years ago. The site is a means of reaching out, but if it's a static site, people won't keep coming back to be there when something important is posted.
We need to keep the URL of the website out in the public eye, but there's no sense in doing that if it brings them to an old webpage.
Put up Gossip, Appendix A. That's what I can say about the Fringe so far, and of course it's more oriented towards the insiders, but then I have no access to the insider information. It is merely an example that could be better if only I knew what was going on.
Or better, use the website to keep people informed of Fringe shows being shown elsewhere, or Fringe-type shows. If Mask On Productions is having a show over at Geordie, the webpage should promote it because they come from the Fringe. This coincides with the stuff I read last year about the Fringe taking a bigger role in the local theatre scene. Any troupe can have a webpage, but unless they really promote it, nobody will see it. By using the Fringe website as a sort of co-operative, they get noticed because they are being listed along with other similar troupes. But listing such shows also creates content on the website so people will keep coming back.
And you want them to keep checking the website so they will be there to read about Fringe business.
When there's a benefit in a few weeks, you want people to have been checking the website so they can learn about the show. You want people checking the website so they can see pleas for donations, and anything else that the Fringe wants to get out in the public view.
You want people to be checking the website so the volunteer coordinator can use it to get volunteers. Putting "The Fringe needs volunteers" on all the literature is a step forward, but Tristan really should be working the crowd, just like the Fringe should and just like the companies should. The website gives you plenty of space to reach out and grab people so they will want to sign up. See Appendix B, again based on an outsiders view of what needs to be done, and is only an example. Give people the chance to sign up for specific tasks, "Oh yeah, I can do that" rather than them having to call up the volunteer coordinator, who often isn't around, and then stumble through the process of learning what they can do, and whether there is something they feel they can take on. If you don't like the informality, then at least there should be a list on the website of what people can volunteer for. I think people are more likely to volunteer to a specific thing than become a volunteer and then be given a task (and on the other side, groups want volunteers but often don't want them unless they can do specific tasks), so it's important to move the specific tasks out into the open to draw them in.
And you want people to be checking the website so when its time to sign up to do a show, people will know about it. Of course, a URL somewhere is as obscure as two lines listed somewhere in the paper (whatever happened to the days when the call for shows ended up at the end of theatre reviews?), but if the website is seen as something ongoing, then the announcement is just part of something else.
Most groups have a newsletter, and it's purpose is either to keep the members informed, or to give them something tangible in return for their donation. They need the newsletter because they don't have control over how often they can get into print, or how much they can say in print. But the smaller the group, the heavier the burden of that newsletter, because of the cost of printing and postage, and the needed labor to provide content and putting it together etc.
On the other hand, you can get a hierarchical organization that wants participation, but is unable to interact beyond a small group because the means isn't there to reach out. And either they have to contend with people repeatedly asking the same questions, or just stop interacting.
That too is the potential of the Web, because it is nothing more complicated than it would be to email someone with the details, but it becomes a broadcast medium so anyone interested can read it. The ease of distributing information, given internet access, means a change from handing out information based on need, to where everyone has the information and can act on it or not.
So if the website was an ongoing presence, I would have known about Mari Osanai's visit as soon as anyone else. Most people would not act on that information, but I would have.
If I'd known earlier last year that there would be a Kid's Day, I would have kept on the lookout for neat toys to fill a box to have on hand.
Or in 1998, when CAM sponsored a venue, that might have happened because the year before I said something about the Fringe in a place where a CAM big-wig would read it. But if I'd known earlier that CAM was a sponsor, they might have gotten more of their money's worth, because they sure didn't milk that venue with a banner of t-shirts like they could have. Far more important, had I known earlier that CAM would be there, we might have been able to work up a terminal right there at the venue. That would have been the easiest year, since that building had plenty of phone lines and maybe even a network to plug into, and CAM could have provided a guest account. In return CAM could further promote itself, and the Fringe would have gotten a public internet terminal for the performers to get online and work the public, and the audience to get online and read what was being said (and add their own say).
The website should be used for many of the things that end up being one on one. All the information that is mailed out to the potential participants, all the information that is mailed out to a company once they are accepted, can sit on the website. Once it's in electronic form, and I've never seen anyone use a typewriter at the Fringe, then it can easily be put on the website for all. You'd be surprised what might come out of that. And even if you still see the webpage as a product intended for the public, one can so easily put the information online but "secret" by not linking to it from the visible site (and of course making sure people who need to know have the URL).
Once you make the website useful for the participants, then there is added incentive for them to get online. And getting them online might streamline things. Surely if deadlines get missed because the companies haven't mailed in what they should have, being able to contact them by email and even get them to send the information by email, could get rid of some of those bottlenecks.
But the website can also be a way of conveying additional information to the out of towners that might not be provided if the inner circle is too busy. I regularly do searches on "Fringe Festival" or "Montreal Fringe" on the internet, looking for information. Two years ago, I found a message from the Alice Under Glass people, and made a point of emailing them some information about the local newspapers. There is nothing stopping the Fringe from putting up a page of such information, except a change of perception.
If people can read the theatre critics beforehand, they can personalize the package sent to each critic, and I know from experience it can be fairly easy to work your way into print as long as you have the right angle.
And the website could have links to the specific critics, so the companies can email them. In fact, there are public email to fax servers that people can send email to and have sent as faxes. One could set up links on the webpage so people just have to click it on and send. Yes, this information can be sent out by paper, but it's easier to click on, or even cut and past, than type a URL from paper to a computer. Witness the URLs I've included here; if I had this online, those URLs would be invisible, but clicking the words on would take you right to the referenced sites.
The website would also benefit from interaction. The problem with Babylon and the interactive Fringe Diary is that they disappeared as soon as the Fringe was over. The structure should be there for interaction between the companies, Fringe HQ, the public and anyone else before the actual Fringe. I have to pester the office trying to find out about what's going on because their is hierarchy, and the only people who know what's going on is that hierarchy. But if there's a place to interact with the out of town acts before they arrive, there is a greater chance that their show will be noticed, and that their visit to Montreal will be good. I've taken the Fringe and the Buzz to the next logical step, and once you change that interaction perhaps others will too.
And once there is interaction on the Fringe site, then it can be a means of keeping the various companies interacting throughout the year, again the sort of thing ninted at last year. See what they do in Seattle, http://www.tpsonline.org/ a site I found last year when I was trying to track down information about the groups coming to the Fringe. Again, this provides a reason for the companies to be checking the site.
During the actual Fringe, there is tremendous potential for improving the website. Instead of a static page, you can have the main page display special events of the day, like benefits, or "Kid's Day" or even when film crews will be at the Beer Tent, since that might be appealing to the public. If something suddenly happens, like a show is cancelled, there isn't anything more instantaneous than the webpage.
The whole point of hypertext is that you can link to something somewhere else. So you can have a relatively unclutterd page (such as the little blurbs for the show in the program) but link to pages that give more detail (such as a company's own webpage). Or on the main page "We Need Volunteers" nice and obvious, along with other key things, but people can click it on and go to a page that provides the details. This gives the best of both worlds; nice and simple, yet with all the details available if someone wants them.
And some of the companies do have their own webpages, but the only way people will get to them is if they know about it. Having them linked off the Fringe page means that the public only has to remeber the easy to remember Fringe URL. The companies ought to have the Fringe URL on their flyers, it's to their benefit, which will help to promote the website, but again unless the website is of interest when all that starts happening, the URL means nothing.
What has to be thrown away is the idea that only sponsors get links. Because Gaetan Charlebois' Fringe Diary, especially once it got interactive, is potentially important at bringing people into the festival. But if there's no link, then he has to go off and promote his site himself, rather than working off the overall publicity of the Fringe.
And if someone puts up an independent page of reviews, they deserve a link on the Fringe site, since again it provides evaluation of the shows before someone gets down to the Beer Tent. And linking from the website is less haphazard than a single Buzz with the URL lost among all the other Buzz notes.
The obvious rejection of this is that then the Fringe has no control over what is being said. But the Fringe has no control over what is said in the Buzz (or is the Buzz censored?) The Fringe has no control over what is said on the internet about it, which is exactly the potential of the internet, but the Fringe does lose out if they don't take advantage of people who do see the potential of the internet.
Has Byron tired of writing the Daily Playlet, or is he merely tired of distributing it? I know he can be fussy about the display of them, but it adds to the Fringe and if anything I wish it came out more often and covered more. If he still wants to write it, it could be put on the website.
Once the website is seen as evolving rather than static, we can do all kinds of things. If the out of town acts come with reviews from elsewhere, if we can find them online their blurbs can link to those reviews. Wouldn't it have been nice to see a review of last year's "Please God, I Swear" before they arrived, especially considering they didn't get here till the Wednesday? And it works elsewhere; if one of our shows goes elsewhere, if the website has links to online reviews, then people can find them once they know a show has played Montreal.
(For that matter, the potential is there to have online reviews, and i'm thinking of the Gazette, have a link to the section of the Fringe website that has the blurb and the list of showtimes, though that requires a greater level of interaction with the Gazette webmaster.)
The shows that get the biggest audiences are the ones that work the crowd best. You can have a great show, but unless it has been promoted, the attendance will be dismal.
Last year, Tim Mooney (from Ottawa?) went to the interactive Fringe Diary to try to convince Gaetan to review his show. I had said something about promoting there, though Gaetan didn't like it, for the simple reason that there should be one place for news about the Fringe, and the Diary was the most immmediate method. But Tim blew it in two ways. Not only wsa he not working the crowd in the first place, I never knew anything about his show and I can't even remember the title, but he thought that getting Gaetan's attention would solve things. If he had been working the crowd, like any good Fringe promoter, he would have been noticed by the crowd and by the critics. But then, given internet access, he didn't use it to break ground by working the internet crowd, he saw it only as a utility to reach Gaetan, like mail would have been used in the past, so the voice of authority would make a declaration on the show.
But after five yeqrs, the Fringe in general hasn't gone anywhere online. Gaetan wrote about theatre companies on the internet back in November 25th in Hour, and he has a real sense of the internet with his http://www.canadiantheatre.com site. But the last time I looked, the Fringe isn't even listed there (and I can find plenty of sites that don't have up to date information about this year's Fringe), and I don't see the local companies giving early buzz about their Fringe shows.
And then Amy Baratt took Gaetan's lead, and critiqued some local theater websites in the December 16th issue of the Mirror. What she had to say was truth, but the followup letter in the Mirror made it sound like she was criticizing the performance, rather than the websites.
The Fringe should be taking a leadership role in all this, leading by example not structure. If the Buzz is more than a mere Fringe ritual, then the logical extension of it is the internet, where the performers can say as much as they want, and the audience can talk back too.
And shifting to better use of the internet will make things a whole lot easier for the hierarchy.