Performers Wanted

 Grant wrote: "This site has been providing free services for more than nine years. Thankfully whether it continues or closes down doesn't rest on the whim of any single individual but rather it rests on the continuing contributions made by the hundreds of companies and individuals that have built it."

We need to compare like with like here.  There are three types of online service for actors: the free sites such as Theatre Australia & TheatreLink.  Those that provide a structured service, and charge a fee such as Dare to Audition [$90pa] and Quiet on Set [$80pa] and casting pools such as ECaster, which charge a whole lot more [$180pa + $15 profile establishment].  We are talking about different niches here and "My site's better than your site" arguments - even if implied - are a bit puerile.  D2A provides structured and managed auditions information - and this promises to be better in the new site - whereas the auditions information here is a little more chaotic because auditions posts are not always located by those posting notices in the correct forum.

Helen Edwards was challenged for claiming D2A as "Continually rated the no.1 Acting & Audition Resources Management Site online."  Grant asked: "Rated no.1 by whom"? [I'll ignore the anonymous postings].  She gave the answer.  This wasn't good enough for some: an irrelevant discussion proceeded on the basis of this ranking method is better than yours.  BTW, her site is not the only one that makes such claims.  Quiet on Set describes itself as "Australia's Leading Online Resource for Actors".  That's as may be, and I would the first to challenge false advertising and I make no comment on that.  But on one measure [Google rankings] Helen Edwards was entitled to make the claim.  Picking up what someone on this thread said, however, the real measure is the satisfaction of the paid subscribers

Grant advised, "think twice and thrice before paying for membership to any online service."  That is sage advice.  And foremost in all our minds are the rip-off "agents" who illegally charge emerging actors hundreds of dollars to get on their books, or the "agents" who demand of those they take on that they register with ECaster (so, they take the - often inflated - commission and leave the actor and ECaster to do the work for them).  But D2A doesn't charge beyond the subscription fee.  And D2A is busy building up its producer - director - actor nexus.

The bulk of the membership in D2A, I would guess, is made up of emerging actors.  Some do have agents, get acting work,  and still subscribe for the services.  So, D2A must be doing something right.  Such services are useful for freelance actors, yet to establish a reputation in the industry.  Putting a personal cast on this: I have been offered work or auditions on the internet only when I have paid for it (a short stint on Star Now - I no longer subscribe: it was not money well spent), or through D2A, or through my agent.

The internet resources for actors can either be proactive - and in my experience that is what D2A is - or static (for example, TheatreLink).  These are different sorts of services, not criticisms.  My own website is static in the same sense: it provides organised details of my acting "career", headshots and more.  I have to get people in the industry to go there if I am to get any return for putting it up. Theatre Australia provides a different sort of service again.

D2A provides services on a subscriber basis that could not be provided by Theatre Australia as a free service unless it was cashed up by a wealthy philanthropist.  I suspect that while the D2A owners are building a business - and I have no ideological difficulty with that [I do with the rip-off merchants] - and providing a worthwhile service for the fee, they are investing a lot of their time for little financial return.

Young, emerging actors will use the internet for a variety of purposes and the kind of services provided by D2A and Theatre Australia are complementary rather than mutually exclusive. 

Jim