Theatre Australia

your portal for australian theatre

***k**g advertisements

Tue, 29 Apr 2003, 02:11 pm
Craig K Edwards24 posts in thread
Am I the only one on this board getting incredibly annoyed by the sheer number of advertisements v audition notices on the auditions page? Now, I'm sure that the 'Actors Workshop', 'Method Studio' and that 'Shangralai' (or something like that) all sell fine products, but my confidence in their knowledge base is somewhated eroded by their apparent confusion as to the meaning of the word 'audition'.

An 'audition' is a thing where actors wishing to gain a part in a production, or entrance to a funded drama school, or just get on someone's casting books, come along and perform a piece of (usually) prepared work. Fortunately, this lovely and indispensible website has a WHOLE PAGE devoted to letting actors around Australia know when community and independant theatre organisations are holding their auditions.

An 'advertisement' is a message/flier/article/website-posting/sound-byte etc used to promote awareness of a product. Advertisements can be quite useful in informing people that a particular product (eg a drama class) is available. They do not, however, bear any resemblance to auditions.

I would have thought that acting schools (of all things) might be sufficiently aware of the concept of an 'audition' to understand the difference.

There is on this site a bill-board, green-room gossip forum and a 'what's on' section where advertisements for theatrical products such as acting schools would probably be more suitable. Cluttering the auditions notices with them just provides ammunition for bored pedants like me to similarly clutter this forum with trivial posts.

Cheers,
Craig

Training Forum Addendum

Fri, 2 May 2003, 02:52 pm
Walter Plinge
Just as a follow-up to that last thought, what about two levels of advertising?

Level 1 would be the training/advert forum itself. Costs nothing, is not high profile and only people who actually go to the forum will see it.

Level 2 High Profile Paid advertising. WAIT WAIT WAIT!!!! Before you start thinking BANNERS!!! OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Banners ARE NOT what I am suggesting. A nice little HIGH PROFILE spot is on the HOME page for ITA right under the Current Poll window. Advertisers who would like to RENT such a spot would be charged a small fee (Duh! Rent - Fee - Good one Jeff, double description). These spaces would be for short term hire only.

I suggest this after Grant's concerns about Free Access. This still provides free access to users which is this sites best feature and free advertising through the appropriate forum. The idea to charge for High profile advertising could help funding issues with ITA itself.

With all this thinking, my brain really hurts now.......

Jeff "Thud" Watkins

Thread (24 posts)

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