Bloomington, Indiana and its five neighoring counties (Brown, Greene, Lawrence, Monroe, and Owen) are home to one of the richest and most diverse cultural communities in the midwest. On any given day of the year, local residents and visitors alike can choose from scores of performances, exhibits, festivals, and related events. bloomingtonArts.info was developed to support this rich artistic environment by providing a centralized location for accurate and comprehensive communication between artists and the public.

This one-stop arts information and services portal was collaboratively developed over a three-year period with the guidance of and with input from a vast majority of the region's artistic community. It represents the work of a dedicated team of remarkable volunteers who worked side-by-side with the talented and committed engineers at Envisage, the software firm in Bloomington who built the site and transformed an idea into the site you are viewing today.

bloomingtonArts.info is designed to serve three primary purposes:

• it encourages wide participation in and the continued growth of the arts in our area by providing the region's most comprehensive and accurate calendar of cultural events. bloomingtonArts.info provides a direct channel of communication between the artists/arts groups and the general public: the site is maintained solely by the artists whose listings are on the site, each of whom is responsible for the veracity of their own information, and each of whom have instant access to make any changes or updates to the information they have released. The site also is designed to make it as easy as possible to attend an event: maps to each event are provided, accessibility concerns are addressed, and an online ticketing service is embedded within the site for those organizations whose events require advance ticket sales.
• the site provides a variety of marketing support services to the arts community. A directory of artists and arts organizations provides centralized contact information, schedules, and links to web sites. The site makes it easy for press releases to be distributed to the media in a timely manner. And organizations and individuals can maintain a marketing list on the site for mailings or special announcements.
• finally, an area of the site is reserved for communication among the members of the artistic community. A long-range composite calendar is maintained that helps groups plan performance dates with a minimal amount of collisions. The long-range, multi-year composite planning calendar also encourages collaboration among organizations who may be programming around a common thematic area. Encouraging the growth of a collaborative artistic community is one of the most important goals of the site.

The many partners who contributed time and resources to the sites develipment include Indiana University, the City of Bloomington, Verizon, Envisage and the National Endowment for the Arts.  A huge debt of gratitude goes to Gerry Sousa of the BAAC Board of Trustees for managing the project and providing the principal system design; former BAAC Director Nancy Krueger shepherded the site through its planning, launch and first-year support phases.

Buskirk-Chumley Executive Director Danielle McClelland continues to manage the online ticket component through the theatre's Sunrise Box Office.  And the Arts Development staff of the Bloomington Area Arts Council provides ongoing technical and customer support to the member organizations who populate the site's data.

BloomingtonArts.info averages more than 10,000 unique hits a month and generates thousands of dollars of ticket revenue for arts and cultural organizations. Virtually all artists and arts organizations in the region are represented on the site and continue to reap its many benefits.

There are many possibilties, Here are a few:

You can find something to do tonight, this week, or this weekend.
Instead of looking through a variety of websites, newsletters and mini-listings, visitors now have access to extensive descriptions of events, with photographs and links to sponsoring organizations' websites. Visitors can zero-in on the events that interest them and connect to detailed information about each event.

You can eliminate clutter. bloomingtonArts.info makes it easy for you to sort through the many events available during any given period. A variety of filters are available to you: you can select a specific genre (theatre, classical music, modern dance, etc.), or specify a date range, or search the entire season for a particular performer, or composer, or actor.

You can find out what's happening next month and make sure you have tickets before they're gone.
A long-term events calendar helps patrons and out-of-town visitors plan ahead.

You can have the site remember things for you. Sign up for the bloomingtonArts weekly event email  At the beginning of each week, registrants will receive by email an arts calendar focusing on the type of arts events they are most interested in. Turn the service on and off as you wish. We never send out unsolicited emails, nor do we allow our member organizations access to your email address without your express permission.

You can buy tickets for arts events.
At bloomingtonArts.info, it's easy for visitors to buy advance tickets for many events. You can either pick up tickets in advance at the Sunrise Box Office in the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre, or you can have them held for you at the event itself. No more being turned away by sold-out performances.

For additional information or a tutorial on how to use the site, please contact us at support@bloomingtonarts.info

*What's-in-it-for-me? What can I do on this site?