WHO ?

Derry & Sheena Barbour have both worked professionally in the performing arts fields for over 30 years - both in Administration, Performance and in Technical/Stage Management capacities.

Sheena has worked at the (former) Arts Council of Great Britain and at the International Intelligence on Culture, and Derry has worked with various major ballet companies both touring nationally & abroad as well as on various research projects for arts organisations.

Between them they were also responsible for the creation, research and editorial of the British Performing Arts Yearbook & the Irish Performing Arts Yearbook which besides receiving an award from the Libraries Association of the UK for the best new reference work of 1988, rapidly became the defininitive reference/working directories on the performing arts throughout the UK & Ireland.

The arts-info site is an enhancement of their original idea with an International dimension.

Derry & Sheena also administered their own Classical Indian Music & Dance company touring round the UK & Ireland in the 1970s.

WHAT ?

This site is intended to be a major resource and working tool for performing arts professionals giving access to international administrative & technical information on the performing arts.

The site is planned to work on 2 levels - the first level (General Access) contains what we hope are items of general interest to the casual user with access to truncated versions of the 10 databases within each country. The second level (Free Registered Access) gives access to FULL administrative & technical information in the databases for each country plus more specialised links to other performing arts websites either within each country featured or grouped within each continent.

There are sections on "Lost Theatres" planned as well within each country which are available to both Public & Registered users.

Whilst there are no plans to sell tickets directly on the site, pointers to Ticket Sales sites will be provided where possible - individual sites with their own websites where tickets can be purchased will also be found in the relevant databases (e-mail & website urls available to REGISTERED users only). There will also be no "chat rooms" on the site - these are covered by numerous other performing arts sites besides being available in several Usenet newsgroups as well as in private conferences belonging to certain Internet Service Providers such as cix, Compuserve & AOL.

WHY ?

The need for a comprehensive international directory/database aimed at the Impresario, Concert Organiser, Performer and Production Manager/Technician has long been apparent.

With companies, orchestras and performers now performing in all parts of the globe, it has been decided to pull the various pieces of international information together so that a more informed decision can be made regarding the technical facilities of venues, the availability of suppliers, the duration and criteria of festivals, the location of training establishments, sources of funding and their suitability to assist or host in the presentation of works both national and international.

This site is continually growing, so please bear with us if some parts appear to be still

Database structure & design, website text & design © Derry & Sheena Barbour. UK. 2001