A new Valley Web site will offer a comprehensive listing of cultural events in the local nonprofit arts community when it makes its debut in September.

The collaborative project to launch ShowUp.com was developed by the local Alliance for Audience, a service organization formed three years ago to promote Valley arts and culture. The site receives major funding from the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust.

The new site addresses a need identified by various contemporary studies of arts and culture: organizations must unite to develop new audiences through their collective strength. This was cited locally earlier this year by the Maricopa Regional Arts and Culture Task Force and by arts consultant Adrian Ellis in the 2002 report, The Arts in Arizona.

For a fee of $45 to $1,500, any Arizona nonprofit organization in the arts and cultural community can post links, events calendars, and ticket information on ShowUp.com. Already, 25 groups have signed up to participate on the site, and Alliance for Audience estimates that 300 cultural groups in Arizona qualify for listing space.

According to Valley arts leaders, what makes ShowUp.com unique is the range of organizations it will promote: smaller, niche choral groups and museums will join big Arizona arts institutions like the Phoenix Art Museum, the Scottsdale Cultural Council, and the Phoenix Symphony for equal billing on the site.

"Some of us larger organizations may get less from ShowUp.com than smaller groups," Eric Sellen, marketing director for the Phoenix Symphony told the Arizona Republic. "But arts and entertainment here will grow together through collaboration and mutual support."

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For more information:

"Web site will link the arts," Arizona Republic, 08/03/04

ShowUp.com

Alliance for Audience

Maricopa Regional Arts and Culture Task Force

The Arts in Arizona, 2002 report by Adrian Ellis