Baker, who is returning to her native Australia in mid-March, will continue to support and help increase the Australasian and Asian community membership on the site. She told us: "We had an amazing reception to the concept wherever we went. There has been a huge amount of interest in the Teams Tool function, with people such as Garry and Christo Van Egmond, AC/DC's promoters, expressing a desire to investigate the application further.
"There's also a big demand within the Australian community to be able to access all sorts of information for the Asian market, especially venue information. Venues that have registered in Europe have already seen the value of having their technical specifications centralized. Shepherd's Bush Empire, one of the first venues to register, say they've saved a lot of time and effort by just being able to direct people to the site, rather than having to send out venue specs for each enquiry. And because the web is global it means that it doesn't matter where you are in the world, all that knowledge is available to anyone who has access to the internet. It's an immensely powerful tool for anyone, absolutely anywhere to have at their disposal."
This is reiterated by sound engineer Jon Lemon, who commented: "Having been working so much in the US over the last few years, StageAccess.com has become invaluable to me for up-to-date news and generally being able to find out what's going on around the world - not to mention being able to find people I've lost contact with and being able to find out about their respective businesses via the links on their eBiz cards. I hope it keeps growing as it is the only true community centre point we all have."
StageAccess.com has over 6,000 community members registered in its first year of business including venues from the Sydney SuperDome in Australia, Merdeka Stadium in Malaysia and Wembley Arena in the UK to The California Shakespeare Theater in the United States, plus a full range of professionals from the entertainment and associated industries - from freelance LED screen technicians to digital mixing console manufacturers.
(Lee Baldock)
