New Software for the Blue Room

[peter]

New Software for the Blue Room

 

 

Since launching to the public on January 30th 2003, the Blue Room on-line entertainment technology forum has gone from strength to strength. Membership of the site has expanded beyond all our initial expectations, and we have recently welcomed our 1,000th member, William McCormack from Sydney, Australia.

 

To date, members have made a total of almost 35,000 posts and the site regularly receives around a million visits each month. Representatives from many of the industry's most respected manufacturers, suppliers and organisations are active on the forum and regularly respond to members' queries directly. In this way, the Blue Room is able to provide a valuable service to the backstage community, and new members who wish to represent their companies on the site are always welcome.

 

The Blue Room contains various different forum areas for the discussion of all aspects of backstage work, where recent topics under discussion have included such diverse subjects as USB-to-DMX interfaces, the best way to generate a 0dB reference track, the implications of the European Working Time Directive and the forthcoming Disability Discrimination Act, and the pros and cons of various types of biscuit for consumption in the green room!

 

A recently-added feature of the Blue Room is the Commercial Announcements forum, which enables any company representative is able to post an announcement on behalf of their company in return for a small donation to the Blue Room's chosen charity, Light Relief. This aspect of the Blue Room is becoming increasingly popular, with companies choosing to announce events such as product launches and training seminars to a wide and varied audience whilst supporting an industry charity. Over the last 6 months, the Blue Room has been proud to donate a substantial amount to Light Relief, and this support will continue in the future.

 

On several occasions during the last 18 months, members of the Blue Room have organised informal "meets" in London and Edinburgh, during which members have got together in a pub to meet face-to-face and catch up on the latest chat.

 

At the January meet, the members' nominations for the "BlueToe Awards" were announced and the awards presented, including some small prizes donated by one of our sponsor members. These awards honored the winning members with titles such as "Most Helpful Blue Room Member 2003/4", voted for by members of the forum.

 

From the outset, one of the main aims of the Blue Room has been to provide an on-line backstage discussion forum which is free from membership charges and advertising, and as such the Blue Room is funded through voluntary donations, which can be made via a small link on the homepage. Recently innovations have included the printing of Blue Room-branded merchandise, which was sold to members and the minimal profits used to fund a new server account to cope with the ever-increasing bandwidth requirements of the site, with any surplus profits donated to Light Relief.

 

The site has just upgraded to the latest version of the tried-and-tested Invision forum software, which allows registered users unprecedented choice over how they interface with the site. The new software allow you to view the forum in a number of different ways, choose whose posts you wish to read and search within topics for that vital piece of information. As ever, the team behind the Blue Room are dedicated to supporting users and recent additions included a customised Spell Checker, to enable members to check their posts before making them visible to the general public.

 

The Blue Room's ongoing commitment to providing an independent on-line discussion forum for all things technical is proving to be a winner so far, and the site looks set to continue to grow in terms of size and popularity over the coming months.

 

 

 

###

 

 

 

Blue Room technical forums

Bringing Backstage Online