5 Ways to give back to your favorite live music resource
Sonoma County Dance Beat has been listing live music events for Sonoma County since the April 1, 2014. Founders Kevin and Ann Hutchinson spend hours every week doing a variety of tasks to keep the calendar running, in addition to all of the other ways in which they support the local live music scene.
All of this is on top of their respective careers.
Since reactivating the site after the pandemic, Kevin has been doing all of the data entry himself. It may seem like that since there are fewer places hosting live music, it should be easier. However, the opposite is actually true. Getting the information from the remaining venues and new ones that continue to pop up has been harder than ever. Due to staffing issues, it’s all they can do to stay in business. Few of the venues take the time to send their monthly line-ups to us anymore. And their websites are often less than helpful. Add to that the fact that COVID hit bands hard, too. Many bands folded and those musicians have formed new ones. New ones we know nothing about. Kevin is working twice as hard for half as many events.
This is an area where we can use your help. The time required will vary by task from one to three hours per week. Volunteer opportunities with Sonoma County Dance Beat include:
- Entering events for three – six venues per month, for which we have easy access to information.
- Gathering information for the venues that don’t do a great job of getting the word out, either by phone or in person, when you’re there for an event.
- Updating our band database with the genres that newly established bands play.
- Searching through Facebook events and band newsletters for events at venues for which obtaining information is difficult.
- Auditing the calendar for errors like duplicate entries, misspellings, missing venues, etc.
If any of this sounds like something you can do, please reach out to us online, and let us know which task you prefer. Thanks so much!
