Highbrow Culture Becomes Increasingly Popular

Dublin, Ireland, May 2007 – On the verge of decreasing theatre popularity among children, the recently launched Internet portal theatre-tickets-deals.com draws the attention towards the theatres’ popular sides. Providing a separate section for kids’ theatre, the site seeks to re-establish theatre as a main leisure activity for younger audiences.

As a result, parents can use this section to introduce their children to the world of theatre from a children’s point of view. A selection of popular plays, partly known from films, like The Lion King, Mary Poppins, and Guys and Dolls, provokes the children’s interest, disconnecting the usual theatre image from boredom. A small picture accompanies a text about the plays’ histories to make it livelier for children.

The initial idea for the kids section stems from Margaret Fisher, one of the site’s collaborators, who had had some troubles with her daughter (12) when trying to convince her of going to a play. Fisher’s daughter had tried to play ill when asked if coming to the evening show. Knowing her daughter’s habitual strategies of avoiding certain obligations, Fisher tried to convince her, without success. A week later she lured her daughter with tickets for The Lion King and succeeded.

“It’s a shame, children focus too much on television and the Internet. They are completely unaware of the benefits and the atmosphere provided by a musical. Children appreciate culture but do not know all of its forms and stick to what they have already seen. We have to make theatre more attractive and more accessible to the younger generation,” Fisher introduced her idea to the site’s development team.

Consequently, the developers made out ways to make theatre more interesting to children and found them in easily readable and short descriptions and Fisher’s idea of linking theatres with popular items from other media. Equipped with these means, theatre-tickets-deals.com opened its doors in January to the public.

The Internet search guide www.theatre-tickets-deals.com belongs to the network of vertical sites www.betterdeals.co.uk, whose aim is to provide users with an overall guide to electronically available information, products, and services. Active since the end of 2003, the network’s European team of passionate Internet professional is managed and hosted by Go Advertising Limited, Dublin, which has led to 35 new sites in 2007 alone.
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