the Hub Of A Vibrant Music Community

Manitoba Music is a constantly updating organization, with hundreds of members tracking and talking about their news bites, press releases, gig dates, album releases, and much more! Both the Manitoba Music association and its members wanted a simple way to keep up with the data, and make it available to their fans. Working hand-in-hand with the organization and Guppy Graphic Design, we worked from the ground up, building relationship databases, user interfaces, live updating calendars, band profiles, and everything they needed to maintain a steady beat on the local music scene.

First Impressions

Open, clean, solid, focused. Manitoba Music's website was designed to get music information into the hands of the people who want it. The site layout looks great on your desktop, on your tablet, or on your mobile smartphone. Built on CSS3 and HTML5, the site takes advantage of the capabilities of modern browsers while still being a light, snappy load.

We've taken the most important sections of the website and made sure they all had their own distinct space. Recent news, upcoming events, featured music, new album releases, and new music videos all have a segment of the homepage with to-the-point summaries and bold imagery. Nothing too busy, just the content you're looking for, first and foremost.

Despite minimal layout, we've maintained Manitoba Music's strong branding. Custom building site code rather than off-the-shelf theming means a distinct precense on the web!

 

Live Music Calendar

The best way to support local music is to get out there and see them live!

Manitoba Music members can log into a secure area and manage upcoming events through custom built editors. Their music gigs appear on the live music calendar, on their own public profile, and featured front-and-center on the homepage. They can even link their events to other members on the playbill, and they can share their events through RSS feeds, iCAL subscriptions, social media, and custom javascript widgets.

Providing times, venues, promoters, descriptions, ticket prices, they can give fans all the information they need to come out and have a good time!

Can't find what you're looking for?

Manitoba has a lot of artists, a lot of bands, a lot of venues, and a lot of great live music gigs.

To help site visitors get to the show they are looking for, a quick form allows them to filter the lists to exactly their specifications. A short form thats constantly updated with an evolving list of genres, categories, and tags helps site visitors find the artist, venue, or show they're thinking of. 

The resulting list gives you the quick summary you need to hear the music live: who's playing, when the gig starts, where the venue is, and what the cost to get in will be. And if you drill into the individual event view, you'll find a rich assortment of photos, audio tracks, and content to kill time until the show starts!

Meet The Musicians

Local music isn't just a list of names, its a community. Its about meeting the neighbours, listening to good music, and having a good time doing it.

Manitoba Music's public profiles lets everyone shine. Artists, bands, promoters, venues, studios. Members listed in the directory can feature multiple photos, playable audio samples, and online video embeds. Profiles can list their websites, their online music libraries, and their social media feeds, all to keep in touch with their fans.

Public profiles provide artists, venues, and industry organizations an online internet presence they can be proud of, and can be rewarded for maintaining.

The Difference Between Promotion and Privacy

But just because an artist wants to stay in touch with their fans doesn't mean they want to post their home phone number online! Members' secure-area editors are crafted in a way that makes it clear and easy to see what information is going on their public profile and what information is going to Manitoba Music alone.

New Music Releases

You can't support music without putting a spotlight on new music releases. Manitoba Music promotes albums, EPs, and singles from its own members and from other artists in the province. Each album is given its own page with high-quality cover art, vital statistics, and a brief write-up.

If provided, a handful of music tracks from the album are made available to listen to through HTML5 audio players. As much as possible, audio and video players throughout the site are web standard, to maximize cross-browser compatibility and to future-proof Manitoba Music within the ever-evolving environment of the internet.

Song Of The Week

With the cooperation of its member artists, Manitoba Music gives away a free song of the week on its website. Site visitors are welcome to download the track from a page that highlights the featured artist. A larger hero image, linked album cover art, and a full write-up makes for a bold magazine-like experience!

Site visitors are welcome to share this page on social media, to spread the love! Like all of the Manitoba Music site, the Song Of The Week page is constructed of clean HTML5 code, making it easy for Twitter, Facebook, and Google to parse for key information. This ensures the Manitoba Music content looks great wherever it appears!

Radio Player

In previous incarnations of the website, Manitoba Music had a single music player that they used to promote member artists. In the latest version of the Manitoba Music website, we've expanded out that functionality, allowing administrators to create as many unique music players as needed.

Each music player can have its own playlist, with tracks either uploaded directly to the player or linked over from participating member artists. Manitoba Music can create and retire as many individual players as needed. Whether for individual events, in participation with national celebrations, or alongside seasonal holidays, Manitoba Music can have a unique radio of local music ready for your headphones!

Signups and Renewals

Custom forms are not just a matter of collecting the right information.

Working closely with Manitoba Music to determine their requirements and workflow, we took care to build a form that was easy to use and understand. The goal was to have clear fields and labels without weighing everything down with extraneous help text or instructions. From there, Manitoba Music could follow up with a potential member and have them set up with a public profile in a few clicks.

Building on Social Media

It's not a fad, it's a revolution. Being able to stay in contact with hundreds of fans, supporters, and followers in near-real-time has changed the way artists and bands promote themselves. Manitoba Music took this idea to heart, incorporating social media into the heart of their new site.

Facebook powers their comments on photos, videos, news, and profiles. Flickr powers the photo gallery, Youtube and Vimeo power the video gallery. The more the Manitoba Music site is updated, the more it reaches out!

Encouraging Conversations

By using Facebook's commenting system, Manitoba Music encourages discussions amongst visitors and friends. With threaded posts, avatars optionally included, and cross-posted comments to Facebook itself, everyone commenting on Manitoba Music is helping to promote local music.