VisitJT.org — An Expansive Arts & Entertainment Calendar and Cultural Resource Website

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JOSHUA TREE, CA — Arts, culture, and entertainment in the Greater Joshua Tree area now has a free and expansive online resource website that serves tourists, locals, and the area’s burgeoning cultural arts sector—www.VisitJT.org.  As the vibrant arts community continues to grow and evolve in the region, the new website provides an increasingly critical yet missing link in the area’s cultural infrastructure—a sophisticated arts and entertainment events calendar coupled with an information-filled cultural resource site for the area’s many arts and culture organizations, clubs, businesses, and non-profits.  Not only does it provide a place for local businesses and organizations to directly post and coordinate their events, fundraisers, and offerings in a user-friendly and malleable calendar system, but it also avails the area of a dramatic information portal designed to capture interest and focus tourism dollars to benefit the area’s artists and cultural assets.  Covering the many communities adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park, from Morongo Valley to Wonder Valley and beyond, the new website provides an accessible and easy-to-use wealth of information to travelers and locals alike.   

The directory and portal feature provides a descriptive courtesy listing for each arts organization, venue, or business, an interactive map that can launch a mobile “what’s near me” function that elevates the visibility and increases the likelihood of traffic for smaller or lesser well-known locations, weather information, and up-to-date nonprofit designations through GuideStar (the world’s largest source of information on nonprofit organizations) for those who wish to be socially responsible while they spend.  Additional features that will be expanded include individual artist, musician, actor, and other complimentary arts professional listings.

The calendar feature enables users to filter information by date, venue, type, and organizer, and also allows users to choose the view that works best for their personal way of organizing and thinking—from a large picture format for easy browsing with detail, to a more compact format with smaller photos and scrolling information, to the weekly or monthly calendar format where one can see all of the many filtered events at once.  It is a free service provided to the area’s cultural community and citizens, and with no memberships fees of any kind, it costs nothing for cultural organizations, arts venues, and businesses to create an account and post events.  

The new website is created by the Hi-Desert Cultural Center, a stalwart arts organization in the Greater Joshua Tree area since 1964, and is a redesigned substantial update of its online community-focused “Hi-Desert Calendar” that originally launched in September 2010.  “In 2010 the Cultural Center was apparently ahead of its time, but it received loud complaints from some in the area about our calendar competing with events calendars created by their own for-profit businesses.  But in the ensuing years, none of those entities followed through with stepping-up to the challenge, despite a clear need and with substantial tourism dollars at stake.  So we just went ahead and brought back a better, more expansive, arts and entertainment calendar and cultural asset portal—and this time, it’s here to stay,” remarked Jarrod Radnich, volunteer and President of the Hi-Desert Cultural Center.  

In addition to an online and social media presence, those same venues and organizations also get the benefits of equitable on-air radio publicity—broadcast to the Morongo Basin, Coachella Valley, and beyond thanks to Copper Mountain Broadcasting, whose KIX Hot Country radio coverage is the area’s largest due to their simulcast signals on two frequencies.  

Many events, organizations, and venues are already receiving benefits from the new website.  Those wishing to register to post arts, entertainment, or cultural events, venues, or organizational information may go to www.VisitJT.org or send an email to info@hidesertculturalcenter.org.

The Hi-Desert Cultural Center is a GuideStar “Gold Status” non-profit 501(c)(3) organization serving the Greater Joshua Tree area.

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ABOUT HI-DESERT CULTURAL CENTER

With its multi-venue performing and visual arts centers located in Joshua Tree and Yucca Valley, California, the Hi-Desert Cultural Center (HDCC) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt corporation (Federal Tax ID# 23-7425816) that  has been serving as the regional performing and visual arts organization for the gateway communities of Joshua Tree National Park for more than 50 years.  The Cultural Center owns and operates its own performance venues and facilities and produces award-winning community and professional live theater, concerts, art exhibits and galleries, festivals, the Joshua Tree Philharmonic symphony orchestra, an artist residency for veterans, an extensive educational arts and technology academy program for youth and adults, and more.  The Cultural Center is the largest and oldest non-profit arts organization in the region with several million dollars in assets, employing over 30 full-time and part-time employees, and with an annual budget exceeding half-a-million dollars.  Having achieved GuideStar Gold status and recognized as an organization of artistic excellence by the National Endowment for the Arts, it instructs over 700 adults and youth weekly and operates a significant financial aid and scholarship program so that no children are turned away from programs due to their socioeconomic situation.  Learn more at: www.hidesertculturalcenter.org

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GREAT NEWS FOR SEASON PACKAGE TICKET HOLDERS! Should your schedule change and you find yourself needing to attend a performance on a different date — if you give the Box Office at least 48 hours notice prior to your ticketed performance, management will attempt to exchange your ticket for a different performance of the same show!

 

 

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