PORT ANGELES — For starving musicians, sometimes the hardest part is letting the public know when and where they are performing.
With this in mind, Donna Schoolfield set out to create an online repository where bands can easily be found and information about their shows accessed.
She named her creation Go2OpenLive.
When it launched in 2015, www.Go2OPenLive.com received an average of 3,500 page views monthly. That’s grown to about 14,000 views per month, Schoolfield said.
The website lists entertainment at 78 venues all over the Olympic Peninsula as well as biographies and performance dates for 102 bands and performing artists.
Schoolfield updates the listings several times a week, a service she provides for free.
Schoolfield does not receive any compensation for her efforts, she said.
“It’s always been a labor of love,” she said.
To celebrate the success of the website and to gather funding to keep the service going, Go2OpenLive is throwing a party.
The concert will begin at 7 p.m. Saturday at The Metta Room, 132 E. Front St.
Admission is $10 at the door, with proceeds benefiting Go2OpenLive’s continued free promotion of live entertainment, according to a news release.
“It’s a night for musicians and venue owners and managers to connect,” Schoolfield said.
“That’s been a dream of mine since day one of launching the website.”
In addition to providing a place where local musicians can network, there will be room for dancing and plenty of socializing, Schoolfield added.
“It’s totally open to the general public as well,” she said.
Three bands are slated to perform during the celebration: Bread & Gravy, Dead Peasant Society and Sky Colony.
Bread & Gravy, consisting of Stephanie and Jess Doenges, takes the stage at 7:30 p.m.
Dead Peasant Society, a stompgrass-ragtime-Americana band, is up next at 9:30 p.m.
Sky Colony, a Bellingham group specializing in dream-folk, is on at 11:30 p.m. and will close out the concert.
In addition to the website, Schoolfield has pursued other ways of helping area musicians.
In June, Schoolfield and Diane Urbani de la Paz launched the Port Angeles Busker Project, an initiative to enliven the downtown waterfront area with street performers, known as buskers.
Urbani de la Paz is a journalist and former Peninsula Daily News features editor.
To participate, those interested in performing downtown need only contact Schoolfield a few days in advance of their performances, she has said.
The buskers showcase their talents in front of businesses that have given their blessing for such performances, Schoolfield has said.
Buskers tend to come and go at nonscheduled times, but the public can get an idea of when and where they might be performing downtown by visiting www.facebook.com/pabuskers.
For more information, visit www.Go2OpenLive.com.
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Features Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56650, or at [email protected] peninsuladailynews.com.
Bread & Gravy, consisting of Stephanie and Jess Doenges, takes the stage at 9:30 p.m. at The Metta Room.
Sky Colony, a Bellingham group specializing in dream-folk, performs Saturday at The Metta Room in Port Angeles. Admission is $10 at the door, with proceeds benefiting Go2OPenLive.com. (Sky Colony)
