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Happy 1st Birthday WOS Manchester!

September 20, 2008

We are now one year old!

WOS Manchester started life as a blog 18 months ago and finally became a fully fledged theatre site last September.

In the beginning, it wasn’t easy as we were a micro-site and people were crying: Why bother? After all, we were a spin off from one of the most successful theatre sites in the UK.

Therefore, if theatre fans already had WOS, who would visit us in the North?

It was also run in the beginning by lonely old me on my tod. This meant teaching by day, rushing home and then hot-footing it to the theatre three to four times a week to get you the reviews, news, interviews and competitions that you were all waiting for.

Busy and fulfilling? Yes, but I needed some more pairs of hands to make the site as interesting and up to date as possible, if we were going to compete with the big guns.

Being a techno-phobe, I had to teach myself via email from my colleagues in the London office, to make the site as eye-catching as possible. Gradually, it has gone from a blog to a one-stop site for all things on stage in Manchester.

In the past twelve months we have interviewed local ladies Lipservice, Corrie’s Jenny Platt, Willy Russell,  Jonathan Wilkes and ex Blue boy Antony Costa. We have reviewed everything from Brassed Off to The Wedding Singer. In terms of gossip, we broke the We Will Rock You tour news and Mary Poppins‘ Manchester debut.

Since then, we have taken on a team of dedicated writers and endeavoured to bring you news, reviews and interviews from all over the Greater Manchester area. This has made it easier for me to get more competitions and news and also chat to the stars of the shows you are seeing, in our popular Five Reasons To See… and interview pages.

Fast forward to 2008, and we have given away 100’s of theatre tickets in our popular competitions and there has not been a week go by without one of our writers- giving you their opinions on what’s hot and what’s not in Manchester.

Many of the big theatres such as The Lowry respect WOS Manchester as we are often first with the overnight reviews. The regular visits from yourselves and comments pages make developing this site a real joy.

For me, this site has become a real passion and I am thrilled at how much we have grown over the past 12 months.

Thanks to all of our visitors, old and new as your emails, comments, info and love of all things theatrical in the North-West keep us going strong.

If you would like to send us any comments, or birthday wishes. It’s the usual address: glenn@whatsonstage.com or leave your thoughts/good wishes at the foot of this page.

Here’s to the next year. I’m off now to blow out the candle!

-Glenn Meads

Filed Under Features, News 

Comments

2 Responses to “Happy 1st Birthday WOS Manchester!”

  1. Helen Jones on September 20th, 2008 7:28 pm

    Congratulations Glenn. What this site is now is thanks to your hard work - we appreciate it.

  2. Calum Kerr on September 26th, 2008 10:36 am

    As one of your dedicated writers I just want to say what a pleasure it is to be part of such a great site.

    Well done, Glenn. Keep it up!

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