To explain the idea:

AngelShares is a new way in which you, as an individual, can help to fund exciting new arts and creative projects. It’s based on the concept of Crowdfunding, which uses online media and social networks to raise support for projects and ideas.

Importantly, Angel Shares is the only arts crowd-funding site that enables registered charities to reclaim Gift Aid on donations, adding an extra 25% to eligible gifts.

The process is simple:

• Browse through the projects and the benefits they offer
• Pick one (or more) that you like
• Register and add credits to your AngelShares account
• Allocate your AngelShares to the project(s) of your choice

As well as people donating to individual projects, we hope that people will come to use that site on a regular basis, supporting the arts by giving regularly and building a portfolio of projects

AngelShares was founded by Sarah Gee from Indigo Ltd. Sarah is an arts marketer and fundraiser with over 20 years of experience who’s already raised over £50million for arts projects. We know she has some ambitious plans for AngelShares and we’re looking forward to seeing the site take off.

It’s already off to a strong start, launching with projects from Belgrade Theatre, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Ikon Gallery, Light House Media Centre and Craftspace. Artists and arts organisations are now able to add their own projects, promote them via project updates and raise the funds they need.

You can also follow Angel Shares on Twitter and on Facebook.

Not quite new this one, we launched Glyndebourne’s new website back in December on the QT. Opera websites have a reputation for crashing on big on-sale dates, so we were reluctant to shout too loud before getting the festival ticketing live this month. Thankfully, on the night, all of our stress-testing paid off, resulting in record online sales for this unique Opera house.

It was a huge project, taking in usability studies, information architecture, design and plenty of e-commerce. In addition to a polished pick-your-own-seat experience, you can purchase everything from a DVD to a Glyndebourne champagne-stopper in the online gift shop.

Although we’re known for our work with venues, this was our first job with the fabled Tessitura box-office and CRM system. We’d like to think we’ve exploited its best-in-breed Internet integration facilities. Glyndebourne’s audience are a discerning bunch. and we wanted to make sure the website booking experience lived up to the live experience. We hope it did.

Birmingham Hippodrome have launched a mobile-friendly website with the help of Made. The mobile site receives content from the main website, but is designed from the ground up for mobile users. Delivered as a touch-friendly HTML 5 application, it feels familiar to smart-phone users and is a pleasure to use on the go.

We even extracted some kind words from the client:

“Birmingham Hippodrome is very happy with the mobile features Made have devised for us.
We’re looking forward to growing this important area of business. Made
were easy to work with, fast and efficient, thorough with staff
training, understood our challenges and delivered on budget. Who can
ask for anything more?”

Rob Macpherson, Marketing & Development Director

If things have been a bit quiet around here recently, it’s because we’ve been flat out working on a new clutch of websites. Made’s been working on the new Royal Court Theatre for a while now. You could say it’s been a labour of love.

Royal Court has been at the cutting edge of British theatre since 1956 when the English Stage Company premiered Look Back in Anger. More recently Royal Court have had smash-hit successes with Jerusalem and Enron, which have both transferred to the West End.

We hope you like the website. Why not check out the current programme, review 50 years of history or take a look at their international writing projects.

There’s something going on under a house in Stratford this spring. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust are organising an archeological dig, underneath New Place, Shakespeare’s final home. Who knows what they might find there? If you’re curious then you can take part and find out. Why not start by visiting our lovingly-crafted website. Watch some videos or get digging yourself in the Dig for Shakespeare Quest.

We’ve been busy extending the Visit Birmingham website with three new, comprehensive features; What’s On, Maps and Directories. Restaurants, Hotels, Gigs, Exhibitions, they’re all in there and geo-tagged too.

It’s been a complex job, mashing up events-data from Global Data Point with organisation data from Marketing Birmingham’s Microsoft CRM system and Google Maps. It’s all pulled together via our own content management system Backstage.

Take a look. There’s a huge amount on. We hope you’ll feel encouraged to visit Birmingham.

One of the busiest arts centres outside of London, Warwick Arts Centre hosts a vast range of events including gigs, comedy, theatre and a two screen cinema. The project will see us building a whole new website with full event browsing and ticket booking. We are also to provide screen designs and a live feed of up to date event information for a number of plasma screens positioned around the Centre.

Read the press release for the details. We will add updates on this site as the project develops.

Fear not. Made is still very much alive and kicking, and Santa is taking a well-earned rest. The truth is, we’re busier than ever. Too busy to blog about it. We’ve been working on a few meaty projects since the new year, and the fruits of our labour will be appearing right here very shortly. In the meantime, we were invited to an unprecedented number of competitive pitches this month. And we’re happy to say that we won quite a lot. It’s been a massive culture change at Made; the regular barking of ‘Always Be Closing’, bulk deliveries of spivvy suits and the programmers’ whiteboard swapped-out for a gargantuan sales-chart…

The contracts are still being worked out, so we’ll announce them when the time is right, but we’re definitely looking forward to an exciting and busy spring. Then maybe things will get back to normal around here.

We are proud to launch the latest release of The Drum’s website today. The Drum was the first black, British arts centre and puts on an exciting and varied programme of events.

We’re delighted to launch the new website for our friends at Fused Magazine today, with a full compliment of Web 2.0 features and bloggy goodness. Go get it.