Starting this Monday, visitors and locals alike can connect to St. Louis’ arts scene through a whole new platform. StLouisArts.org, a new site launched by the Regional Arts Commission (RAC), is aiming to increase the visibility of the city’s arts and culture sector, ultimately attracting more tourists to the region. According to communications senior manager Jay Scherder, the website will serve as a one-stop shop for all things arts in St. Louis.
“With this website, we’ve got another amazing avenue to be able to tell the stories of our artists and arts organizations and give them more exposure,” Scherder says.
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Currently, StLouisArts.org directs readers to local theaters, museums and galleries, comedy venues, and more. Featured articles also include a guide to 20 must-see sculptures and an explainer on St. Louis’ explosion of mural art. The current version of the site is just a start, though. In the future, the RAC intends to expand the scope of the sections and tailor the interface so that users can find the event that fits their specific needs. This next iteration—what Scherder calls “phase two”—will act as a kind of concierge to the city’s arts scene.
“Phase two is sort of a never-ending phase,” Scherder says. “It’s about making the website better every single day, including being able to feature the artists that make our city so amazing.”
StLouisArts.org is also positioned as the cornerstone of the RAC’s first major marketing campaign. This initiative will focus on advertising St. Louis’ arts and culture sector to cities that provide the greatest number of tourists, including Chicago, Kansas City, and Peoria, Illinois, alongside other arts-oriented cities such as Columbus and Indianapolis. As the largest funder of the arts in the region, RAC collects a vast majority of its revenue from the hotel and motel tax in St. Louis City and St. Louis County. Through this campaign, the organization hopes to generate revenue that can give back to the community in the form of grants.
So far, Scherder says reactions to the website’s launch have been resoundingly positive. He stresses that by continuing to actively engage with the platform, St. Louisans can help to make it their own.
“We welcome feedback from our community on what they want to see and how they want the website to feel—because this is their website too,” Schreder says. “We’re really excited about the future.”
