Thinking the comments section of your website is just for comments about your website content is like thinking your corridors are just for getting from one room to another. They’re also spaces for ad-hoc coversations.
When the Warwick Arts Centre got their new website this year they may have wondered why their event listings had comments enabled on them. Blog posts, yes. News items, sure. But events? Why would anyone want to leave a comment on an event? And if they did, what value would it have?
To be honest if I was asked to sketch out the feedback requirements for a venue’s website I might not have prioritised comments on the listings. A connection to the box office staff, sure, but comments? But this sort of thinking makes a big assumption – that the owner of a website can assume, or worse dictate, how it will be used.
On Thursday Kings of Convenience played at the Warwick Arts Centre. This was one of only two three UK gigs by the band who have been very much off the radar until recently. For their fans this was a big deal but Kings of Convenience are one of those bands where if you like them enough to see them play live there’s a good chance you’re the only person you know who does. A number of people would be traveling to this gig alone.
As word spread about the gigs people were directed to the WAC website to book tickets. Since they have their own box office and don’t rely on a 3rd party to sell tickets they’re the ultimate destination for the fans. Everyone who’s going to the gig who books online comes to this page.
Underneath the info about the gig is a comment box, the sort that doesn’t require registration and isn’t premoderated. In other words the good kind of comments box. The first few comments are simple “this is going to be awesome!” comments, the sort of thing you’d say to the person at the box office who’d force a smile and nod in reply but you don’t care become you’ve got tickets! But then Matt says:
This starts a stream of similar comments from other folk who’ve booked their tickets and attending alone:
And so on.
They agree it’d be a cool idea to meet up beforehand and soon enough the group starts self-organising with people posting their emails addresses for others to get in touch. Presumably some activity happens on email but we obviously can see that. It’s worth remembering though that while we can see this activity on the web it’s usually the tip of the iceberg. Think about your own online communication and you’ll quickly remember most of the meaty stuff takes place in private channels. But in order for those channels to emerge there needs to be a public entry point and this comments thread provided it.
Of course linear comments can only go so far and a few days before the gig the inevitable happened. Someone created a Facebook group:
This group serves a couple of purposes. First it allows them to communicate better before the event and, for those who’ve got useful profile pictures, spot each other in the bar. It also brings a bit of safety into the proceedings. Yes, this is on the “pretty damn safe” end of the safe/dangerous scale but even so, as a lone person traveling to another city to meet a bunch of people they know from the Internet it’s nice to have a bit of an idea of who they are beforehand.
But more significantly this group will play a role after the event. When these strangers meet in the flesh for the first time some of them will become friends. (Some won’t of course, but that’s how these things work.) The group allows them to follow up on these initial connections. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a couple of long term relationships come out of this.
Which, of course, is nothing new. Countless couples will gleefully tell you they met at some gig or other, standing in the queue or randomly bumping into each other in the audience. A shared passion coupled with the architecture of the venue facilitated these meetings and in this case it was the architecture of the website that allowed for social interaction between strangers.
That’s what comments are. They’re not just for commenting on the things you’ve published. There for people who have a connection to the thing you published to come together. And, if you’ll excuse the soppy, when people come together is when the magic happens.
Thanks to Laura Kennell at Warwick Arts Centre for bringing this to my attention on the Metapod Connect course.
Thanks for writing this Pete, we were delighted when we noticed this breaking out on Warwick Arts. Comments on events started out as the more savvy alternative to moderated 'send a review' forms, but on The REP, you'd commonly see people ask pre-gig questions, which could then be answered by the comms team. For every one who asked the question perhaps ten people who didn't got the answer. So yes — even a flat comment stream can foster an ad-hoc community. And this is just even better. Perhaps because moderation has been switched off altogether.
Perhaps one are where we're missing out is by not promoting the comment stream onto the home page. Then you wouldn't even need to know about Kings of Convenience to twig that something interesting was going on.
It was a very good gig, one of three in the UK not two though. My daughter was babbling about these comments on the way to the gig, I was concentrating on driving and assumed she was referring to a forum on the KoC site. Coincidentally I got a response from Birmingham Academy via Twitter yesterday where a previous email failed to get a reply.