Thank you for visiting PanicTour.com
Hello,
Let me start by saying that this project has been on going for since December 15th, 2004 and was launched March 14th, 2005. A lot of thoughtful energy went into the making of Panic Tour.com. This sites conception was brought to my attention by my brother and co-creator Chris Parr. Chris and I talked about making a site for years now. I was feeling cheery during the christmas holiday and started work on it. At the time I didn't realize the commitment it would take to launch such a site. We both wanted a place where Widespread Panic fans could come to and get various resources for the new tour. By using Forums, Bloging App's and good' ol clean design, I think we've accomplished our goals.
About Ryan Parr
I'm Ryan, I reside in beautiful Eugene, OR. Along with my brother Chris, I'm co-creator designer/developer of PanicTour.com. I work as a freelance designer and developer. Yes, I have the pleasures of working from home in my underwear! I've thought about doing a Widespread Panic fan site for a while now. Not until I was approached by my brother did I started to envision Panic Tour.com's conception.
I build sites that are state-of-the-art. For those that are web savvy this means I build sites purely accessible by everyone and every platform. For example, you'll see the small print icon on the bottom right corner of each page. By using (x)HTML and CSS coding ethics, a user can click on the print button and have a clean professional print out of the content they view. No wasting ink on graphics or having a shotty printout. You get what you want, the data. Also, this site is viewable for those with PDA's or Web Phones. Even persons with disabilities were considered in the making of this site. Like I said, anyone and everyone on any browser/platform can enjoy PanicTour.com. To find out more about me and my services go to www.parrfolio.com.
I've been seeing Widespread Panic shows since the dawn of my virgin show at Red Rocks in 1998. This show opened my eyes to a whole new freedom I can't even comprehend. Ever since that weekend in the rocks my life has changed. I can't express my thanks enough for the enjoyment "the boys" continually bring to my life, my friends, and my family. Every year we all get together to celebrate life with some wholesome southern rock. Widespread Panic and other "jamband" related music has opened a whole part of my life that I could never imagine. I also wanted to thank my brother. He is a great friend, my best friend. Also, I'd like to thank two other friends that opened my eyes to this unknown and relatively underground world of music, Freebs & Hiner. Freebs for dragging me to Red Rocks when I said I didn't want to go and Hiner for introducing Widespread Panic to our family.
Peace,
Ryan
About Chris Parr
I'm Chris, and I'm the other creator of PanicTour.com. Currently, I'm living in Charleston, West Virginia working for a construction company as a field engineer. We are in the process of building a new lock on an existing dam on the Kanawha River.
I was introduced to Widespread by Ryan, my brother. Along with Freebs, mentioned above, around the same time. On 10/22/99, my brother and I, along with a few friends piled in an old Chevy Van and headed east to Columbia, MO to see some Panic. Man what a show! As I look back on it now, it was a smoker and I didn’t even know what the hell was going on. From that point forward, I was hooked. I have met a lot of good people along the way and realized how caring, generous, and considerate this "jam band" community really is. Thanks bro, Freebs, and everyone else for the good times and the great ones to come.
In short, Ryan and I hope you all can use this site to plan your next Panic vacation. If you have any suggestions to improve the site, let us know. See you all on the road.
Take Care,
Chris
Brief Overview of PanicTour.com
The Design
The overall site design was mostly inspired by lot posters. Yep, that's right, lot posters. I like the long narrow dimensions of these posters enhanced by the visually aesthetic white border. I have a few framed in my room that I look at everyday. These posters are a point of remembrance for shows I've been to with friends and family. They make me smile :) every time I look at them. I've never purchased a poster from Brown Cat. I know I should support and I do in many other ways but I believe lot posters are more creative and feel a lot more original to the vibe of Widespread Panic as a whole.
First, you'll notice on the Home page the header picture. These pictures were provide by friends and family. Currently, there are 11 "big" pictures. You'll notice every time you "refresh" or come back to the site a new picture will be displayed. My aim was to convey a feeling of being at the show. Since this site is a panic fan site and not a professional corporate site (done too many of those) I really wanted to be avante-garde in some respects. To give a feeling of being there, I wanted shots of the stage with "the boys" viewable from above fans in the crowd. We've all been there on the floor bouncing around, glancing every so often to see what the band is doing while we dance our ass off! If you have a picture that would work with this concept, feel free to contact us. I'd love to throw it up on the site. Remember, pictures are generated randomly per user session. So go ahead and refresh the page to see a new one.
Another thing you will notice on the home pages is the the "graphical flag representation" near the bottom. I felt this represented truth to us panic fans and our American heritage. I believe we live in a country that provides freedom and respect for all forms of people, ideals, and ethics. You can click on the links of each "flag section" and it will open up like elevator doors. This was done more for "eye candy" than functionality. It looks cool, so I did it. Go check it out and see what the door reveals!
The Site
Panic Tour has many areas of interest. The site is very much "blog orientated". If you know what this is you are good to go. If you don't, don't worry, blogging is very easy to do. The main "blog" sections are the Tour Dates, Ride Share & Ticket Exchange sections. The latter two you can register and start posting messages or "threads" as forums call it.
Ride Share
Both Chris and I wanted fans to have a place to post information about giving rides or carpools to shows. I feel this if very valuable. There has been many times I wish I had a ride lined up for a show that was appearing in the neighboring town.
note: You can leave comment for any post. If you want an avatar or picture representing your comment please register here and your avatar will show when commenting on posts. Remember to sign up with the same email you use to leave comments to ensure your avatar will show up.
Tour Dates
Chris and I wanted the Tour Dates section to simply get the most information about a particular tour date. We added pictures of the theatre along with useful information about parking, restaurants in the area, venue contact information, ticket information, current weather, venue history and much more. Simply print the tour date page for all information regarding that venue. Feel free to comment on any tour date regarding the show experience or anything. Tour dates are still being added!
note: You can leave comment for any post. If you want an avatar or picture representing your comment please register here and your avatar will show when commenting on posts. Remember to sign up with the same email you use to leave comments to ensure your avatar will show up.
Ticket Exchange
The Ticket Exchange section is for folks who want to trade tickets with others. Again, countless times I wish I could have lined up a trade to be closer with friends and family at shows. In this section, you can sell your ticket. If you have a ticket to a show you can't make, post it on the Ticket Exchange section and see if anyone needs one. Of course, we only allow tickets to be sold at face value.
note: You can leave comment for any post. If you want an avatar or picture representing your comment please register here and your avatar will show when commenting on posts. Remember to sign up with the same email you use to leave comments to ensure your avatar will show up.
News
We wanted a place to go that has overall news for the Jamband Scene, without going to multiple sites. The News section offers news feeds from places such as Jambase.com, Jambands.com, or Relix.com via XML/RSS feeds. XML/RSS are news syndications that are free on most sites (see more about XML/RSS here). I have taken these feeds and displayed them in the news section. The feeds take a short time to load so please be patient. It's worth the wait!
Forums
What ever happened to trading through the US Postal Service? Ya I know, it's expensive and you have to wait! Thanks to the wonderful people at DigitalPanic.org you can literally download a show the next day after the show itself! This is great! But what about fans that don't have a fast connection to the internet or their only way of access is through work? The Forums section is mostly for people who want to trade music the good 'ol fashion way with bubble mailers and CD-R paper sleeves! Wow, I remember those days waiting for a stack of cd's to come in the mail! What a sensation! Panic Tour.com is bringing it back! You can set up trades for CD-R's, DAT's and Hard drives. Yep, I said Hard Drives. Chris & I have a huge collection of Panic Shows, 600+. We are in the process of putting all those shows back onto 5 100GB hard drives. Imagine trading with someone for a 100GB's of good music. We'll let you know when we are ready to trade at this enormous level.
New forum topics are still being added. If you have any suggestions contact us.
Gallery
The Gallery section implementation was thought over many times. Should we let users upload Widespread Panic related pictures? For now you can't. At the moment, I don't know if our servers can handle the transference of such a load. I want to find a perfect solution to make it easier for you to upload pictures. We do want to encourage people to send us pictures to put up in the gallery. May it be your friends, family, shows, or your pet, send us a message and we'll contact you on how we can get them online.
Torrents
Like the news section of PanicTour.com, the Torrents section takes feeds via XML and displays them on our site. This is good for other sites if they want traffic or visitors looking for jamband torrents. All torrent links go to their respective sites. We wanted a place that gathered torrents as they are updated on other sites. The torrent section offers feeds from DigitalPanic.org as well as a few others.
Resources, About & Contact
We felt that these sections of the site didn't warrant to be on the main navigation so they're at the bottom of the page. These are more informational links & not services for the site. However, don't miss our extensive resource section to our favorite links and other Jamband related links. Of course, the About Us (which your reading) and Contact pages are self-explanatory. Feel free to contact us about anything regarding PanicTour.com
We are still working out the bugs. If you see anything such as errors, spelling mistakes(I'm a bad speller), login problems or broken links, contact us. Both Chris and I work full time and we'll try to monitor and update the site when we have time.
That's about it. Please browse around the site. Tell your friends. We want this to be a place of community and friendship as the new tour comes upon us. I can't wait!
See you at the show!
-Ryan
P.S. This site is optimized for current standard browsers. If you are using IE (Internet Explorer is 5 years old and out dated to current web technologies!) please upgrade to FireFox for a better browsing experience all around.
P.P.S. Thanks again to Widespread Panic for bringing such a great inspiration to our lives!