Web calendar puts culture on the map

Sprawling Los Angeles has long been a challenge for the intrepid cultural tourist. How do you find the many attractions?

Help has just arrived: the on-line Los Angeles County Cultural Calendar.

Part of the www.experienceLA.com website, the calendar listed 1,178 attractions or events as of Friday morning. They are organized by type, geographical area and dates, with additional information on disabled accessibility, kid friendliness and food services, and links to information on public transportation.

The Los Angeles County Arts Commission used $100,000 from the county’s Information Technology Fund to launch the new calendar, which will be maintained by some of the other Experience LA partners: the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the city of Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency and LA Inc. The calendar’s creators contend that it’s the only on-line cultural calendar in the nation that links listings with mass transit.

Laura Zucker, a former theatrical producer who runs the County Arts Commission, said this week that she still thinks of the calendar as “being out of town, in previews.”

She noted that arts groups insert their own information, “which makes it much more interesting and eclectic, because it’s not curated.”

Greg Curtin of the nonprofit Civic Resource Group, which is operating the calendar, noted that “a potential downside is that the groups mischaracterize themselves.”

On Monday, the calendar’s official opening day, one theater company had placed its play at the top of the list in the dance and music categories, even though the play is neither a musical nor dance-oriented. Also, several listings were in incorrect geographical regions.

Curtin said that such problems were being addressed.

Calendar events must be open to the public, groups must be able to demonstrate that they are capable of doing what they say they’ll do, and content is monitored for profanity and graphic images. Commercial film screenings aren’t listed.

Still, Curtin said, no applicant has been turned down. “This has to be for the little guys as well as the big guys,” he said.