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UA grads improving Tucson entertainment

DoTucson.com also host for Spring Fling Web site

According to the Census Bureau, Tucson is only the 57th most populous metro area in the United States - but two former University of Arizona students are trying to make the quality of entertainment in Tucson as good as anywhere else.

"We're working closely with promotions companies in town and we hope that people will start looking at Tucson seriously," said Kermit Austin, co-founder of DoTucson.com, a local online entertainment guide. "We're going to start working to bring in new concerts or sports events."

Brian Molina, Austin's partner in the online venture, said Tucson's entertainment is not well-centralized or well-publicized.

"Right now, there's no good central way to find out about things going on here," said Molina, who earned a graduate degree in business in 1997. "Entertainment in Tucson is still word of mouth and yet there are almost 700,000 people in town. We wanted to create a site that people can connect on."

Austin said that in addition to providing an entertainment guide, the DoTucson Web site will provide a medium through which he and Molina can get support for new events.

"On the Web page, we can survey people if they want to see, say, Dave Matthews," said Austin, who graduated last year with a bachelor's degree in management information systems . "We collect all the responses and then go to Dave Matthews and say, 'Here are 100,000 people who want you to come to Tucson.' We've actually been contacted by companies interested in teaming up with us to work in the Tucson market."

"Going to the UA, I found the same stuff over and over. We're looking for some new avenues and new things to do," Austin added.

Lisa Faer, a UA computer science and psychology sophomore, has worked for DoTucson.com for a year. She said in the near future, the Web site will be able to attract more people to Spring Fling.

ASUA is currently building the Spring Fling Web page, and in the meantime, DoTucson.com will be hosting it.

"The advantage of having Spring Fling on our site is people visiting DoTucson.com to look for restaurants or movies will find out about Spring Fling, whereas someone going to a specific Spring Fling Web site would already know about it," she said.

Molina said the Spring Fling Web page will be very comprehensive.

"We're going to be listing all of the booths - the organizations hosting the booths and what they're doing," Molina said. "We're also going to be listing what bands are playing and how to get to the fair."

Molina attended Yale University in New Haven, Conn., and said Tucson is as enjoyable as anywhere back East.

"I did my undergraduate work at an Ivy League college and my experience at UA led me to believe that the quality of life here in town is as good as anywhere else," he said.