RANT

[Dave]

Why can't people read? People have complained to people at the club that they prefer the way the Calendar was, not bothering to see that not only is that calendar there for them to view, there's 6 other ways to see the calendar, and, as suggested I think by BikerTom you can even view easily the Print Calendar on a cell phone. I have an iPod Touch and the entire site works for me in Mobile Safari. So if these people would read what was on the Calendar Page they would be satisfied but because they don't they complain.

And Bands, if you can take the time to find my email address then you can take the time to read THE BOOKING PAGE!!!! I get 5 or so emails every week saying "Go look at our MySpace/FaceBook" "Go download our MP3" "how can we open for so and so." I DON'T BOOK JAXX. Read the Booking Page, Booking means getting scheduled to play. Being "Booked" at the club. Read the damned website!!!

Ok, rant over :-)

[Renae]

Feel better? 

[Dave]

Yes thank you :-)

[Marie]

That's asking people to take their own initiative. Silly you......

[Djinn]

Wow. 

Never attack the customer. 
Where'd u learn business?  This smoking thing and now this calendar change which is overly complicated, u guys r gunna run this place down the tubes.  How about going to 9:30 clubs website and seeing what u should emulate. 

inb4 banned. 

[Renae]

Wow. 

Never attack the customer. 
Where'd u learn business?  This smoking thing and now this calendar change which is overly complicated, u guys r gunna run this place down the tubes.  How about going to 9:30 clubs website and seeing what u should emulate. 

inb4 banned. 

If this was the 930 Club that would be a wonderful idea. However, since this is Jaxx and the site, which is pretty simple to utilize, is run by Jaxxminn he has every right to get frustrated at the repeated lack of initiative or common sense of some people who frequently ask questions before reading the entire site.

I understand that the site no longer has pretty pictures and is mostly words now. Hopefully you have the ability to at least use Google to find the proper spelling of the band's name and then actually read text on a page to find out when they will be playing. The vast majority of us who don't complain about it don't mind the simpler, easy to use web site. Having an entire page that looks like a fucked up geocities site is not the most professional looking of sites. The sleeker cleaned up look is polished for reasons that most likely go far beyond what you or I want it to look like.

Secondly, nobody was attacking customers. What was said was do to the overwhelming amount of questions from people who can easily answer their own questions by taking a few minutes and actually reading the information on the site. Anyone who is in a customer service position eventually has their BS meter pegged out and has to vent. That is all that happened.

Marie, Dave, Jay and the entire crew at Jaxx are human and eventually get fed up with a continual degradation of common sense and self-reliance of certain individuals who occasionally visit the site. If something like the moderators venting offends you then it may be possible that there are far bigger issues in your like other than just non-smoking and a defunct calendar. Hopefully with enough passing of time this menial things will no longer matter and little things won't offend you.

My $.02

[Dave]

Thanks Renae :-) Djinn she's right, I didn't attack any customers really, like Renae said I just needed to blow off some steam and it should have been informative to those that have been complaining that they liked the old schedule. It STILL exists, it's actually better in that I did it from scratch and cleaned out a lot of bad code. And I have to ask you, choices are "complicated?" I redid the schedule as part of the redesign that I was asked to do, it is much cleaner and easier to read, notice I said read. Someone asked about having a version that looked like a real Calendar and presto, there is was, someone said they'd love to see a list of bands playing so they could just look for a name and wallah! I made one and made it link to the details. People complained they liked the old schedule with the hard to read logos and Eureka! It existed, there are also links from individual shows on the main schedule page to a page just for that show with logos etc. If you are into RSS you can get a feed of the schedule, if you use iCal you can subscribe and magically whenever I update the schedule you automatically get an updated calendar. Wow, so many choices! Pick one you like and bookmark it.

I take criticism just fine if it is constructive, a lot of these calendars exist because someone suggested them. But complaining about missing something that IS there kinda pisses you off you know?

And as for the bands not going to the booking page, all the info they need is right there, emailing me is counter-productive.

[Djinn]

"However, since this is Jaxx and the site, which is pretty simple to utilize, is run by Jaxxminn he has every right to get frustrated at the repeated lack of initiative or common sense of some people who frequently ask questions before reading the entire site."

What a tool.  You are supposed to cater to the customer, make it extremely user friendly.  This site is not, hence complaints. It's unprofessional to vent on your own website it makes you look pretty bad.  Good businesses model themselves around stupidity, not attack it, because you won't get anywhere and you need stupid people's money, like Renae's money for example.  You're taking this way too personally to be successful right now, like I said, model it on 9:30 club and you won't go out of business.  Good luck.     

[Dave]

Ok, 1st of all the person you quoted is a customer, not an employee, and she can certainly say anything she wants, just like you haven't been censored. And you have yet to tell me what is so bad about the website, like I said, I can take criticism fine, but tell me a reason, give me an example, don't be one of those people that just say "Oh that sucks dude." Bear in mind that the this is NOT the 9:30 club, Jaxx doesn't have the money that they do and their website was done by a company, not just some guy that knows web design (meaning me). At least here you get the personal touch, I answer every post that needs answering and every email sent to me, and if someone makes a good suggestion I implement it and have no problems giving credit to the person that suggested it If I know who it is. My main point being that we're all human and here you get the personal touch good or bad. And if any club was supposed to "cater" to the customer there wouldn't be any bouncers or security guards. The customer is not always right, just mostly.

Now, if you would like to continue to personally attack me feel free, probably best to do it in PM or email, if you have an honest suggestion to improve the site then make it and if it's good it will show up and I will be happy to come here and say thank you.

[Deac]

So a company is going to go out of business because some people don't like their website?  Say goodbye to most Northern VA bars!

[DuchessOfDork]

You know, if you wanted to do a cleaner more professional looking website, therea re tons of free templates out there that you could use. Since you probably know at least some HTML, you could grab the template and use it to create something more "user friendly", or what-have-you. I think the site is okay to navigate, and I doubt that the place will suffer financially due to the website. Just throwing out that suggestion, if you want something that looks up to par with 9:30 club.

They have a very basic layout, by the way. Wouldn't be too hard to make something like that if you have Photoshop.

EDIT: Also, I agree with the poster above. A lot of No. VA bars have HORRIBLE websites.. and some bars just use MySpace pages.

[Dave]

Nina, other than the fact that you can't view it in IE6 which is what you use at work, what is not "User Friendly?" We don't support IE6 just as YouTube and Google and more and more of the net community no longer support IE6. There was no reason to use a template. And, considering that this whole thing was built from the ground up using CSS, HTML, JQuery etc. I think that yes, I know at least "some" HTML. I do not have an intimate knowledge of Javascript nor do I do Flash, I am not a Graphic Designer. If you will notice, the 9:30 Club's website may look "cool" but it is all in Javascript and Flash and you better be looking at it on a decent connection with all of that enabled or you won't see much of anything.

Anyhow, I am done having to defend myself on what was done with the website, it works for pretty much everyone no matter what browser they use (other than IE6) and what speed connection they have, it delivers a lot of information quickly and easily, it has a decent photo gallery that is growing as I have time to add the pictures people have sent in and it has this forum where people can discuss things freely. and it was done for Jay at a bargain price by an individual rather than a corporation. I can and will take constructive criticism and will be happy add features and/or fix things that are real issues. Feel free to email or PM me ideas or suggestions, but the site is done the way it is done.

I plan on adding columns for people to write if they like so if you are a writer start thinking of subjects and I have some other things in the works as I have time.

[DuchessOfDork]

What I meant by "user friendly" was something that people are more used to seeing when they go to a website. Like I said, I think what you have is fine as far as navigation is concerned, and you don't have to be a corporation or a company to make something look great. There are a lot of self taught graphic designers out there, and you look like you're one of them. So don't take this criticism as an insult, because it's really cool that you're able to do the website for a place as prestigious and well known as Jaxx. Putting your work up for a place as well-known and seen as Jaxx, you're going to get thousands of people looking at your stuff, and I guarantee that some will like it and some won't.

I'm sorry if my criticism sounded offensive, but I really am trying to help. I love Jaxx, and I hate hearing people criticize it as much as the next person. I just want the place to look as great as possible.

[Imasmf]

I worked at walmart for two years and the only thing I can say I learned is - The customer is not always right! - In fact sometimes the customer is downright stupid and you want to punch them in the face just to see them bleed. Since the stupid people actually complained at the club I think he was very professional to not make them bleed and come here to vent instead

Oh and to the posters above - there are no bars in viginia

[Imasmf]

P.S. I dont like the new site either but it's not going to ruin my life and I did find the old style calendar so guess I'm at least smarter then some out there.