Australian Backstage Innovation Heads to the US

	Catherine Prosser and Mat Lawrence in Opera Australia prop store.

StageBitz, an online system for managing props, costumes, and scenery, will be heading across the Pacific to launch in the USA this March.

Founded in 2010 by entrepreneurs Catherine Prosser and Mat Lawrence, StageBitz will be officially launched in the USA at the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) Expo held March 21-23.

Each year millions of props, scenery and costume items are created at a cost of billions of dollars. Many of these items are used only once, resulting in a massive waste of time, effort, resources, and money for the industry. This is a common and constant problem faced by the theatre industry in Australia, US, and the world over.

StageBitz is an Australian innovation that solves this problem by providing a collaboration platform in the cloud for directors, designers, makers, buyers, and managers to capture the design, technical, and usage information they need to get their projects up and running. It also provides an automatic company inventory feature which will allow companies to manage their assets as well as hire or sell unwanted items online.

Founder and CEO, Prosser, is excited to be presenting the innovative product in the US, and feels the timing is right. "There has never been a better time for an innovation like this to be embraced," Prosser said. "For years, working away from a desk has meant working on paper. That's all changed with mobile technology and mobile broadband. This is the dawning of a whole new age of industry-wide collaboration."

Bell Shakespeare, a Sydney-based theatre company, is an early customer, and their production manager, Patrick Buckle, agrees: "In the world of theatre we are always pushing the technical boundaries for what we deliver to an audience, but I have found that the administration support behind the scenes has generally been a few years/decades behind. It is great to see a communication, tracking, and delivery mechanism such as StageBitz being customized for our industry with regular updates based on user feedback and priorities. StageBitz has the potential to become an integral component to the way productions are delivered and how we communicate internally as a company and externally as an industry."

USITT executive director, David Grindle, sees StageBitz as more than just an innovative product, according to the company. He sees it as a game-changer in the way industries collaborate, Grindle explained: "Companies like StageBitz have a product that not only benefits the industry in Australia, but benefits people everywhere. Not only are they (StageBitz) able to bring their innovative product to one of the largest entertainment economies, but they can collaborate with other businesses to share ideas and grow innovation."