BACK TO THE BARN
The Stage is parked, but you can still follow the stories we wrote along the trail. After a publication break the print version of the San Juan Silver Stage was back on the trail again… briefly… until the Pandemic hit and we headed for the barn. Our trail of stories is still out there, though, as a digital edition at silverstage.news which includes archival pages of past issues with your favorite stories.
CONTENT AND AUDIENCE
Celebrating the arts and western lifestyles since 1992, The San Juan Silver Stage covers Regional Activities, Arts & Entertainment, Recreation & Travel, Cultural Events, Finance, Health, and above all, how to live well and enjoy life in Western Colorado. We are all about Community and share how you can be a part of it.
OUR HISTORY
The San Juan Silver Stage began as a monthly newsprint print publication. Within 10 years it had grown to three to five sections per issue, too big! Our readers and advertisers wanted something smaller and, well – slippery and more fun to hold, so we went to a glossy-format 8×10 magazine.
Advertising in that kind of publication is more expensive, so we cut back to two seasonal issues a year to keep costs in line for our faithful advertisers. Beginning in 2000, we began publishing other magazines in addition to the Silver Stage. These included The Silverton Magazine, Ouray County Magazine, Durango & Silverton All Aboard, Royal Gorge All Aboard, and numerous specialty event and regional publications. We had fun!
Then the economy tanked. Printers started going out of business. We watched our competitors struggle and disappear. Not wanting to fall into that void, and having had an online version of the Silver Stage almost since its inception, we went with the flow jumped in the digital arena.
The majority of our advertisers hung in there with us, and many became website clients—a new commercial venture. But ten, from the beginning, a big part of San Juan Publishing has always been graphic design. We changed our presentation emphasis to meet clients’ needs in a changing economy and more sophisticated technology. During the print hiatus, we took care of our advertisers, and now, they are taking care of us.
Today, although many people are inclined to seek information on the web, rather than from print publications, print is experiencing a definite revival!
The Stage was back on the trail again—this time in print AND online with two different versions. We used our combined expertise and experience in print and internet marketing to publish a digital copy of each issue at silverstage.news (in typical page-turner format) AND maintain this archival version, published in a website format and filled with our favorite and most popular articles.
The internet allows unlimited ‘story space’ and can carry current and archival articles without having to cut and squeeze to fit a finite length determined by how many paper pages we are going to print.
We are now, and always have been, a lifestyle publication. We bring only good news, sharing activities and events around our region of interest to our readers.
Our web department has been working diligently to upgrade and revise the entire online Silver Stage publication, bringing back and re-publishing articles many of our readers have requested. It’s kind of like visiting old friends—so much to catch up on, so many memories, events, activities, to revisit. We’re having a great time pulling it all together, the old and the new, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
If you remember an article we published and don’t see it here, let us know, and we’ll do our best to find it and put it up online for you.
Kathryn R. Burke
Editor and Publisher,
The San Juan Silver Stage
San Juan Publishing Group, Inc.