For the six years of its life so far, UpStage has run from the same server. During this time, we’ve held three international festivals, countless online walk-throughs and workshops, and made numerous other presentations and performances – not to mention all the development work that has gone on on the server. Throughout it all, the server has never let us down at a crucial moment.

However, six years of continuous running means that it’s now on its last legs. We urgently need to replace it, and hope to do so with a bigger, faster machine with two mirrored hard drives so that if one does fail, we’ve got the other as a back-up. This will be a great improvement for the 101010 UpStage Festival next year.

UpStage is an unfunded independent artist-led project, and we need your help to raise the NZ$1200 needed for the server and installation. NZ$1200 is only about 600 euros. If everyone makes a small contribution we should be able to raise the money easily.

The fundraising campaign has got off to a good start – check out progress and donate here.

You can donate online using Paypal or credit card; or if you’re in New Zealand you can deposit directly into the bank account (you can do this from overseas as well, but the bank will take quite a chunk of it in fees). UpStage’s meagre finances are currently administered through the Pandemonic Operations Trust which is has charitable trust status; this means that if you’re a New Zealand tax payer, you can claim a rebate on your donation – just ask us for a proper receipt. The bank account details are:

Bank: Kiwibank
Name: Pandemonic Operations Trust
Account #: 38-9004-0103833-00

If you pay directly into the Trust account, please be sure to identify your payment with your name or, if you prefer to be anonymous, just put “server donation”.

Whatever you can contribute is greatly appreciated!