If you’re reading this, then the new Northern Spark website has successfully gone live! The 2012 site will be rolled out in two phases: this first phase coincides with our planning and development of the festival — and over the next few months you will see content added, removed, revised, and moved about as the festival begins to take shape. During this time we also plan to be very active on our new blog — keeping you up-to-date about anything and everything related to the festival: artists, projects, partners, locations, and probably a few things not-so-related as well.

The second phase will shift its focus from the planning of the event to the event itself — the night of June 9–10. Central to that iteration of the site will be a dynamic Northern Spark schedule — set to launch in late March, it currently exists in beta-mode as an artist list. Here you can view all projects, artists, sites, and partners in one place. Do you want to just see the St. Paul projects? Or maybe all projects in Zone A? You can use the filter function to customize the list view. The full schedule (launching in late March) will also be sortable by artist name, project name, and time — making it even easier to plan your night.

If you like maps better than lists you’re in luck — there’s a new set of dynamic maps this year as well. Currently you can view the maps by zone only, but there will also be routes to choose from on each map — buses, bikes, suggested tours, and more.

Wondering what to do with your time until late-March? In addition to reading our blog, watching the artist list fill-up with information, and leaving comments (on project or blog posts) you could peruse the open calls (and submit a proposal while you’re there) or sign-up for information on how to be a volunteer this year. And, if you like what you see you can help support Northern Spark in 2012: we’ll be launching Kickstarter campaigns throughout the winter and spring to fund some of the 2012 projects. Keep an eye on our support page (or the support widget over there on the right) — we’ll be adding more in the coming days and weeks. The first one is up now, and it’s a big one (like, Stone Arch Bridge big)!

In closing (part 1): Many, many, many thanks to Tyler Stefanich for coding this entire site in a ridiculously short amount of time.

In closing (part 2): We hope you enjoy the new site. And more than that, we hope you enjoy Northern Spark on June 9–10.