It’s Culture OC’s Second Anniversary, and We Have a Lot to Celebrate!

Our award-winning, nonprofit arts journalism website covers topics, events and organizations that other media outlets have forgotten or abandoned. 

Images from Culture stories from the past year. From left, Adam Koda and Samuel Schneider in “All’s Well That Ends Well” at the New Swan Theater; the salmon platter at Waka Sakura; Tara Ghassemieh as Muse-ic in “Tchaikovsky: A Love Letter”; concept art from“Wicked” featuring Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible; a dragon dancer from the 2025 Tet parade in Westminster; and Alexander Shelley, the new artistic director designate of the Pacific Symphony. Photo collage by Heide Janssen, Culture OC

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Two years ago this month, Culture OC opened its digital doors and invited readers to immerse themselves in our community's rich bounty of arts, culture, food and entertainment. Employing some of Southern California's most experienced and celebrated arts and culture journalists, we stepped up to provide the kind of coverage that is fast disappearing from the journalistic landscape. Over the last 24 months, we’ve expanded our reach and depth and accumulated 43 local, regional and national awards along the way. 

The last year has been busy as we establish more ways to connect to Orange County’s many cultural communities, raise our visibility, and increase the scope of our coverage.

We launched Encore Content, a service that smartly employs our expertise to provide needed arts writing for local arts organizations. Its most visible feature is our new sponsored content page, which currently features a story about the history of UC Irvine’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts.

We established a media partnership with the OC Theatre Guild that features the journalism of its many contributors, who provide detailed descriptions of current theater productions at stages that often don’t receive the kind of attention they deserve.

We have raised our visibility through sponsorships and partnerships with the Newport Beach Film Festival, Gallery Sonder, the Association of California Symphony Orchestras and other prominent groups.

Our stories have brought important news to the arts community and its followers. We wrote about how local arts organizations are affected by ticket fraud; covered South Coast Repertory’s unusual challenges last season; broke an important story about the potential management merger of the Orange County Museum of Art with UC Irvine; and examined how California’s budget woes are affecting local arts groups. The transition to a new music director at Pacific Symphony has received specially funded Culture OC coverage and a collaborative series with PBS SoCal, which resulted in a major journalism award.

And, as usual, we previewed and reviewed events at institutions large and small, and we covered important passings as well, including the deaths of South Coast Repertory co-founder Martin Benson and veteran Culture OC contributor Larry Christon.

The coming year promises to be even more eventful for Culture OC as we continue to expand our coverage and increase our revenue base. We wouldn’t be where we are, of course, without the support of our readers. 

As we embark on our crucial third year as an independent, nonprofit news site and build a solid foundation for the future, we hope you’ll continue to support our journalism.

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