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The four-year-old Webcast of the annual Penn State Dance Marathon (THON), produced by students in the College of Communications, attracted thousands of online visitors to the event this past weekend--and helped spur online donations to the event.
The Webcast attracted some 12,000 unique connections during the 46-hour event from 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22, to 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24. Most of the visitors were alumni, students and family members of the dancers.
Those visitors came from 47 of 50 United States and 32 foreign contries. The only U.S. states where nobody attempted to connect to the THON Webcast were Alaska, Mississippi and South Dakota.
Foreign countries that produced the most online visitors were Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom. Among the other countries represented were: Azerbaijan, Canada, China, Japan, Puru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Singapore, South Africa and Switzerland.
In addition, the Webcast helped drive online donations to THON and, in at least one case, connect family members. Specifically, the Parr family from Omaha, Neb., used an online feedback form to contact the people from the College of Communications conducting the Webcast and offered a $1,000 donation to THON if the they could somehow reach their son, Alex Parr, a dancer for Delta Kappa Epsilon, and feature him on the Webcast.
Parr was featured, and the family donated $1,000—the amount it would’ve cost for his family for airfare to fly to Penn State.
More than 100 students from the College of Communications, led by senior lecturer Maria Cabrera-Baukus, gained hands-on experience as they worked together to produce the live streaming coverage of THON for the fourth year in a row. Also, Chris Maurer, multimedia and computer support specialist, and Karen Mozley-Bryan, manager of facilities, provided additional support on behalf of the College of Communications.
The Webcast, which was also televised on the University Park cable television system, incorporated live floor coverage, pre-produced video packages and video of other aspects of THON. The students also got important technical support from Information Technology Services at Penn State and Penn State Public Broadcasting's WPSU-TV.
Established in 1973, THON has raised $50 million dollars for The Four Diamonds Fund at Hershey Medical Center in efforts to conquer pediatric cancer.
