Talk:National Audio Theatre Festival

Categories related to the National Audio Theatre Festivals page
It is unclear why a number of categories were removed from the National Audio Theater Festivals page. I can only assume that the person who made the changes did not read the page carefully. The remaining categories imply that the NATF is simply an American radio drama performance festival and "artists collective".

The festival is not a performance alone, but comprises a professional organization - not a "collective" or amorphous "group" - of audio engineers, sound artists, voice actors, playwrights and producers. Its yearly event, also known as the National Audio Theatre Festival, involves several days of instruction, training, special talks and other discussions on these topics. For example, training in sound mastering, sound production, voice acting. The Friday night performance is the "cherry on the sundae".

It is one of the only conferences of its type worldwide. Many of the participants do NOT work on the radio at all, but in audio books, film or animation, and likewise, while all the training involves the audio arts, it is not just an "audio drama festival". The upcoming 2011 festival, for example, will be focusing on voice acting in animation.

Several of the categories are rather egregious removals, such as "Audio plays", "radio drama", "sound recording," "sound technology", and "voice acting", for which NATF is one of the only national training grounds or gathering for professionals... and even as other pages in those categories that are affiliated with NATF or are similarly themed stay in those categories. I therefore have returned most of the categories back.

98.194.237.126 (talk) 17:54, 30 August 2009 (UTC)