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York's groundbreaking events website www.whatsonyork.com last night reached the finals of the Digital Yorkshire Internet Awards 2004, less that three months after being launched.

Developed by Crucial Interactive Media in partnership with First Stop York, the city's tourism partnership, the site which launched in January was praised by the judges for its clarity, ease of use, and for the wealth of up-to-date events information.

Speaking after the awards at Sheffield' Cutler Hall last night, Crucial Interactive Media's managing director James Houston said he was "thrilled" to be honoured with reaching the finals of such a prestigious award.

More than 200 websites were entered to the annual celebration of the best of innovative web design and development.

Mr Houston added: "York is a fantastic city in terms of the range and diversity of things to do, spanning culture, heritage and pure entertainment. What we set out to do, in building whatsonyork.com, was to make information about all those events quick and easy to find - both for residents and for tourists."

Elenid Davies, of the First Stop York tourism partnership, said: "We're delighted that this joint project has been recognised in this way so soon after being launched. A lot of hard work has gone into it, and it's great to be acknowledged in this way."

Other partners in the project include York Tourism Bureau, which inputs and checks event information; The Gateway Internet Café-Bar which helps members of the public to input events information and allows free access to the site to visitors ; PLAY which represents theatres and performing arts in York; and dozens of event promoters.

Website features include a facility to sign up for a personalised events bulletin -- after identifying the types of events which are of interest to you, the system will automatically send you details by email of events which match your profile. The events database which powers www.whatsonyork.com is part of a larger city-wide initiative to co-ordinate events information in the city.

The system also powers York's official tourism portal www.visityork.org as well as the evening economy website www.goodeveningyork.com and several festival websites including www.yorkfestivaloffoodanddrink.com.

Crucial Interactive Media was also shortlisted in the Best Information Website category for www.crucial-crew.org - a site where young people learn life-saving safety messages while playing online computer games. The site was developed for the Safer York Partnership and has become a national resource for teachers and schoolchildren.