Designing the Digital Lobby: What Every Theater Website Needs to Engage Modern Audiences

Your website is the public billboard for your theater and the first point of contact for most of your audience members. When done correctly, your website can seamlessly drive ticket sales, promote your shows, answer patrons’ questions, and build a loyal following of theatre enthusiasts who can’t wait to see your next show.

Broken, dysfunctional, or outdated websites do the opposite — they convince even a loyal audience that your theater is disorganized and maybe not the best choice for their next experience.

Our professional team of design experts will make your website a powerful tool for promoting your upcoming events. By working directly with you to understand your target audience, budget, and goals, we’ll develop a comprehensive marketing plan to boost ticket sales and fill seats. 

Not sure which kind of web development services your theatre company needs? Here are some of the most effective updates to improve website traffic and ticket sales for theatre venues and performing arts organizations. 

WordPress Development and Design for Theaters

An effective online presence for theaters or venues starts with a home base — your website. Think of this as the digital lobby where returning and new audiences alike explore your offerings, buy tickets, and have their questions answered. All of your other digital marketing strategies should direct back to your website, so this is the most crucial piece of real estate for your organization. 

WordPress is the most popular web hosting service on the market today, currently hosting around 43% of all websites. If your theatre’s website is hosted on WordPress, we recommend updating the following areas to make the most of its functionality:

• Enable and update SEO plugins to ensure that search engines can properly index your site and help audiences find you quickly.
• Employ a responsive, accessible design so that anyone can read your content on desktops, mobile devices, or with screen readers.
• Use secure hosting to prevent lost ticket sales due to downtime, with our managed hosting options offering 24/7 support.

Our team of experienced programmers and designers can create a customized website specifically for your budget and needs, allowing you to get back to managing your next production! 

Joomla Development and Design for Artistic Directors

Joomla is another popular web platform for theater managers, artistic directors, and theater digital marketing in general. 

Joomla has a number of built-in functions that keep your website running smoothly behind the scenes, including top-notch security and built-in SEO capabilities.

Regardless of the content management system you choose for your theater’s site, it’s crucial that it receives regular updates. Otherwise, the site that worked just fine six months ago might degrade to the point of frustrating your patrons over time.

If you’re ready to develop a plan for an effective, affordable theater and event space website design, give SEO Design Chicago a call.

Squarespace Development and Design for Performing Arts Schools

What about Squarespace? If you’ve developed your own website before or have hired someone to put an affordable site together for you, Squarespace may have been the logical choice. It offers a number of easy-to-implement templates that help non-coders get started easily.

It can be a good choice for your theater or school to use as it grows, too. Just make sure you keep the following elements updated:

• Your site’s branding so that visitors know who you are
• Schema markup (an element in your background code) so your website shows up effectively in search engines
• Google Analytics integration to track how well your site is doing at bringing in new patrons

Whether you need some help with the initial setup or just need a Squarespace checkup to ensure your site is doing everything it needs to do, our experienced design team can help.

HTML5 Development and Design for Live Events

Regardless of the content management system your website uses, it’s built using HTML5, a markup language that structures almost all of the modern internet. 

If you know that your website needs a design refresh but aren’t quite sure how to translate that to the screen, our developer team can help. Our HTML5 web development services team has over a decade of design expertise and intimate knowledge of how to structure and update websites to ensure a seamless visitor experience, leading to more ticket sales and repeat attenders. 

Shopify Development and Design for Event Venues

Some event venues like to harness the familiar interface of e-commerce sites to sell tickets. Customers are quite familiar with sites like Shopify, where they purchase everything from shampoo to dog food. You can use Shopify to promote and sell tickets to in-person experiences. 

Now, a ticket to a show isn’t exactly like ordering a physical item, and nothing can ruin your patrons’ experience faster than tickets that don’t display properly on their phones at entry! 

Our designers recommend that an e-commerce site for theatre events or even venues in general create linked, organized product pages that each correspond to a particular ticket. This makes it easier for guests to navigate and check out. 

Dynamic Landing Pages for Theaters

Landing pages are specialized sections of your website that visitors reach by clicking on a link from search, social media, or an ad — they “land” here from those clicks, hence the name. These are powerful tools for theaters, since you can customize a landing page to have all of the information about an upcoming show.

Can you create different landing pages for different shows? Absolutely! Dynamic landing pages contain the same basic information — like your name, location, and basic design elements and branding — but update the specific details based on what the searcher is looking for. 

For example, if a patron searches for “Encore Theater Spring Show,” they could be directed straight to a landing page with the details and ticket purchase form for your spring show. “Encore dinner theater near me” searches could send them to the same basic page, but with the details and ticketing for your dinner theater offerings. 

Geo Landing Pages for Dance Companies

Geotargeted landing pages are a subset of dynamic landing pages that update based on geographic location. These are extremely helpful for marketing touring groups or multi-site venues, like dance companies performing across a multi-city radius.

Geo landing pages ensure consistency and specificity, so audiences searching in Cincinnati, Columbus, or Cleveland (for example) see accurate information about shows near them. 

Application Development for the Performing Arts

Consumers continue to download apps for everything from shopping and entertainment to banking. For larger event venues, a customized app can be a great choice for booking tickets, managing communications, and even merch sales.

Our app developers at SEO Design Chicago are known for their creative application builds that function smoothly on Android and iOS. Give us a call today to discuss how a custom-developed app can help you scale your performing arts organization. 

FAQs: Optimizing Website Design to Improve Ticket Sales

As a full-service digital marketing agency, SEO Design Chicago has over ten years of experience helping businesses and organizations meet their marketing goals. We custom-quote each plan based on your budget and goals — no one-size-fits-all solutions here! 

Whether you need a complete website overhaul or just a few tweaks, our team of experts will provide an easy-to-maintain, attractive site that welcomes your audience to the show. 

If you’re ready to get started, schedule your free call with SEO Design Chicago today to discuss your budget and marketing goals.

In the meantime, check out some of the most common questions our marketing experts receive about marketing strategies that improve local ticket sales for theatres, performing arts groups, and event venues. 

What should a theater or performance venue website include?

Your theater or venue’s website should include everything a patron needs or wants to know before attending an event. This includes:

• A complete listing of upcoming shows
• Calendars of performances and any other related events 
• Links to purchase tickets — ideally on every page 
• Detailed information about your venue, including accessibility information for guests with disabilities 
• Directions to your location
• Parking information

Don’t forget, each page should have a clear call to action that encourages visitors to “buy tickets now” or “subscribe to our email list” to find out about new programs coming soon. 

How important is mobile-friendly design for theater websites?

Most people are now mobile-first users, so it’s extremely important that your website has a responsive design — meaning that it displays properly on phones and tablets, with no awkward formatting or popups that block navigation buttons.

Most ticket purchases happen on mobile devices, often at the last minute as people are deciding what to do for the evening. You can maximize the number of seats that you fill through mobile-first web design. 

Should theaters integrate ticketing systems directly into their website?

Absolutely! Your navigation structure, security, and even graphic design should make it as easy and convenient as possible for visitors to purchase tickets. That’s the whole point of your marketing efforts.

Sales increase when a secure, easy purchasing method is integrated directly into your website.

Can a better website help theaters increase ticket sales and attendance?

Yes, a positive experience on your website can improve audience engagement and help them decide to purchase a ticket or attend an event. 

The most effective ways to improve your audience’s experience on your website are to make sure it loads quickly, is easy to navigate, provides all the important details about your shows and venues, and makes it simple to purchase tickets right from your site. 

How can theater websites support accessibility and inclusivity?

To reach audience members who might have trouble reading a typical webpage, you need to implement an ADA-friendly design approach.

The Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design requires that businesses make their websites accessible to people with disabilities. In most cases, this means using inclusive design practices, such as:

• Adding alternative text to all images and objects on your pages so screen readers can access them
• Including captions or transcripts for video-based content
• Making navigation simple and possible for various devices, including browsers that do not use a mouse
• Using logical design practices, like page headers, clear links, and logical information flow

Ready to boost attendance with a customized website that sells tickets? Schedule your free call with SEO Design Chicago to get started.