12 Steps to a Better Theatre Website

Local, community and non-profit theatre groups often fight an uphill battle against public perception. In our struggle to present our groups as the home of highly talented actors, directors, designers and technicians we are often thwarted by the very instrument we choose as our main conduit to prospective audiences: the website.

Sometimes confusing, often disorganized and many times incomplete, the theatre group website acts as our silent salesman. Keeping this in mind, here are 12 simple steps to creating (or revamping) your website and turning it into a highly effective tool for informing our public and increasing your audience.

1. Include complete dates, times & ticket prices of show. You want the viewers to come and give you money, let them know when and where they can do it. Theatre in the Mist does it well: http://www.theatreinthemist.org/index.php
2. Include a map to the exact location of the theatre with complete address. This lets people cut and paste into MapQuest if they like. Here's a great example from NRTG: http://www.niagaratheatre.com/nrtg_directions.htm
3. Provide an opening page with no scrolling required. This is the viewer's invitation to the rest of your site; keep it simple and impactful (if that's really a word,) and avoid Flash animation introductions that take years to load. People won't watch them.
4. Don't allow animations to be distracting. Viewers are looking for content, not animated GIFs.
5. Link to a ticket purchasing service if applicable. Starry Night's site even includes a seating chart, which is a great help to people new to your venue: http://www.starrynighttheatre.com/tickets.php
6. Use consistent fonts & colors on all pages. Don't give your viewer a headache; multiple typestyles and crazy colors turn viewers away. Also: don't highlight any of your text. It makes it look like the viewer accidently clicked on something. Aurora Players use a Roycroft-style font for headings and menu and very simple, readable Arial for the remainder of their site: http://www.auroraplayers.org/events.htm
7. Use a consistent menu on every page (preferably in its own frame so it stays put while the viewer scrolls the rest of the page.) Nothing worse than looking for a link you just saw only to discover it's not on your current page.
8. Spell check & format check. (This goes for your Facebook page & postings, too!) Remember: your site and your postings are a direct (and often indelible) reflection of your group. If you can't be bothered to be professional on something as simple as Facebook, how can your prospective audience expect you to be professional on stage?
9. Update frequently! No one likes to see "Coming Soon;" trust me…they won't be back.
10. Don't bombard viewer with information. If they see too much on one page they won't read any of it. Stick to basic, necessary information…you're writing for web surfers, not English majors.
11. For the love of God PLEASE don't put music on your site. Music that starts playing automatically is extremely irritating, usually too loud, and is thoroughly presumptuous. While you're at it – get rid of all extraneous sounds on your site. One site I was on makes a piercing "BLING!" sound every time your mouse moves over a link. Who thought that was a good idea?
12. Use high quality graphics. With today's high speed internet there's no excuse for low resolution copy-and-paste pictures. Use at least 96dpi resolution; as with spelling and grammar, the quality of the graphics you present reflect (in the minds of your viewers) the quality of the show they're considering paying money to see. Again, Theatre in the Mist provides a great example with "The Wizard of Oz" (although this may be a different show by the time you view this link!) http://www.theatreinthemist.org/current.php

Finally, when all is said and done, look at your website as if you've never seen it before. Bumble through it as if you were someone who just got their first computer this morning; if you can get lost on your site, they surely will. Keep It Simple…