London theatres overhaul website content management

The Society of London Theatre (SOLT), which represents the producers, theatre owners and managers of the major theatres in central London, is to mark its centenary by re-launching its website using new content management systems (CMS).

The officiallondontheatre.co.uk site is the society's main promotional channel for its work, which includes industrial relations, legal advice for members and a campaigning role for the industry, together with a range of audience-development programmes to attract theatregoers worldwide from different age and social groups.

Philippa Smart, head of publishing at SOLT told IT PRO the organisation needed to find new CMS software to re-launch its website after outgrowing its existing web hosting and technology service.

"The site was launched in 1997 as a basic listings service," she said. "Since then, we've become the number one official theatre website. It got to the stage where we had to turn away advertisers because of the website's restrictive advertising template functionality."

SOLT is in the process of migrating to new a CMS platform from London-based provider VYRE, which is acting as consultant on the re-design project. It is currently in initial project scoping discussions with key agency stakeholders who advertise or sell tickets through the site.

"We are excited by the possibilities now open to us in terms of adding more personalisation features, dynamic content and rich media to enhance visitors' experience of the site," said Smart.

At the same time, she added the new software would also help improve internal website administration and maintenance processes.

"I think we will very quickly see benefits through increased advertising revenue, while other measurables will be tickets sales because the platform offers so much more flexibility to take visitors through the buying steps, like discounts for an youth audience for example,' she said.

The new SOLT visitors website is due to go live before the end of the year.

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