ts.com

Website and online box office get round of applause

A strong web presence is essential for the Gardner Arts Centre. Based on the campus of the University of Sussex near Brighton, the centre’s most obvious target audience is students.

But until January 2004 the centre didn’t have an effective web presence and was missing out on reaching a significant section of customers. They turned to ts.com who delivered a content managed website combined with their ticketingsolutions service. The result was a fully branded updateable website with an integrated online box office.

An essential web presence

“Our audience is fairly young in comparison with other venues, with a lot of students,” explains Head of Marketing Frederica Notley. “Young people instinctively go to the web for information and just assume you can buy anything with a credit card online. Without that web presence, we weren’t being as competitive as we should have been”.

Housed in an eccentric Grade II listed building designed by Sir Basil Spence, the Gardner Arts Centre has a national reputation for its programme of contemporary theatre, dance and exhibitions of modern visual art. It has a 480-seat purpose built theatre, a visual art gallery and studio space, and puts on a range of films, comedy and music events. It is also an important local centre for art classes and workshops.

A straightforward solution

With the aid of Lottery funding, the centre was looking for a fully functioning website and an integrated online box office. In choosing an online service provider, the centre relied on a combination of thorough research and word-of-mouth recommendations.

“We researched a few companies and had a variety of options. But we felt we had a good level of communication with ts.com and that - coupled with the relatively low upfront costs - convinced us to go with them. Their's seemed the most straightforward solution.

“Also we were impressed with what they’d done for other companies needing similar solutions. We did some research, finding out what websites looked good and were easy to use.

“We also asked some of our colleagues in the same field for their opinions. ts.com came out as providing the best, practical solution”.

A flexible and professional website

From the start, the centre discussed at some length what it wanted from the website and ts.com came up with a design and built the site to meet those requirements.

“We wanted the website to match our current branding and we needed to be able to add content ourselves, without getting into technical complications. But we also wanted it to be flexible and look professional”, Frederica explains.

Simple to manage and update

The solution ts.com created is a content managed site, using a template format that is very simple to manage and update. No technical skills are required. The template ensures that the formatting of pages is correct, so users don’t have to worry about details like font types and sizes when inputting content.

“We can add new text and images on live events, films, exhibitions and workshops, as we want,” says Frederica. “Each of these topics has a separate section, so visitors to the site can search within those areas”.

Essential accessibility

Accessibility was another big priority. Under the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act, UK organisations are required to take reasonable steps to ensure online services are accessible to people with disabilities. For the centre, this was an issue of particular importance.

“The centre strives to be as accessible as we can in areas where we can make a difference. It is extremely important to us and our funders that any information we provide is widely accessible”.

To meet Gardner Art’s requirements, ts.com has complied with accessibility guidelines set out by The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which seek to ensure websites are accessible to those with disabilities. The completed website fulfils all priority 1 and a number of priority 2 and 3 accessibility requirements.

The code was written in XHTML and ts.com employed CSS (cascading style sheets). These two technologies mean the site can be read quickly by screen readers, ensuring a fast efficient service. The site also has a print style sheet, allowing pages to be offered in a print friendly format, if required.

24/7 Availability

Clarity of presentation was key for the online box office too. ts.com provided Gardner Arts with the ticketingsolutions service which integrates seamlessly with their branded website. Links from the ‘What’s On’ sections of the site take visitors directly to the ticketingsolutions box office, where they can buy tickets. Payments are real-time and go directly into the centre’s bank account.

“It’s a big advantage for us to be able to sell tickets 24 hours a day. Our target is to sell 10% of our tickets online,” says Frederica.

A good working relationship and careful planning are at the heart of this successful project, according to Frederica, who praises the level of support from ts.com staff both during the development stage and since implementation.

“ts.com are always helpful and they don’t talk in jargon. They provide good, practical help at the end of the phone,” she says. “Throughout we’ve had a lot of conversations about what we wanted and ts.com were happy to take that on.

“They know a lot about their business and we knew what we wanted from a marketing point of view. We worked together to get something we are now very happy with. It’s a very positive relationship.”