Located in the heart of downtown London, Ontario, The Grand Theatre has been a cultural staple in the city since it was first established in 1901. Putting on diverse, relevant, and oftentimes original stories from around the world, The Grand Theatre is committed to connecting the youth to live theatre through its initiatives, and actively collaborates with other performing arts organizations to bring incredible storytelling to the London area.
Although our work with the Grand Theatre spans across many years, rTraction has a strong history with them that goes beyond the professional realm. In 2018, we helped raise money for the “High school Project” after London’s two school boards decided they wouldn’t be sponsoring the annual play due to its LGBTQ themes. The outcome of this fundraiser saw us raise over $58,000 with help from the community to put on a show that was a celebration of respect, diversity, and the arts.
The goal of the new website was to create a stronger tool that would support them as they recovered from the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Having redesigned their website in 2016, we were able to bring our past experience with their ticketing system, Tessitura's TNEW, into this redesign. This allowed us to have more freedom with bringing in better interactivity to the site, such as bringing in showtimes from Tessitura into the website live. With our history of designing the previous Drupal 7 version of their website, we were excited to be the ones carrying them into this new stage, and felt that we were the ideal partners to make the shift onto Drupal 9 as successful as possible.
Through the update, The Grand Theatre hoped to further continue their efforts of recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic with a functional and informative website. They were eager to rebuild their audience-base and revenue streams through a website that reflected their comeback from a period of closures and reduced capabilities.
The following targets were outlined in order to provide a road map for their website changes:
- Increased conversions on the website
- Stronger brand image
- A streamlined user experience
In order to meet these targets, we set out to create a site that had a more modern look, was more interactive, and would allow customers to purchase tickets and donate quickly and easily.
We feel lucky to have been able to work alongside The Grand Theatre for the second time on their updated website and help to roll in their 22/23 Season.