Located in Sidney, BC, the Mary Winspear Centre is a non-profit organization that provides a high-quality space for events, shows, conferences and more. The centre was first constructed in 2001 and sits on land steeped in a long history of community support and pride.
Curtain Call for an Old Website
The original Mary Winspear Centre website was built on a Drupal CMS and was nearing the end of its life. It was considered difficult to navigate, making it challenging for customers to easily find information about venue rentals, showtimes, and most importantly, purchase tickets for events. Staff are very active on the website, constantly updating content for new and existing events. Updating this content was also considered challenging, and the team required a solution that allowed changes to be made in-house, without having to be reliant on a developer. A decision was made to find a vendor to build a new website to address a growing number of pain points.
The team at Mary Winspear Centre reached out to Caorda for guidance and support, and a decision was made to build a new website using WordPress.
A New Design Takes Centre Stage
The project began with the planning a new design and layout that funneled traffic into high-value sections of the website, most notably event and performance bookings. Feedback was gathered from the Mary Winspear Centre team to help Caorda’s design team with the creative direction. A series of custom designs for key pages were then created and shared with the Mary Winspear Centre team for review and feedback. An updated colour palette was selected to breathe new life into the site. New call-to-action buttons and banners were added to direct traffic to ticket purchases and venue rental requests. Thoughtful transitions between content sections were also included to create a smooth browsing experience. The result was a considerable upgrade from the old website – a solution that will serve the organization for many more years to come.
Time for Some Direction
Now that a new design was in place, it was time for the website’s navigation and architecture to be reviewed. The old site had an abundance of what was once considered helpful information to visitors. However, all those helpful pages were now proving difficult to browse through, and the navigation required a refocus. Pages were consolidated, unneeded pages were trimmed, and the primary navigation was shortened into the two most popular sections of the website – ticket sales and space rentals. All other pages were added to a new burger menu. As a result, the site is now focused on conversion optimization, requiring far fewer clicks to find what you’re looking for.
The Stage is Set
Caorda’s development team brought the new design and architecture to life using WordPress Enfold. New custom post types were created for events and venue pages, allowing the Mary Winspear Centre team the ability to easily create new pages and add content and pictures in-house. A new ticketing system for events was also introduced near the end of the project, which was seamlessly integrated into event pages. To complete the project, Caorda’s digital marketing team created a transition plan connecting all pages from the old site to high value pages on the new site. The website was launched and is now hosted on Caorda’s secure, Canadian-based servers.
The Reviews Are In
This project was a true team effort, bringing together some of Caorda’s most experienced and talented people. The result is a website we are truly proud of, and one which we hope will help bring Mary Winspear Centre increased revenue and recognition for many years to come.
Visit the website
