Western Michigan University, Miller Auditorium
The Miller Auditorium on the campus of Western Michigan University is the premier performing arts venue in West Michigan. Famous Broadway productions, world-class concerts, family shows, and more have all taken the stage in this Kalamazoo institution, fulfilling the theater’s mission to enlighten, entertain, and educate. When Miller Auditorium needed help implementing a polished redesign of its website, Gravity Works took the leading role.
Show Listings Take Center Stage
The main goal for this website is to promote upcoming shows and sell tickets. So when we designed the homepage, we designed everything around the show listings. We wanted to grab visitors' attention as soon as they land on the homepage by showcasing everything that’s currently playing and coming soon at the Miller Auditorium, similar to walking by a theater and viewing the show posters and marquee. The homepage design uses a darker color scheme including black, reds, and purples to create a dramatic look-and-feel, similar to stepping into a dark theater. Our goal was to make the visitor feel as if they were already at the theater to generate excitement and encourage ticket sales and donations.
We worked closely with Miller Auditorium staff to determine what shows to feature and their placement on the homepage. Not only do they have space to promote their Spotlight Series and Broadway performances, they can also support local acts such as the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra. Miller Auditorium has so much more to offer than many patrons realize, so it was important to bring awareness to their lesser known shows and events by giving them homepage space as well. Visitors will also find callouts to the box office, season calendar, and visiting information on the homepage, as well as a newsfeed with recent articles. Lastly, the homepage encourages other visitor interactions with calls-to-action for donations and e-newsletter subscriptions.
Interactive Season Calendar
Visitors can browse through the season’s shows and events in a visually appealing list or calendar view. They can also apply filters to limit their results to the shows they care about, such as Broadway or Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra. Upcoming shows have an information page with a show description, photos and video clips, dates and times, ticket price, show website link, and a button to purchase tickets. Theater administrators have control to update this content and feature other shows that may be relevant at the bottom of the information page.
CRM Platform Integration
The Miller Auditorium website is built on a Drupal CMS platform for simple content editing, but the ticketing system and donation processing is powered separately by Tessitura, a CRM platform specifically built for performance arts institutions with built-in e-commerce functionality. Gravity Works needed to integrate with this system so seamlessly that visitors wouldn’t even realize they left the main website to purchase their tickets or make donations. We were able to work with Tessitura to carry the branding over to the ticketing and donations system while keeping the main website’s menu visible so users can easily return to the main site at any time.
