ABOUT

As one of only two full-time producing theatres in Northern Ireland and premiering the works of playwrights such as Stewart Parker, the Lyric’s mission is to be known as a professional theatre and hopes the power of live theatre to inspire and engage it’s audiences. With naturally lit, spacious lobbies and an exciting artistic programme, the Lyric Theatre is much more than a venue - it’s a thriving social hub and an attraction for visitors to Belfast.

With the old website feeling corporate and cold, failing to portray the vibrant nature of the Lyric theatre, it was down to our design team to create a bold, modern, responsive website which reflected the Lyric and showcased both the venue itself as well as the performances in all their glory.

Of course ticket sales were of importance however audience engagement with all areas of the theatre were of importance also. With creative learning, summer school and training programmes on offer, it was felt that social media should be an integral part in the strategic direction for the Lyric. With very little social integration on the old Lyric website, this was at the forefront of the new solution.

Taking our years of experience in creating award-winning designs for arts and cultural organisations, our creative team began from a mobile and content first perspective wire framing key pages which were then crafted into design concepts. We love working collaboratively and working with the Lyric team, we refined our designs until the vision was realised.

Co-hosting regular conferences and events over the last 5 years, we have built a great relationship with Spektrix (online ticketing solution). When we were approached by the Lyric Theatre for this project and found out they want to implement Spektrix as their online ticketing solution we couldn’t be happier. With a wealth of expertise in online booking integration, our developers delivered a customised end-to-end sales process for for the Lyric via the Spektrix API allowing website visitors to purchase tickets with ease.

In the first two weeks of lunch there were 70,000 page views (43% increase in the two weeks prior to launch) and in line with the responsive design, there has been a 60% increase in visits from both mobile and tablet devices. In the first two weeks of launch, there were 30,000 visits to the events page alone and the creative learning section has also grown in popularity with more than 2,000 visits in a fortnight.

We’re delighted with the success of the website and impressed with the statistics so far. We are excited to continue this ongoing partnership with the Lyric Theatre and look forward to the next phase of work.