Key takeaways
At CultureSuite, we have over 20 years of experience building websites for arts, culture and entertainment venues, from the Honolulu Museum of Arts to The Joyce Theater in New York and Southbank Centre in London. In that time, we’ve learned what live event venues need in a website to thrive. That’s why CultureSuite’s website platform, called Peppered CMS, comes with a wide range of features designed to help venues spend less time administering their website and more time promoting events.
What is a SaaS CMS?
Software as a service (SaaS) CMS is a cloud-based, no-code platform that simplifies the process of designing, building, and managing your website while eliminating the need for web development skills. They tend to offer a wide range of customisation options and a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, making it easy to manage and structure your site.
Everything you need is hosted on the cloud, so there’s no need to worry about server maintenance or software updates. Plus, all your website tools are centralised in one place, streamlining your workflow and making it easier to manage your digital presence.
By leveraging the power of a SaaS CMS, you can launch your site quickly, ensure it’s always up-to-date with the latest features and security enhancements, and provide a seamless user experience for your audience.
But if you’re used to having a bespoke website built for your organisation, you might be wary of any potential drawbacks. So let’s dive into the pros and cons of using a SaaS CMS versus having a bespoke website built for you.
SaaS CMS vs Bespoke website
When we first started working with arts and culture organisations as a web design agency in the early 2000s, the majority of websites were being manually coded, meaning maintenance was labour-intensive, and changes required technical knowledge.
The need for more efficient website management led to the development of CMS platforms like WordPress, Drupal, Squarespace, Wix and our own CMS called Peppered, which has been designed specifically for arts and culture venues. Twenty years on, ticketing organisations still rely on these generalist CMS platforms, but they need significant modification to meet the unique needs of ticketing and events organisations.
That’s why bespoke websites have been so prevalent in our sector. There are essential needs and features that all venues need to optimise website management and ticket sales. This is also why using a web agency is common. They often specialise in integrating with certain ticketing platforms and event planning systems. Indeed, it’s why we built custom solutions for live event venues for many years too.
However, this model is costly in time and money. Bespoke websites require heavy investment initially to get set up (something we still do with venues looking to customise their setup) and then further investment every three to five years to ensure the site is up-to-date with the latest digital best practices.
Not only does this create funding issues, but the support might also be lacking in between these investment periods. At least not without paying extra billable hours for support. Some may feel they lack control and autonomy when having a website built through an agency as you’re often reliant on them to make changes.
In contrast, the SaaS model provides a gentler investment cycle as well as continual support and complete autonomy. Instead of large lump sum payments every few years, smaller annual or monthly payments give you access to a platform that is being continually developed. This gives you a website that is more stable and more consistent in quality over its lifecycle. But this is only applicable to SaaS CMSs that have been designed with ticketed venues in mind.
That’s why we’ve used our extensive experience to build an industry-specific CMS, called Peppered, which is designed to work specifically for live event promotion. With a focus on using data from your ticketing and event management systems, Peppered does much of the heavy lifting for you.
The other benefit of SaaS CMSs is the ongoing updates you get as part of the licence fee. With Peppered, that means you get updates every three weeks, while also being part of a community that can make requests for new features. Once the Peppered team releases the new feature request, every venue, large or small, can then take advantage of it.
If you still need bespoke design work done for your SaaS website, most web design agencies will be able to do this for you to give your brand that extra flourish.
In a nutshell:
- SaaS CMSs require less initial investment and are more accessible than a getting a bespoke website built
- SaaS CMSs come with comprehensive technical support
- Maintaining the quality of your website is easier using the SaaS model
- Updates and new feature releases come at no extra cost when using a SaaS CMS
What to look for in a CMS?
For arts, culture and entertainment venues, there are specific needs that must be met when looking for a CMS. The first, and perhaps most important, is effortless integrations with third-party tools such as ticketing, event management and CRM systems.
These can be tricky systems for more traditional websites to integrate with. That’s why Peppered is designed to effortlessly integrate with a range of third-party tools right out of the box. On top of that, it can pull data and information from third-party tools and update content on your website accordingly.
So if tickets to a show are sold out, your ticketing system will tell your website, which will then update buttons and any other relevant text on your website so that your web visitors get accurate, up-to-date information about your shows.
This also works with your event management system. So any changes to events, whether it's a date change or updates to the schedule, will be reflected on your website without you needing to react and manually update the information.
On top of that, automation tools, accessibility compatibility and event filtering are just some of the other features you might want from your CMS to maximise audience development and minimise the need for reactive administration of your website.
That’s why Peppered is an all-in-one digital platform for arts and culture venues. We know what your priorities and challenges are, and our platform makes it simpler and faster to streamline your marketing and event promotion efforts. And if something is missing? You can simply request a new feature and our development team will put it onto the roadmap without passing on any extra costs to you; it’s all part of the Peppered package.
Another way to save time and money is by using the many scheduling features available to you on Peppered. Sections of a webpage, or indeed, an entire webpage itself, can be scheduled to go live at a specific time and date. This is great when content is supposed to go live during the weekend, or any other time that's inconvenient to your team's working patterns.
Accessibility is also another essential component of live event websites. After all, arts, culture and entertainment should be available to everyone. So your CMS needs to comply with contemporary WCAG AA 2.2 accessibility guidelines.
It would also be beneficial if your CMS helps you implement a personalised web experience so that you can engage more effectively with website visitors and foster a relationship with them. On Peppered, this is done with visitor tags to customise what you show or give users event filters so that they can browse shows that interest them.
But no matter what features your chosen CMS has, a must-have is comprehensive technical support. When running a live event website, it’s reassuring to know that there’s a team ready to help at any moment.
That’s why we have a Peppered Consultants Team to help get you set up on the Peppered platform. This will ensure your website is integrated into all third-party tools you need and that your website’s content structure matches what you currently have. We do this to ensure a smooth transition from your current website to your new Peppered website.
Additionally, you have access to round-the-clock technical support so that you don’t have to spend time troubleshooting problems by yourself. Our team is equipped to resolve issues quickly and reduce technical turbulence for you.
This means you get the autonomy and flexibility of a CMS with the support and technical expertise of a web design agency, all wrapped in a digital platform made specifically to optimise ticket sales for venues.
In a nutshell:
- Integrations with third-party tools such as ticketing systems and event management platforms are essential.
- Changes happen to events often; websites should reflect these changes automatically so you don’t have to spend time reactively administrating your website.
- On-site accessibility is essential for venues. The same attention should be applied to websites too.
- Personalisation will help venues optimise ticket sales and help website visitors find the shows that interest them.
- Ongoing support is essential to ensure venues don’t encounter prolonged technical issues.
Conclusion
Peppered is a highly specialised CMS for arts, culture and entertainment venues. After all, it’s been developed with over 20 years of experience building websites to facilitate the promotion of live events.
Our all-in-one digital platform is designed to make the process of managing event and ticketing information on your website easy to administer; in many cases, it’s done automatically.
Next steps
No matter what stage you're at in your search for the perfect web platform or digital marketing tool for your venue, we'll help you get the information you need to make the right decision.
- Join our community of venues and get insider insights.
Learn how to get the most out of Peppered, gain insights from other venues, and add new features to the Peppered development roadmap. Sign up to CultureHub. - Want to see how Peppered works?
We’re proud of how easy we make it for venues to manage their website. That’s why live event venues around the world trust Peppered. Book a personalised demo. - Looking to partner with us?
If you’re a technology provider, design agency or supplier for the arts and culture sector, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us here. - Want to learn more about digital tools for venues?
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