Can we make a success a full Spektrix integration from a standing start in two months with a fixed budget?
We've worked with Tunbridge Wells Council for a few years, having previously built a custom website for their mixed-use library and public space, The Amelia Scott and in integrating the previous SRO4 box office system into their Assembly Hall Theatre website. At short notice, we learned that the box office system needed to change, with a rigid cut-off date, just a couple of months out.
Our task was to rebuild the website and custom CMS to fully integrate a new box office into the existing structure and workflows we'd designed using SRO4's API integration. This time it was a hybrid of API, web services and iFrames. Quite the challenge, but we were happy to take it on.
Normally jobs like this are pre-planned and scheduled for around a six-month lead. Getting this over the line required extreme focus, tight project planning and all stakeholders to be absolutely on board. Thankfully, they're all great :)
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Spektrix is a really good box office system, but a very different implementation to SRO4 that came before it.
Thankfully, we'd already built the incumbent website, so we knew the code base. The CMS we also built, which previously allowed us to import show information from the box office and restructure it to suit the page format of the website. Knowing the code base was a massive help, but the fact that the website was necessarily as custom-built as it was, a rapid-fire change to so much of the architecture in such a short time span, was a little daunting. Magnified by the hard deadline for a changeover...
Scope:
- Onboarding meetings and full documentation review of the incoming system, its code base, architecture, workflows and implementation. Gap analysis of system differences and impact reporting against the live system.
- Duplicate the system into a test space and integrate box office information via Spektrix API into Stunn's CMS. This involved writing a custom import routine that was sympathetic to Spektrix system limitations around load and caching, which was very different to SRO4.
- Scope and implement a best-fit integration of Spektrix using a combination of APIs, web services and iFrames.
- Style 30+ iFrames with independent inline styles to fit into the brand ID of the theatre.
- Host regular stand-ups and technical meetings between box office vendors, theatre stakeholders and our team.
- Unit and system testing before handover and fully supported user acceptance testing to restrictive deadlines.
- Go live and ongoing support.
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On time, on budget, on spec, on point.
Despite a few last-minute niggles moving from the test system to live, Assembly Hall Theatre has successfully transitioned to its new box office system with very little downtime, avoiding the sales void that delays would have inevitably caused.
At the time of writing, the new website has been live for just a day or so. It will be a while before we understand the commercials or scope of further improvements, but in the meantime, we see no reason that the project won't improve the previous system. Also, a good place to say a big thank you to the team at The Assembly Hall and Spektrix for getting this one over the line.
The next steps are expected to move the seat picker to an API-based system rather than using the iFrame. We prefer to work with APIs from both a customisation and flexibility perspective. We'll be in discussions soon with Spektrix to scope this feature.
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We'd love to assist you with any box office challenge or cultural website
We've worked in the arts and culture space since our beginnings in the 90s and continue to do so to this day. We are seasoned technical and creative specialists with a long history in and outside the arts. If you want thinking and solutions that understand the arts and can step outside the status quo, if you want to start to think like a retailer and fully commercialise your digital operations, then please do get in touch.
For an informal conversation with a battle hardened doer, call Karl on 0121 616 0093
Over the years, we've worked with a diverse range of arts and cultural organisations, local and national. With each project, we bring not only sectoral experience but valuable experience and data from outside of the sector, which we always leverage to bring outside benefits to cultural clients.
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