Better Than Broadway

The Problem

Dallas–Fort Worth had more than 90 places putting on live theater, but no one place to see what was playing. The newspaper listed the big halls. The local magazine listed its own small town. Everything in between was easy to miss.

What I Built

• A database of every theater venue in the area, from major performance halls to community stages, and every production at each one.
• A day-by-day list of performances, with a calendar to jump to any date.
• Browsing by city, split into the Dallas and Fort Worth areas, with a count of shows in each.
• Click a show to open its details right in the list: a summary, the venue, a map link and the full run of dates.
• Theater, ballet, opera and symphony, built on the Calendee Events Calendar’s search and listings.
• A blog with show reviews and featured shows, plus spots for a featured event and local sponsors.

Why It Ended

Keeping hundreds of listings current is steady work. After October 2007 the site went quiet for a few months. In February 2008 the blog announced it was back, still catching up on data entry, with plans to expand to Chicago. That expansion never shows up in the archive. By January 2009 the homepage simply said:

We're Sorry. Better Than Broadway is taking a break. We might be back.

betterthanbroadway.com, January 2009

It didn’t come back. The domain now belongs to an unrelated company.

What It Means for Your Project

Narrowing Calendee down to the arts gave Better Than Broadway a clear audience, but the hard part was never the code. It was keeping the listings fresh every week. When I build a calendar or directory for you, we’ll decide up front who keeps it current and make that job as quick as possible.