Most arts organizations have a lot of great information to share on the Web, and many prefer to think of themselves as cultural and educational resources rather than commercial enterprises, so it's not surprising to find arts websites designed with ticket sales and donations as apparent afterthoughts.

Yet, as much as arts audiences crave education, they crave experience more, and generally seek out an arts website for the purpose of buying it or supporting it. The best sites make it easy and obvious.

Easy Paths

Returning to the wonderful example of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, notice two things -- the site conforms to the conventions of e-commerce, with a shopping cart in the upper right hand corner -- and at least some of the rotating billboards openly talk about ticket prices (I purposely grabbed a screen shot of the site when the billboard featured the orchestra's winter sale).

The Denver Center for the Performing Arts also does a good job of making the commercial purpose of the website clear from the first moment a visitor lands on the page. Nearly every link in the first screenful ("above the fold" as some say) starts a ticket ordering or donation process. The page design is a bit too busy, but nevertheless the "Buy Tickets Now" button manages to stand out from the chaos.

Hard Paths

For an example of making the path to order a real slog, let's return to an old favorite -- the California Theatre Center. There isn't a "buy tickets now" button on this site, no sirree. If you scroll to the bottom of the left hand navigation bar, you can find the phone numbers to call. If you click on the central image "for more information" you will eventually -- either two or three levels further down into the site -- find a way to order tickets online. Surprise, surprise! Is this criticism fair since most of the tickets are purchased by school teachers for field trips? Definitely. Like everyone else, teachers have a lot of options about how to spend their entertainment budgets, so even though they offer more of a captive audience than most arts organizations can expect, barriers to ordering result in fewer orders. Period.

To do justice to the Capitol City Chorus website experience, you really must pay them a visit so you can see the green box of text on the right flashing off and on. NOTE: Please don't if you are prone to epileptic seizures. I'm not paying for your hospital visit.

Search and search the first screenful, and you won't find a way to buy tickets or even donate money. At the time I took this screen shot, the chorus did have a non-free event to promote, but you have to scroll down to find it. Can you imagine the conversation? "I don't know why people talk about websites being a great way to sell tickets, we hardly get any action from our site. Maybe we need more flashing bright colors."

Coming up in the next "Effective Websites" post: Part 4 -- Credibility