The last frontier: What ticketing can teach us about websites

Twenty years ago, cultural organisations would commission bespoke ticketing systems and custom CRMs (Customer Relationship Management systems). Today, almost none would. 

The sector moved to platforms – Tessitura, Spektrix, YesPlan, Wordfly – because rebuilding identical functionality in isolation made no financial or operational sense. Platforms offered continuous improvement, shared development costs, and freedom from technical debt.

But cultural organisations’ own websites? They’ve remained the last frontier of bespoke development, with venues commissioning custom builds to solve identical problems independently. Solutions are discovered, implemented, then essentially lost when that website is replaced three years later.

The duplication isn’t just financial. It replicates that same knowledge, too. The sector collectively relearns the same lessons on an endless loop.

Jay Rogers, general manager and director of operations at Queens Theatre in New York, experienced this shift firsthand – first with ticketing, then with the website. “Ironically, bespoke solutions often become more restrictive than the platforms they were meant to outperform. It may check every box at launch, but within a few years, needs evolve and the system can’t evolve alongside those needs.”

If platforms work for ticketing – complex, mission-critical, revenue-generating systems with stringent data requirements – why wouldn’t the same logic apply to websites?

What sector-specific platforms deliver

When venues adopt platform solutions for ticketing, CRM, email marketing, or event planning, they don’t just save money. They gain:

Continuous improvement: Accessibility updates, security patches, and new features arrive automatically, funded collectively rather than individually.

Regulatory compliance: From GDPR and accessibility standards to payment security, legal requirements are met by the platform, rather than by each venue.

Reduced technical debt: No more legacy systems limping along because rebuilding is unaffordable.

So what’s stopping venues from thinking about websites this way?

Barrier one: The uniqueness assumption

The most common justification centres on the desire to appear unique. “Our venue is different. Our brand identity is distinctive. A platform would make us look like everyone else.”

But venues don’t worry that Spektrix makes their box office processes generic. They don’t fear Wordfly dilutes their email marketing brand. They understand platform infrastructure doesn’t constrain design or brand expression.

Brand distinction typically manifests in visual design, imagery, tone of voice, and content strategy. The underlying architecture – how navigation functions, how forms work, how pages load – rarely contributes meaningfully to brand identity. Yet bespoke builds treat both as inseparable.

In our experience, venues that move to website platforms don’t report identity crises. From Salford’s Lowry arts centre to Leeds City Council’s cultural services or Joyce Theatre in New York, organisations remain clearly defined while benefiting from focusing on content and audience engagement instead of technical debt.

Barrier two: The illusion of control

Bespoke builds offer something psychologically powerful: control. You own the codebase. You can theoretically change anything, anytime. The reality is different.

Most venues lack in-house development capacity. That ‘bespoke website you control’ actually means paying your developer for small changes, waiting weeks for functionality updates, and commissioning custom builds for features that already exist elsewhere. 

Platforms often include these changes as part of their subscription packages. Features like seating maps, accessibility upgrades or ticketing integrations may already exist out of the box.

Developing websites in isolation means funding problems alone. When you build an accessibility upgrade or solve an integration challenge, that knowledge and cost stays with you. Three years later, you rebuild it from scratch.

The real choice isn’t between control and dependency. It’s between funding solutions individually or collectively. This is how we can ensure digital infrastructure investments compound over time rather than reset every few years.

Barrier three: The funding cycle problem

The mechanics of how cultural organisations secure funding could be quietly reinforcing bespoke approaches. Paul Callaghan, trustee of the Sunderland Music, Arts and Culture Trust, told me: “Cultural funding has always favoured capital spending because it produces something tangible – a new building, refurbished equipment, a project you can cut a ribbon on. But digital infrastructure simply doesn’t work like that. The real value comes from continuous improvement, not one-off builds.”

The practical effect is that capital project funding fits grant applications neatly. A £45,000 website becomes something you can point to and celebrate. But annual platform subscriptions require ongoing operational budget commitment across years. That’s harder to secure funding for.

“Project cycles create rebuild cycles,” Paul said. “Every time a venue rebuilds its website as a standalone project, it solves the same accessibility, integration and content-management problems that other venues solved last year. Platforms solve this by pooling effort, yet our funding model still pushes organisations toward expensive reinvention.”

Ticketing moved to platforms because the sector recognised that building the same system repeatedly was wasteful. Websites are now in the same position.

Some venues have navigated the funding challenge. But if funding mechanisms reward one-off projects over sustainable infrastructure, many will remain trapped in rebuild cycles.

What’s at stake

The sector overcame similar resistance around ticketing because the pain of isolated, obsolete systems eventually exceeded the discomfort of platform adoption. For websites, that inflection point is approaching faster than many realise.

The barrier isn’t technical or commercial viability. The barrier is psychological. Venues haven’t yet applied to websites the same logic they’ve already applied to ticketing, CRM, email, and payments.

Bespoke approaches might still have their place for venues with niche requirements. But the default assumption should flip: platform first, bespoke only when genuinely necessary. That’s the shift ticketing made 20 years ago.

The question is whether the sector recognises this before another expensive rebuild cycle resumes. What would need to change for website platforms to feel as sensible as ticketing platforms? That’s the conversation cultural leadership needs to have now, before the next rebuild lands on the budget.