Williamstown Theatre Festival

A digital stage for the next act of an iconic festival.

Tech Stack:

  • Next.js
  • TailwindCSS
  • Typescript
  • Sanity
  • Ghost

Collaborators

  • XXIX
  • Pentagram
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WTF needed a digital platform that could support its evolving programming, streamline ticketing, and preserve its rich history. With an updated brand identity by Pentagram, Sanctuary Computer built the stage to bring the Williamstown Theatre Festival into the future.

Project Overview

  1. 1.

    We built a dynamic digital archive and content management system that preserves WTF’s 65-year history while giving their editorial team modern tools for storytelling and seamless content updates.

  2. 2.

    We collaborated with WTF to redefine their ticketing model, designing a flexible weekend pass system that balances user experience with technical constraints, enabling audiences to build personalized festival schedules.

  3. 3.

    We made strategic technical selections to ensure long-term growth, including a Ghost-powered blog for future email distribution and subscription-based content, along with a high-performance, accessible frontend.

A Digital Home for a Theatre Legacy

The Williamstown Theatre Festival needed a new website that could serve as both an engaging public-facing platform and a highly functional internal tool. We worked closely with WTF’s leadership and editorial teams to craft a user experience that reflected the festival’s rich artistic heritage while also being intuitive for staff to manage.

We chose Sanity CMS as the backbone of the site, allowing for highly customized content workflows. The platform empowers editorial teams to update content dynamically without requiring developer intervention, making it a flexible and sustainable choice.

The website structure showcases WTF’s history, productions, and artists in engaging, expressive ways. The site now serves as a dynamic archive, preserving past productions while seamlessly supporting new ones.

A key part of this effort was the migration and rendering of WTF’s 65-year archive of previous posts, ensuring that historical content remains accessible and properly structured. This required custom logic to translate WordPress content into Sanity, preserving formatting, metadata, and media elements while improving long-term manageability. Additionally, we ensured that all existing URLs from the old site remained functional on the new platform, maintaining SEO integrity and historical accessibility for researchers, theatre lovers, and returning visitors.

Custom Ticketing & Event Management

WTF’s ticketing needs were complex, requiring a system that could handle individual tickets, bundle purchases, and exclusive member events. We designed a bespoke ticketing logic system that gave the WTF team the flexibility to define different ticket types, including bundle-based access and public-only events, while integrating seamlessly with Salesforce to maintain real-time inventory updates and accurate reporting. By focusing on user experience, we created a streamlined purchasing flow that made it easy for buyers to browse and secure their passes with minimal friction.

Beyond solving for existing ticketing needs, our process helped shape WTF’s business model for weekend passes. The festival wanted a way to give each ticket a unique schedule, and our approach helped translate that concept into a user-friendly system. We focused on what made sense to a user when planning their attendance, creating an intuitive experience that structured how weekend passes work.

Built for Performance, Accessibility & Longevity

The WTF website was designed with a strong technical foundation to ensure longevity, ease of maintenance, and high performance. Using Next.js, we developed a server-side rendered frontend that improves load times and enhances search engine visibility. A structured design system powered by TailwindCSS allows for rapid development while maintaining visual consistency. With Vercel hosting, the WTF team benefits from fast, scalable deployments and seamless content previews. Sanity’s real-time collaboration tools further streamline content updates, preventing version conflicts and allowing the editorial team to work efficiently.

Additionally, we built the WTF blog on Ghost, giving the organization the ability to send out blog posts via email and eventually transition to subscription-only content. This decision was made to align with WTF’s long-term goal of expanding digital audience engagement and offering exclusive content to members in the future. Our approach to technical selection ensured that WTF’s digital infrastructure not only met immediate needs but also provided a foundation for strategic growth.

A dynamic platform for a new era of theatre, because the show must go on.

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