Website change log
What we have added and changed on the site, newest first. The site is currently at Version 36.
Version 36: Broadway and Off-Broadway section and a UK theatre bloggers directory
- New Broadway and Off-Broadway section: a New York theatre hub at /new-york-theatre, an Off-Broadway theatres directory (14 venues, added when you press Update the site now), 31 Broadway guides and 15 Off-Broadway guides (tickets, lotteries, TKTS, seating, Tony Awards, neighbourhoods and more) and 19 new landing pages for Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, musicals, plays, tonight, weekend, cheap, kids, new, closing and 2027.
- Bluesky posting: connect your account with a handle and app password in Admin > Post to Bluesky. Tick "Post this to Bluesky" on a story, add Bluesky to your auto-share rules, or post anything on a schedule from Social updates. Posts carry a short clickable link, hashtags and a link card or your chosen pictures, and Bluesky is in the click report.
- Press invitations are emailed to the team: each invitation that arrives at the invites mailbox goes to your admins and editors with three buttons (Yes I will go, Maybe, No thanks). Answers show against the invitation, and an optional setting also emails the organiser to confirm. New Admin > Press calendar shows every press night, launch and invitation by month, with who is going. Set up in Admin > Invites and events.
- Better RSVPs: people can say how many guests they are bringing and add a note (access or dietary needs, outlet); the email to the organiser uses wording you can edit; an optional polite decline goes out if the whole team says no; the team is reminded about unanswered invitations two days before the reply date; and the answer page has Add to my calendar and a link to the organiser's own RSVP page.
- More local SEO: a Theatres in [town] page for every town with a venue in the guide (addresses, map links, phone, capacity, questions and venue schema), a What's on in [town] page where shows or tour dates exist, and a Theatres by town index. All are in the sitemap, and empty ones stay hidden from search. The .htaccess has three new lines.
- Shop upgrade: pre-orders (tick Pre-order on a product, set a release date and note; customers pay now, the order is marked and the confirmation says when it ships, and you get an email when paid pre-orders are due); featured products shown on the homepage (tick Feature on the product; heading and number are set in Shop settings); was-prices with a Save badge; Pre-order, Sale, New and Sold out labels; shop search, sort and in-stock filter; back-in-stock emails for sold-out products; related products on each product page; and better product data for Google including pre-order availability.
- More shop upgrades: shop categories with filter buttons; customer reviews with star ratings (verified buyers go live at once, others wait for your approval, and the stars can appear in Google results); a Track your order page for customers (link in the confirmation and dispatch emails, or look up by reference and email); review-request emails after dispatch; low-stock alerts to you; duplicate a product; download orders as a spreadsheet; and a last-30-days sales summary.
- Shop round three: multi-buy prices (buy 3 or more and save 10%), extra product photos, share links, printable packing slips (one order or everything waiting to be sent) and private order notes.
- Members club (Patreon-style): posts with YouTube or Vimeo video, pictures, pinning and scheduling; open to free accounts, any paid member or a chosen plan and above; likes and comments; member-only polls; a community goal bar; an opt-in supporters wall; and an email when a post goes live. Manage it in Admin > Members club.
- Marketplace: small sellers apply, connect their own Stripe account (their Stripe ID) and list items. Buyers pay through us, we keep a commission and Stripe sends the rest to the seller for payout to their bank. Includes seller dashboard, order tracking, admin approval, refunds and a Stripe Connect webhook for account updates. Manage it in Admin > Marketplace.
- Marketplace money and features: a one-off seller set-up fee (default £10), 20% commission, and a Pro plan (monthly subscription) at 8% with automatic X promotion of new items and a featured shelf; sellers have an editable profile (logo, banner, links, postage and returns), their own promo codes for their own items, a minimum item price, postage that buyers must pay (with a rate for extra items), and a Stripe ID check that confirms each seller's Stripe account is real, theirs and able to take payments, before items are shown and again before each sale. Admins can waive the set-up fee, re-run the check and attach an existing Stripe ID.
- Promo codes from Admin > Promo codes now work everywhere money is taken: the shop, marketplace orders (the discount comes out of our commission, never the seller's payout), the marketplace set-up fee and Pro plan, and coach trip tickets.
- The members area has its own app-style design with a sidebar, separate from the news site, and the admin dashboard is tidier with a needs-attention row and quick links.
- New sales landing pages with full SEO and FAQ markup: Theatre gifts (shop), Sell on the marketplace, and the Members club. Product, listing and seller pages have richer titles and descriptions.
- The database files are complete: database.sql now includes the shop, marketplace, members club, invoices, events and advert tables, database-columns.sql adds later columns, and the upgrade builds them all.
- More SEO: each show guide links to its 12 closest related guides instead of all of them; empty pages are kept out of the sitemap; Services pages get their own descriptions; a new audit check finds story pictures under 1200 pixels wide (needed for Google Discover); new Admin > AI crawlers page to keep chosen AI crawlers out through robots.txt and to publish /llms.txt. The .htaccess has one new line for llms.txt.
- X pictures on Social updates: if X refuses a picture the update now stops and tells you why (it used to post without it and say nothing). New "Test picture upload" button in Admin > Post to X.
- Forum improvements: search and sorting (latest, newest, most replies, most viewed), view counts, "Thanks" on posts, follow a topic (with emails), quote a post, edit your own post for 30 minutes, member badges and post counts, and a "New" marker. Admin > Forum now shows activity figures and most active members, and lets you move or rename topics and hide all of one member's posts.
- More automation, all from the daily job and controlled in Admin > Automatic jobs: monthly results emails to sponsors and advertisers (with a private results page for sponsors; start with copies sent only to you), emails to forum members when someone replies (with a one-click opt-out), a weekly check that blogger, directory and Be on TV websites still work, a weekly email of tracked clicks, and Be on TV opportunities hidden automatically once closed.
- Weekly newsletter now includes a "What's on" section (opening this week, closing this week, top-rated West End and Broadway shows); switch it off in Admin > Newsletter stats > Weekly automation. Show pages and the review roundup now show a critics' verdict (rave, positive, mixed or disappointing) with a star breakdown.
- More control over the menus: in Admin > Navigation you can now rename and reorder every menu and link, and add your own links, new menus and plain links on the bar (optionally opening in a new tab). In Admin > Footer links you can rename and reorder the standard links, add a second list with its own heading, hide Saved stories and RSS, and replace the footer statement.
- Richer site themes: Halloween (cobweb, bat edging, drifting embers) and Christmas (string lights, candy-cane stripe, falling snow) now have real decoration, and three new themes: Red Curtain (theatre look, any time), Bonfire Night and Edinburgh Fringe. Motion switches off for visitors who prefer reduced motion. Choose them in Admin > Site themes.
- Forty more search landing pages (West End tonight, weekend and tomorrow by musicals and plays, cheap and under-£30 shows, family and school-holiday theatre, openings and closings, best and newest, plus more Broadway and Off-Broadway). Edit any of them in Admin > Insight > Search landing pages.
- New Admin > Insight > Guide pages: edit the wording of, or hide, any library guide or Screen & Sound guide.
- New UK theatre bloggers directory at /theatre-bloggers: a page for every blogger, review site and podcast, with a tracked visit link, regions and types. Eighteen are added when you press Update the site now (the ones with no known address are hidden from search engines until you add the website). Manage them in Admin > Insight > Theatre bloggers, one by one or in bulk, with a click report.
Version 35: Tour pages, show sub-pages, Screen & Sound and more search pages
- Tour pages for every show with dates: /tour/show for the full tour and /tour/show/city for each stop, with a dates table, booking links, questions and answers and event data for search engines.
- Show sub-pages for cast, interviews, reviews, seating and awards, linked from the show page. Any that have nothing to say are hidden from search engines.
- "Shows like" pages for every show, built from the shows that share a theatre, style or creative team.
- Theatres-near pages for Covent Garden, Leicester Square, Soho, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and Shaftesbury Avenue.
- Twenty-four more landing pages: tomorrow, musicals tonight and this weekend, West End tonight, last-minute West End tickets, tickets under 10, 15 and 25 pounds, West End tickets under 50 pounds, upcoming shows and musicals, new plays, shows for 2027 and 2028, longest-running shows, musicals based on films, books and TV, short and long musicals, teenagers and romantic shows.
- Landing pages are now listed in the sitemap as soon as one show is on sale, and always fall back to your top-rated shows if a filter is empty.
- New Search landing pages admin: write your own introduction for any landing page and pin shows to the top.
- New guides: captioned, BSL-interpreted, audio-described and relaxed performances, getting to the West End by train, first time seeing a musical, theatre tips and a London theatre weekend.
- Find the right show: one page that sends people to the right guide for a date, children, a budget, tonight, a first visit or access needs.
- New Screen & Sound section for radio, TV, film, comedy and podcasts: a hub and 28 guide pages, each with the latest matching stories, tips and questions and answers, plus stage-to-screen and podcast crossover pages.
- New Be on TV section at /be-on-tv: audience tickets, contestant applications, extra work, casting calls and guest chances, each with open opportunities, a tracked Apply button (clicks by source), scam warnings, questions and answers, and 15 how-to guides. Add opportunities in Admin > Insight > Be on TV.
- New TV, radio and podcast directory at /directory: a page for every programme with presenters, a tracked watch or listen button, more platform links, questions and answers and structured data, plus a page for every presenter. Add programmes in Admin > Insight > TV, radio and podcasts, one by one or in bulk, and see clicks by platform and source. Help I Sexted My Boss (William Hanson and Jordan North) and four more podcasts are added when you press Update the site now.
- New Guides library at /library: about 275 plain-English guides across theatre, TV, film, radio, podcasts, comedy, platforms and calendars, each with key points, questions and answers and related stories from your site. Calendar pages for West End openings and closings pull live dates from your listings.
- The keyword planner now covers TV programmes, films, radio, podcasts and comedians as well as theatre.
Version 34: More search pages, show and theatre answers and a keyword planner
- Show pages now answer "is it worth seeing", "where should I sit", "is it suitable for children", "does it have an interval", the characters and the songs, where we hold the details.
- Theatre pages answer latecomers, dress code and bag questions, alongside the existing seating, access and getting-there answers.
- Eleven more landing pages for the phrases people book with, including cheap tickets tonight and this week, tickets under 20 and 30 pounds, cheapest London musicals, best new musicals, comedy, immersive, children's, accessible and date night.
- Eight more guides: what to wear, how long a show lasts, food and drink, latecomers, age restrictions, how musicals are made, theatre careers and types of theatre.
- Things-to-do pages for the main theatre cities, built from the venues, shows and news you already have.
- Actor pages now carry questions and answers about their shows and news, and a title built around theatre credits.
- New Keyword planner under Insight: pick a show, theatre, actor or city and get the search phrases people use for it, grouped by category, with a CSV and a note of which ones the site already has a page for.
Version 33: Members' benefits, worldwide theatre, hotel and producer guides
- New member benefits: Members' offers (ticket deals and discount codes you add in admin), My area (a members' page of local theatre news for up to three towns) and members-only competitions.
- Theatre news hubs for the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, a Theatre worldwide page and a page for each country with venues, FAQs and structured data.
- Every town page now has questions and answers, a venue list and nearby places marked up for search engines. Empty town pages are kept out of the sitemap.
- Eight more Broadway theatres, a Broadway visitor guide, a London to Broadway first-timer guide, a New York to the West End guide and a first time at the West End guide.
- Hotel guides for the West End and Broadway, and stay-and-eat guides for the West End (including Côte), Broadway, Edinburgh, Manchester, Dublin, Toronto, Sydney and Margate and Thanet.
- Producer guides (how to produce a show, licensing, budgets, press, touring, the Fringe, insurance, marketing, casting, ticketing, grants) and six free producer tools: break-even calculator, revenue forecast, budget builder, press release builder, licence email builder and timeline planner.
- Theatre guides for audiences: accessible theatre, taking children, cheap tickets, choosing seats, etiquette, becoming a critic and West End vs Broadway.
- Search landing pages for the phrases people book with: best West End shows, musicals in London, theatre tonight, this weekend, cheap West End tickets, family shows, half term and more. They fill from your What's on listings.
- Site search now understands more phrases for guides (hotels, restaurants, esta, cheap tickets, accessible and so on). The home page title and description use the main search phrases.
- Fixed: /casting returned a not found page.
Version 32: Ticket click sources, advert reports and more membership prompts
- Buy tickets clicks now record where the reader came from (Google, Facebook, a campaign link and so on), shown in Visits and in the new Advert and sponsor report.
- New Advert and sponsor report (Insight menu): every advert with times shown, clicks, click rate, amount paid and cost per click, by placement, with a CSV.
- Each advert has a private link you can send the advertiser. It shows only their own results.
- More membership prompts: a "Read without adverts" link under adverts, and a membership box on the funding page, the donation thank-you page, the reviews round-up and show pages. Each join link is tagged so Visits shows which prompt brings people in.
Version 31: Star-rating cards, auto-share rules and better reporting
- Rated reviews now post to Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn with a branded star-rating card (stars, show, verdict) as the picture. Switch it off under Facebook and Instagram.
- Auto-share rules: say once that, for example, every review of 4 stars or more goes to Facebook, Instagram and X, and it happens when you publish.
- Social click report: visits from each post, by network, with Buy tickets clicks on the story's shows afterwards, as a page, CSV and PDF.
- Story links in posts are now tagged with their network so visits can be counted against the post that sent them.
- Visit statistics has an Insights section: best stories with change and search or social views, views by writer and section, best days, and ticket clicks per 100 page views.
- Two new products on Advert pricing: a Featured news story (a sponsored story at the top of the home page) and a Social media advert (one "Sponsored" post a week on every connected network).
- Ten more advert products on Advert pricing, each shown on the right pages and in the media kit: Boosted social campaign, Newsletter sponsor, Pantomime guide spot, Podcast sponsor, Awards sponsor, Editor's pick, Competition sponsor, Gallery sponsor, Ticket page spot and Site-wide banner. Prices are placeholders; change them.
- Funding: set a goal for each month (October is £55) and change it whenever you like. Donations on the funding page count automatically for the month they arrive, past months are listed, and a month with no goal carries the last one forward.
- Posts to X now carry pictures: the story picture (the star-rating card for reviews), pictures you pick, or the pictures on a social update, up to four, with a description for screen readers.
- The Social updates page has a new layout: steps for message, pictures and where and when, tick-chips for each network, a live preview beside the form and coloured status labels.
- A new Reports page gathers every PDF and CSV report: visit statistics, content performance, tickets and revenue activity, social, sponsors and adverts.
Version 30: Main ticket provider, photo gallery and better social posts
- Buy tickets buttons now use our main ticket partner, London Theatre Direct, for shows that have no link of their own.
- A new photo gallery, with pictures shown on the page of the show or theatre they belong to.
- Social posts can carry several pictures: a multi-photo post on Facebook, a swipeable carousel on Instagram and a multi-image post on LinkedIn.
- Social posts can be saved as drafts, given different wording for each place, and show a live character count.
- A "Make a night of it" box of labelled partner offers on show and theatre pages.
- LinkedIn posts can go to your company Page as well as your profile.
- More social tools: a searchable gallery picker (also on stories), saved templates, quick send times, counted and campaign-tagged links, post-again-later and rescheduling.
- Admin email alerts, a pantomime submission page for producers, lifetime visit statistics and PDF reports for sponsors, advertisers and visit figures.
Version 29: Ticket partners, sponsorships and a revenue page
- Ticket buttons now count clicks for each ticket seller, and can carry your affiliate details automatically.
- Theatres and shows can be sponsored: a clearly labelled sponsor panel with logo and link, and a results report for the sponsor.
- Newsletter sponsors, plus sign-up boxes on show and theatre pages that record which box people used.
Version 28: More membership plans, self-service API packages and paid listings
- Four membership plans: Supporter, Patron, Professional and Company, each with monthly and yearly prices.
- Professional and Company plans include a directory listing, job listings every month and an API key. Patrons can be named on our new supporters page.
- Buy an API package yourself with a card, make and replace your own key, switch package or cancel, all from your account.
- Job listings and directory listings are now paid on Stripe (GBP 25 each by default). Members get them included or discounted.
- Promo codes: free access to a plan, or money off memberships, listings and API packages.
- New pages for professionals, posting a job and getting listed in the directory, plus a professional dashboard in your account.
- Advertising: book by the week or by the month, choose a ready-made package (Starter, Show launch, Season partner) or build your own, and use promo codes. Paid in full online.
- Advert clicks now appear in the statistics, and so do newsletter subscribers and opens.
- Automatic emails: reminders before directory listings and job posts end (with a pay-again link), advertiser emails when an advert starts and finishes (with results and a book-again link), and reminders for payments that were started but not finished.
- Post new stories to our Facebook Page automatically, with Instagram available to switch on later. Connect with a Facebook button, no copying of tokens.
- Post new stories to LinkedIn from your profile with the same tick box. Connect with one button; we email you a week before the 60-day connection needs renewing.
- Social manager: short vertical videos. Upload your own MP4, or tick a box to make an 8-second video from a picture and headline (needs ffmpeg on the server; optional music). Videos go to Instagram as Reels and to Facebook and LinkedIn as video posts.
- Social manager: stories with no picture now get a branded headline card instead of the plain default image, and a Coming up list shows everything scheduled.
- Show pages rank better: correct questions and answers (dates, price, length, age, cast, writers, access), event markup only when a start date exists, the show's own picture, and a written About section when there is no guide yet. The SEO check page now covers shows too.
- Theatre pages rank better: a proper search description (address, what is playing), a written About section when there is no guide text yet, more questions and answers from your venue details, and richer search markup (dated shows, map, phone, accessibility, seats, the venue's own picture). New Venue SEO check page shows what each venue is still missing.
- New Tracked links page (Admin > Content > Tracked links): make short addresses such as soundsandstage.com/go/granville that send people to any page and count the clicks by day and by source (add ?src=facebook to a link). You can change where a link goes without changing the address.
- Fixed: posts and emails sent by the scheduled task (cron) could contain addresses with a wrong folder such as /public_html/ in them, so scheduled social posts had broken links and pictures. The site folder now comes from your site address.
- Fixed: a story scheduled with X ticked and then renamed or re-saved could post to X with its old headline and a dead link. Posts now use the story's headline and address as they are at the moment of sending.
- Social updates can reuse an earlier post with one click (keeping its picture and networks), or start from any published story to share it again.
- Six saved hashtag sets (Broadway, Theatre, Theatre tickets, Reviews, TV and film, Other), editable on the Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn and Social updates pages. Pick one when you publish a story or send a social update.
- New Social updates page: post an announcement, competition or reminder that is not a story to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X, now or at a time you choose, with an optional picture.
- LinkedIn posts now attach the story picture. Instagram checks the picture is readable first and falls back to a default image that ships with the site.
- Tick "Post this to X when it is published" on a story and it posts to the Sounds & Stage X account automatically, also for scheduled stories.
- Review roundup articles: once a show has five outside reviews, one click drafts a roundup article with the average rating and a quote and link for each critic.
- Send a newsletter straight from the dashboard: the weekly digest, or a short message, with a test copy to yourself first.
Version 27: Review roundup, seasonal themes and bigger awards
- Review roundup: see what other critics and websites said about a show, with star ratings, short quotes and links to the full reviews.
- Seasonal website themes for Halloween, Christmas, New Year, Valentine's, Easter and Pride, chosen by our team or switched on automatically by date.
- New seasonal guides: Halloween top picks, Christmas deals, a Christmas gift guide, New Year sales, Valentine's date night, Easter family shows and Pride month picks.
- Awards now show sponsors and partners, key dates, venue, host, eligibility, judging criteria and answers to common questions.
- A daily email report of yesterday's views, search visits and ticket clicks for our team.
- You can nominate a show for the awards straight from its page while nominations are open.
Version 26: Local news, Broadway and a lot more places
- New Local News and Audio & Radio sections.
- Broadway theatres: a guide to 30 Broadway houses, each with its own page.
- Sarah Thorne Theatre in Broadstairs added to our Kent theatre guide.
- Theatre, TV, Film, Music and Entertainment news pages for about 150 towns, cities and counties across the UK and Ireland.
- Press releases sent to our press inbox are now drafted automatically for our editors to check. Nothing is published without a person reviewing it.
- The homepage tickets strip can now be edited by our team, so the shows we feature are chosen by people.
- Better search titles and descriptions for every show and theatre guide, with proper address data for search engines.
- This change log, and the version number in the footer.
- Fixed a behind-the-scenes database set-up error, and the site now waits a little longer when its database is briefly unavailable.
Version 25: More reliable
- The site now retries when its database is briefly unavailable, so fewer readers see an error during short outages.
Version 24: Clearer page titles
- Descriptive titles for sections, pages, tags and writers, so pages are easier to recognise in search results and browser tabs.
Version 23: Better links and search
- Stories are now linked to the right shows and theatres more accurately.
- Improved search snippets for stories, and a Casting section for cast announcements and casting calls.
Version 22: Podcast guests
- You can now ask to appear as a guest on the Sounds & Stage podcast.
Spotted a problem or have an idea? Tell us through the contact page.