A Craft CMS 4 site with excellent search and filter functions

A brand new website built on craft CMS 4

Our design and development teams have worked hard with Gecko Live to create a brand-new website built on Craft CMS 4. It’s sleek and simplistic, yet capable of storing a huge amount of content.

Gecko Live is an agency that organises and provides live entertainment for weddings and corporate events. Although primarily based in the south of the country, they have experience working with acts and at venues throughout the UK.

Having started as live musicians, the team had a huge amount of expertise. However, they had diversified their offering over time to include organising and providing a broader range of event entertainment. The owner, Matt, approached us wanting a new and improved website to reflect this.

Building on existing partnerships

We had previously built the team a site in Craft CMS for their band so Gecko already had a great understanding of its functionality. This existing relationship with Matt and the team meant that we knew their personalities, tastes and how they might like to present themselves as an organisation.

Gecko wanted a site that had excellent search and filter functions that would enable visitors to select the ideal entertainment for their event - and they have a huge number of varied acts to choose from which also meant a lot of content. With such a vast number of live-entertainment acts on offer, the original website was cluttered in its appearance and difficult to navigate. Matt wanted this sorting as a priority so that his website would offer an improved user experience and help him stand out from his competitors. But it was equally important that we created something that excited and engaged his audience.

User-friendly filtering and a streamlined process

We created a filter system using the Sprig plugin. This makes sorting through the huge amount of information much easier as users can filter by act, genre, event, location, venue, date etc. to shortlist the best acts for them. The result is a better user experience, allowing users to select as many filters as they want without having to reload the page and saving them a significant amount of time.

We also created an ‘Add to my list’ function, using the Alpine JS plugin. This allows users to select as many bands as they are interested in and submit them as one enquiry rather than several different enquiries. The result is a much more streamlined process for the user and Gecko - who will see a breakdown of the client's needs in one single enquiry without having to work through a backlog of individual enquiry forms, piecing information together.

Web design that speaks volumes

From a design perspective, our main focus was on achieving a professional yet bespoke look across the site. Gecko wanted something that would excite customers and give them a snapshot of the amount of entertainment on offer. We worked collaboratively with Gecko to reshape their brand.

The homepage needed to work hard, immediately conveying the bespoke nature of the service Gecko could offer along with the wide range of acts and venues available. We achieved this by embedding video content in the hero of the page which displayed a snapshot of a variety of acts. We also included a sliding banner listing the wide range of music genres and events to choose from which helped add another dynamic element to the page.