Surprise! New Front-end Update Includes Artist Cards On Event Pages, Tags, and Upgrades to “Latest” Page

Surprise! We just rolled out a big update to the front-end packed with powerful new features.

Included in today’s update are improvements to artist info displayed on event pages, new tag functionality, and phase one of our overhaul to the Latest page. We’ll soon add more detailed information and best practices to LearnStuff, but for now here are the most important highlights and changes we want to show you:

Artist Info

One bit of feedback we’ve been hearing quite often since the redesign is that artist info became much less prominent on event pages. Starting today, we’ve added new collapsible Artist Cards to event pages to help promote artists and improve the overall user experience.




These Artist Cards are displayed just above the event description, and make it easier to find artists’ social links, their Artist Page, and view their YouTube videos. Now, if only we could find a way to get this Trace Adkins/Prince/Bon Iver triple bill booked.

Tags

For the first time ever tags have been added to event pages. Tags are a great way to organize similar events and help users discover new awesome stuff to do in your city.

Tags appear prominently at the top of the event page with the other important event info, just below the location and user count. Clicking on a tag takes you to a page showing all future events that share that tag.
Right now, the only tags you’ll see are those already associated with the performing artists, these flow through to events automatically. But, coming to a Radmin dashboard near you (ETA next week) will be the ability to add any additional event tags you wish. You will be able to tag related music genres and sub-genres (e.g. #Rock, #Psych, #CookieMonsterDeathMetal), tag the type of event (e.g. #PerformanceArt), or group recurring event series (e.g. #SoundAndCinema) and loosely-organized neighborhood festivals (e.g. #SoCoFirstThursday).

It’s important to note that tags on your site will show up on your ECP partners’ sites. If needed, these can be hidden with custom CSS.

Latest Page

Possibly the most significant change in today’s update is phase one of the upgrades we’re making to the Latest page. Since the redesign, the Latest page has lagged behind Event listings in terms of both layout and functionality. Not anymore.

Starting today you now have the ability to add both pictures and tags to links you highlight on the Latest page. Instead of a bland list of events and headlines, your Latest page will now resemble something closer to the layout on your homepage. This means a more customizable design and a more engaging experience for your users.

By default your new Latest page will just carry over your site design, but custom CSS options will allow you to customize the design over time to distinguish it from event listings and other areas of your site.
We felt these changes were especially important because the Latest page is where you have the greatest editorial control on your site. This is where you can decide to showcase featured events, sponsored lists, editorial content, cultural topics, and other top pages. But in order to really capture the value that the Latest page offers, it needed to look the part.

Another important change that will increase the visibility of your Latest posts is the new widget displayed in the sidebar of all pages (anything with /p/ in the URL). Appearing just below Featured Events, this Latest widget is identical to the one displayed in the footer of your site. By adding it to the sidebar, it will drive even more page views to the content you decide to feature each day.

Future updates will show you more ways to optimize your Latest page and tags, but for now get in there and start testing out the new features!