Bringing the Laughs to a Bigger Audience

McCurdy’s Comedy Club has been bringing the laughs to Sarasota, Florida for almost 30 years. It has made many moves over the years, starting at a room at the Holiday Inn, to a theatre on Tamiami Trail, to a huge space in the heart of downtown where comedians and entertainers are playing to sold out crowds. With that move came a new website to showcase the big names that the theatre brings into town. GravityFree wanted to create something that was easy to use, bold, dark, and as in-your-face as the owner himself, Les McCurdy.

Making the Move

McCurdy’s Comedy Club has been a partner of GravityFree for many years and when they decided to move the club to a premier location downtown, they needed an upgrade that matched the grandeur of their new space. This meant going from a small screen format to a fully responsive, widescreen desktop format. Like McCurdy’s team, we wanted to take advantage of having a lot more real estate to work with and make things bigger, bolder and stronger.

McCurdy’s Comedy Theatre is considered to be one of the hottest comedy venues in the country. GravityFree has created a website for us that showcases that fact. Our customers also get an equally great experience on their mobile devices allowing them to view our upcoming comedians and easily order tickets online. McCurdy’s does great comedy. GravityFree does great digital.

Les McCurdy, owner at McCurdy’s Comedy Club

Headshots

One thing that all comedy clubs have in common are the large number of head shots that come through their inbox every day from agents, managers and comedians themselves. With the site being larger, we wanted to make the photography a key component of the new site. Why have someone as hilarious as Kevin Nealon or D.L. Hughley come through your doors if you can’t show them off? Visitors are greeted with a large feature area that showcases the biggest name comedians that come to the club. The visitors see the biggest events coming up and can get their tickets quickly, with only a few clicks. Below that, we have the next six events with large imagery as well. Not only does that make the site look better, but it gives the comedians and entertainers great exposure. We are huge comedy fans at GravityFree and wanted to make sure that comedians get as much face time as possible.

Meet You At the Box Office

The primary goal of the McCurdy’s Comedy Club site is to sell tickets. We made sure that was front and center on every page, above the footer, along with the sidebar of all of the show pages. The call-to-action color of bright yellow helps make this pop against the black background, which is a nod to the bright lights of the comedy stage.

Always Writing New Material

The move downtown was a quick one, so we created the site knowing we would have a phase two. Les McCurdy has enough material to last a lifetime and we wanted to give him an engaging outlet for that, so we just launched a blog. Merchandise is another huge part of any entertainment establishment, so a store was recently added as well. We want to make sure the team at McCurdy’s can sell all of their comedy films, DVD’s and rubber chickens for years to come.

Knock Knock?

Upon launching the new site, we immediately heard from other comedy clubs around the country telling us how we were ushering in a new wave of web design for funny establishments. Most comedy clubs focus on the entertainment and less on the website, but with the growth of online sitcoms, web series, and grassroots efforts to bring comedy to the masses, its a great time for comedy clubs to join the ranks of highly visual and interactive web presences.

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