Dance studio moves to drag & drop design while keeping robust infrastructure

Introducing Greta Leeming Studio of Dance

I’ve worked with Greta Leeming Studio of Dance for a number of years now, and danced with them for even longer. They first became a client when I reached out to the owner, Tami-Lynn, because I noticed a couple of errors on their website when registering for classes one year. Greta Leeming Studio of Dance is Ottawa’s oldest dance studio, and with over 130 classes held weekly and a competitive team of over 100 dancers, is one of Ottawa’s largest and most highly-regarded studios too.

The “Before”

Greta Leeming Studio of Dance has been on the WordPress platform for a number of years now, but like I say to many of my clients, there’s 101 ways to build a WordPress site. Their previous site was limited in functionality, using Advanced Custom Fields Pro and various inline-styled classes for column structure and other functionality. As the studio’s digital needs intensified, especially during COVID when all administrative work and even the dance classes themselves moved online, the studio quickly outgrew the existing infrastructure.

The “After”

The new website for GLS stuck on WordPress, but employs a drag & drop design that’s more intuitive and user-friendly than the hard-coded custom page templates the previous site used. The site has also undergone various iterations of complicated multi-part registration forms to walk new and existing dance families through the registration process each year, culminating in taking either one-off payments or enrolling in a payment plan. Additional form functionality for competitive, exam, and recital needs are turned on and off as needed, along with individual registration forms for dance camp, workshops, and drop-in classes hosted throughout the year. E-commerce with Woocommerce is also available for recital videos, merchandise items, and at one point a completely virtual used clothing/shoe sale hosted by the parent committee. Prospective parents can now easily browse the site to learn about the studio’s class and competitive offerings, and begin the registration process when before they would have to exchange in multiple rounds of emails with the administrative team to get the information they need. The systems Something Blue Studio has set up for GLS have processed payments in the 7-figure range since their inception.