Nexstar: a national dance competition site

Nexstar is a national dance and talent competition based in the Dayton, Ohio area, and one of the DanceOne family of events. Its homepage marks a milestone: it’s celebrating 25 years of dance. Nexstar runs regional competitions across the United States and a set of summer nationals at venues such as the Kalahari resorts in Texas and Ohio and the Myrtle Beach Convention Center.

What the site has to do

A competition site has to be dependable at busy times. Families check schedules and results on their phones between routines. Studio owners register, check rules and look up judges information. The site needs to keep those tasks short, and it needs to look the part, with big stage photography and a clear brand.

What’s on the site

• A full-width stage photo with the season message, followed straight away by three clear paths: the schedule, results and registration.
• A short section on what Nexstar offers, with a link to learn more.
• Nationals listed by city, each with dates, venue and a more-information link.
• A top bar with livestream, charity events, the shop, program sales and a register or login link.
• Pages for about, rules, judges information, joining the team and contact.
• An Instagram feed, a contact form and a mailing list sign-up.
• A booking link for studio owners who want to review their registration or ask about the rules.

What E-3 did

E-3 designed and built the site. E-3 hosts Nexstar on managed WordPress hosting and looks after it under DanceOne’s maintenance plan with us. Our monitoring checks the site for available updates and known plugin vulnerabilities.

The site runs on WordPress with the Genesis framework and the Dynamik child theme, with Beaver Builder pages and Gravity Forms for the contact and mailing list forms. Like the other DanceOne competition sites, it keeps its own branding while sharing a familiar structure, which helps families and studios that follow more than one event.