Vinyl Theatre

Vinyl Theatre’s previous website was built with an off-the-shelf ThemeForest theme using Elementor. It was bloated with animation libraries, 20+ bundled required plugins, slow, and needed constant manual updates every time new music or merch was released.

The goal of this project was to completely redesign the site, modernize performance, and create a hands-off system that stays up to date automatically, without relying on editors, page builders, or repetitive content management.

What I Built

Full Visual & Structural Redesign

• Rebuilt the site from the ground up with a clean, performance-first architecture
• Design reflects the band’s identity through intentional logo placement and their signature gold accent color
• Simplified layouts to keep focus on music, shows, and merch

Live Spotify Integration (Custom Plugin)

• Automatically pulls:
  • Latest release (song or album)
  • Full discography
  • Spotify listening links
• No manual updates when new music drops; the site updates itself

Shopify Merch Sync

• Connected directly to Shopify using products.json
• Merch listings update automatically as new products launch or inventory changes
• Eliminated duplicate product management between platforms

Custom Plugin Architecture

• Built a custom WordPress plugin to handle:
  • External data fetching
  • Caching
  • Shortcodes and dynamic components
• Keeps functionality modular, maintainable, and easy to extend over time

Performance & Stack

Performance was treated as a first‑class requirement from the start, not something to be fixed later. The site was rebuilt on a lean, modern stack using Bricks Builder, Automatic.css (ACSS), and WPCodeBox for custom PHP, CSS, and JavaScript, with Breeze caching and Object Cache Pro handling performance optimization.

This approach replaced a heavy Elementor-based setup with a significantly more efficient architecture, resulting in faster load times, improved Core Web Vitals, and a noticeably more responsive experience across devices.

The Result

The finished site requires zero manual updates for new music or merch releases, allowing the band to focus entirely on creating instead of managing content. Load times are significantly faster, the admin experience is cleaner and more intuitive, and the underlying system is built to scale effortlessly as the band’s catalog and store continue to grow.

Most importantly, the design and functionality now align closely with the Vinyl Theatre brand, transforming the website from a static marketing page into a living system that evolves automatically with each new release.

For now, the website still relies on pulling Font Awesome externally, so the site is taking a little bit of a performance ding, but according to DebugBear, we are sitting at a healthy 99% score.