Case Study: The West List

From one town to six counties

Every town has the same problem. Plenty happens, but nobody can see it in one place. Events live on posters, chalkboards, parish newsletters and half a dozen Facebook groups. The council website has an events page, but it was last updated in the spring, because updating it is someone's fifth job.

The West List is our answer at regional scale: a single what's on guide for the South West, covering Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire and Bristol & Bath, with events, food and drink, places to stay and independent shops, organised by county and by town.

It runs on the same platform as our town sites, which is the point of this case study. The system that powers a six county guide is the same one that can power your town, your village or your city, at whatever size you need.

What visitors get

• A clean what's on page for their county and their town, on any phone
• Listings with the details that matter: date, time, venue, price, booking link
• A weekly email, every Thursday, with the best of what's coming up, chosen by people who live here
• Free listings for community events, with paid placement always clearly labelled

What the town gets

Listings without the retyping. This is the part that changes the economics. Organisers can submit events through a form, but they can also simply email a photo of their poster or flyer. AI reads it and drafts the listing. During the West List build we turned a photo of a bookshop's handwritten chalkboard into five complete published listings, on two sites, in minutes. Volunteers and clerks approve listings, they do not type them.

A moderation queue, so you stay in control. Nothing goes live without approval. Submissions arrive as drafts, marked pending until someone says yes. Anything the AI is not sure about is flagged for a manual check rather than guessed at.

One entry, many places. Because every event is structured data, the same listing can appear on a town site and on the regional guide without being entered twice. Our Shaftesbury site and The West List already share listings this way. Your town's events get a bigger audience for no extra work.

Local trust built in. Listings are free. Paid placement exists, but it is always labelled. Small venues, markets and independents are the priority, because they are what make a town worth visiting.

Proven at both ends of the scale

We ran the model at town level first. Visit Shaftesbury is a community guide for one Dorset town: events, venues, a business directory and an event submission page, moderated locally. The West List takes the identical foundation and stretches it across six counties, with over 80 live listings across its county pages in its first week.

That range matters if you are a council or a community group, because it means you can start small and grow. A village can begin with a single what's on page. A town can add a directory, accommodation and trails. A city or county body can aggregate everything beneath it. Same platform, no rebuild.

Who this is for

• Town and parish councils that want an events page that stays current
• Business Improvement Districts and chambers of commerce promoting a whole high street
• Event organisers and festivals that need listings, not admin
• Villages, towns and cities that want a proper front door on the internet

Talk to us

If your town deserves a what's on guide that practically runs itself, we should talk. We will show you The West List and our town sites live, and what a version for your place would look like.

Book a free consultation and we'll walk you through both sites, and what a version for your town would cost.