Cheadle Carnival

Cheadle Carnival needed a modern website to support one of Staffordshire's most popular community events. We designed and launched a mobile-friendly platform that promotes events, attracts volunteers, celebrates sponsors and keeps the local community informed year-round.

Community sites live or die on whether volunteers can update them. This one can, with a handover that means the committee owns its site, not its web designer.

The brief

Cheadle Carnival is a long-running community event in Cheadle, Staffordshire. The committee came to us with an outdated site that was difficult to update and looked poor on phones. They wanted a fresh web design that would make it easy to publish event details, recruit volunteers and thank sponsors.

The new site had to be simple for non-technical volunteers to manage. That meant a clear WordPress setup, sensible page structures and training as part of the handover.

Preparation

We started by looking at how the committee actually used the old site. The main jobs were posting news, updating event times and adding sponsor logos. We mapped those tasks to a simple set of pages and a custom post type for events, so adding a new event is just a case of filling in a form.

We also checked how people found the carnival online. Most visitors came from Facebook and local search, so the site needed to load quickly on mobile and present key information without clutter.

The work

We built the site on WordPress with a custom theme that matches the carnival's branding. The design is mobile-first, with large touch targets and readable text. Event listings show date, time, location and a map link, and the homepage highlights the next event automatically.

For sponsors, we created a simple logo grid with links. Volunteers can find role descriptions and a contact form. The whole site is optimised for local search, with clear page titles and descriptions for each event.

The result

The new Cheadle Carnival website launched in time for the event. The committee can update it themselves, and the site now works well on any device. It gives the carnival a professional online presence that matches the scale of the event itself.