Website History

AussieTheatre.com has been a mainstay of the theatre industry since it launched in 2003. In its first year, the website ran in a ‘magazine’ format and updated monthly. The website, at that time, ran under the name BroadwayAustralia.com, a name it maintained until a massive overhaul in 2006.

In 2004, TDE (original publishers of the website) made the website a major priority, dumping the ‘magazine’ format and implementing a news service that kept the industry and general theatre-goers informed.

Since then, AussieTheatre.com has emerged as the leader when it comes to online theatre content, delivering fresh and exciting news, features, columns, podcasts and much more, from an experienced and dedicated team.

The website has grown from a small, fan-based site to a professionally run business.

The site has undergone three major overhauls. The first happened in 2006 with a design and name change,  the second occurred in 2009, with AussieTheatre.com introducing an improved content management system to deliver even more for its readers and the third in 2019 when the site transferred to the current owners.

Over the years, the website has broken some of the biggest stories in Australian theatre history.

In 2008, the website broke traffic records and 2009 exceeded that success.

In 2010, the website continued its record-breaking trends. Late in 2010, founding editor Troy Dodds announced that 2011 would be his final year in charge of the site.

In 2011, Biscuit Rabbit Pty Ltd took ownership of the site and Erin James and Matt Edwards ran the business as co-directors. The site underwent a design overhaul and a new-look AussieTheatre.com was launched in 2012, keeping readers up to date with the most current news, events, opinions and advice from within the industry.

Under the management of Erin James and Matt Edwards, the website again broke records. Figures from May/June 2013 showed a 696% increase in unique visitors and a 299% increase in site visits 2011.

2015 saw another big leap forward in the evolution of the site, with a new responsive design being implemented to meet the emerging needs of readers visiting the sites on different devices. With the growth of smartphone usage mobile traffic to the website has grown to over 50% of total page views.

In 2019 the site acquired a new management team as Erin James and Matt Edwards went on to pursue other interests. Peter J Snee took over as the new Editor in Chief and Sean McLoughlin as the new Digital Director.

The site underwent another re-design from our web design team to support technological advancements and what was now over 16 years of archived content. Within the first two months of the new site going live, unique visitors to the site had increased, the time each visitor spent on the site had increased and the frequency of returning visitors had also increased.