Houston's 5 Best Live-Music Venue Web Sites

By Jeff Balke Thu., Oct. 18 2012 at 6:00 AM

4. Firehouse Saloon

Look and Feel: 4
Ease of Use: 7
Calendar: 6
Updates: 1
Mobile Friendliness: 6
Overall: 4.8

The overall design for Firehouse is dated, but adequate compared to other Houston club Web sites. The content is a bit hard to read, particularly on a smartphone screen, but pretty much everything you need for a venue is there. The front page and the calendar are basically identical making them a bit redundant, but fine.

On the plus side, everything is easy to find. The address, contact information and directions are right there in the left column on every page. Points taken off for only one news update from three years ago. Gotta update those news feeds.

Recommendations: Similar to Warehouse, consider going with white background and dark text. Update the design a bit and widen the overall layout to fill more of the screen. Update the news or ditch it. The front-page calendar is redundant -- just highlight special events on the entry page.

Location Info

Venue

Map

Warehouse Live

813 St. Emanuel, Houston, TX

Category: Music

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Show additional locations »

McGonigel's Mucky Duck

2425 Norfolk, Houston, TX

Category: Music

Firehouse Saloon

5930 SW Freeway, Houston, TX

Category: Music

Nutty Jerry's (Winnie)

18291 Englin Road, Winnie, TX

Category: Music

Fitzgerald's

2706 White Oak, Houston, TX

Category: Music

Tags:

Firehouse Saloon, Fitzgerald's, Mucky Duck, Nutty Jerry's, Warehouse Live, Websites

We Recommend

paul

I disagree with your assessment of the Fitz website. I would like to see, at a glance, the price of each show, and, ideally, a description of the bands playing the show One has to click a link, for each show, to find that information. Other websites (e.g., Empty Bottle, Chicago) handle this in a much better fashion. It would also be nice to be able to see, at some point before the show starts, estimated set times posted somewhere...I suspect a lot of places, though, want you to simply guess.

And, why does Walters not make a priority putting their info. on some website? Their new site has been open long enough to do something, I would think.

Bill Grady

Why bother? http://www.spacecityrock.com/shows/

H_e_x

I finally found the Walters website. Looks like it hasn't been updated since June. They used to have an alright website, I wonder why they got rid of it after the move?

jeffbalke topcommenter

@H_e_x I didn't mention it in the story, but I do get that websites are expensive and a pain to maintain. It's tough for ANY small business to maintain a decent web presence. But, if you are established, you need some of the absolute basics to make it easier on your patrons.