WordPress Core Theme · Cultural Production Platform

Red Cap Entertainment: A Stage-Ready Platform for African Cultural Production

Red Cap produces live cultural experiences, festivals, exhibitions and heritage-led productions across the UK and internationally. Cr8v Stacks built the site as a native WordPress theme with a companion plugin that runs the production archive, the calendar and the commissioning pipeline, all editable by the Red Cap team with no page builder.

WordPress Core Custom Theme Events Core Plugin Native Customizer

ClientRed Cap Entertainment

ServicesTheme architecture · Brand system · Inquiries pipeline

StackWordPress core · PHP · CSS custom properties · Customizer API

Live Domainredcapentertainment.co.uk ↗

Overview · The Brief

One Producer, Four Disciplines
& One Content Model

Red Cap's work spans Sheffield, Lagos, Accra and Kaduna: a national-theatre festival one year, a museum-grade exhibition the next. The website had to be the portfolio and the commissioning desk at once, and it had to be run by a producer's team, not a developer.

Instead of a page builder or a stack of unrelated plugins, Cr8v Stacks built a native theme and a single companion plugin. Productions, gallery items and commissioning briefs live in one content model, and the look of the site is governed from the WordPress Customizer.

Production Scope · 4 Core Disciplines UK & International

Live Cultural Production

Concept, creative direction and run of show for multidisciplinary live experiences.

Festivals & Public Programmes

Heritage-led festivals such as Festival of Unity and UnityFEST.

Exhibitions & Curatorial

Curatorial direction and scenography, including Beyond The Bronze.

Ceremonial & Cultural Showcases

Ceremonial staging such as the Pan-African Royal Nuptials.

Build Route Triage · Why The Obvious Options Failed 3 Rejected

✕ PAGE BUILDERLayouts live inside builder data, so a casual edit can break the design system.

✕ PLUGIN STACKSeparate event, calendar and form plugins: three admin screens and no shared record of a commission.

✕ TICKETING SaaSWrong model. Red Cap commissions and curates productions; it does not sell tickets.

✓ ChosenNative theme + cr8v-events-core: one content model for productions, gallery and briefs, governed through the Customizer.

One Content Model · Four Disciplines

PAST

View Details →

Strategic Architecture

Key Engineering Mandates

Active Core

01 / Customizer Governance

Colours, type, copy and page content are edited through WordPress core's native Customizer, with live preview.

02 / One Content Model

Productions, gallery items and inquiries are three post types in one plugin, so nothing is stitched together.

03 / Commissioning Pipeline

Every brief lands in a bespoke admin app and moves through four stages from New to Concluded.

04 / Editorial UI System

Docket cards, status pills and ticket-tile contact blocks give the site a recognisable, reusable interface language.

3 Post Types 12 Customizer Sections 4 Pipeline Stages

Design & Engineering

Core Technical Deliverables

Brand System · Asset 01

Red Cap Brand System & Theme Tokens

The live identity captured as a working design system: Anton and Manrope type, a six-token palette of cream, ink, gold, crimson and purple, and the component language of pills, date chips, service cards and ticket tiles, all mapped to the --rce-* custom properties the theme ships with.

Proprietary Pipeline · Asset 02

The AI-to-Customizer Build Architecture

A dependency-free workflow: modular semantic HTML and CSS are mapped to native WP_Customize sections and settings, previewed live through selective refresh and postMessage, then read back by the templates with safe defaults.

Four-stage pipeline from semantic HTML and CSS to Customizer mapping, live preview and template output

Platform Architecture · Asset 03

Events Core: One Content Model

The architecture board: a native theme and a single companion plugin carrying the whole platform, with the data model, the commissioning pipeline and the design tokens as three raised blocks.

01Events & Gallery post types: productions with specs, a concluded state and calendar export, plus a gallery of production photography.

02Inquiries pipeline: a custom admin app taking every brief through New, In Review, Contacted and Concluded.

03Customizer tokens: twelve sections of live-previewed controls covering content and brand.

Architecture board on a granite table with three blocks: Events and Gallery post types, Inquiries pipeline, Customizer tokens

Showcase 01 · Production Interface Captures

The Website Itself in Production

Scrolled captures of the live site beyond the hero: the production archive, the four disciplines, a single production dossier and the commissioning form.

redcapentertainment.co.uk/events/

Red Cap events archive with poster cards, date chips and PAST status pills

Production Archive · archive-event.php

Selected Productions Archive

Poster-led cards with date chips, concluded-status pills, discipline kickers and venues, all loaded from the event post type. The archive currently shows nine concluded productions.

redcapentertainment.co.uk/services/

Red Cap services page with the Live Cultural Production discipline row and deliverable checklist

Capabilities · page-services.php

Four Disciplines & How We Work

Full-width discipline rows, each with a photograph and a four-point deliverable checklist, followed by the four-step process: Brief, Design, Produce, Deliver.

redcapentertainment.co.uk/events/beyond-the-bronze-modern-benin-art-exhibition/

Production Dossier · single-event.php

Single Production Dossier

A five-part production narrative with specification cards for audio, lighting and staging, and a sticky production-record panel carrying date, venue, credited role and the commissioning call to action.

redcapentertainment.co.uk/contact/

Red Cap Let's Talk contact form with ten service cards and ticket-style contact tiles

Commissioning Intake · page-contact.php

The “Let's Talk” Brief Form

Name, email and phone or WhatsApp, ten multi-select service cards and a project brief, beside ticket-style contact tiles for WhatsApp, email, address and the FAQ.

Showcase 02 · WordPress Core Engine

Engineered Systems & Workflows

Six interactive recreations of the bespoke back-end systems in the cr8v-events-core plugin and the Red Cap theme. Widgets use illustrative data and the real field names, stages and output formats.

SYSTEM 01 · INQUIRIES APP

Bespoke Inquiries Dashboard

Every commissioning brief becomes a cr8v_inquiry record, deliberately kept out of the default WordPress UI and managed in a custom admin app: stage KPIs, filter tabs, a single-inquiry dossier, a reports page with conversion rate, and one-click CSV export.

register_post_type('cr8v_inquiry', ['public' => false, 'show_ui' => false]);
add_menu_page( … 'cr8v-inquiries' );

Project InquiriesIllustrative data

New3

In Review2

Contacted1

Concluded2

ID	Client	Services	Stage
1048	Heritage Trust	Festival staging	New
1047	Private client	Luxury celebration	New
1046	City gallery	Lighting & SFX	New
1045	Arts council	Corporate gala	In Review
1044	Community group	Floor management	In Review
1043	Venue partner	Concert audio	Contacted
1042	Heritage Trust	VIP hospitality	Concluded
1041	Private client	Talent booking	Concluded

Conversion 25% (2 of 8 concluded)

SYSTEM 02 · EVENT RECORD & LIFECYCLE

A Production Studio Replaces the Block Editor

Productions are edited in a dedicated meta-box studio, with the block editor switched off for the post type. Change the date and the lifecycle follows: cr8v_is_event_past() flips the status pill, and the calendar button becomes a disabled “Event Concluded” state.

'show_in_rest' => false, // dedicated studio layout
if ( cr8v_is_event_past( $post_id ) ) { /* concluded */ }

Event Studio · Edit Productionevent

_cr8v_event_date _cr8v_event_venue

AUG 202022PAST

Exhibitions & Curatorial · Scenography

Beyond The Bronze: Modern Benin Art Exhibition

Adeline Gallery, Ilupeju

cr8v_is_event_past($post_id) // true

SYSTEM 03 · RFC 5545 CALENDAR STREAM

Calendar Files Generated on Request

No calendar plugin. A nonce-protected request streams a standards-compliant .ics file built straight from the event's post meta: UID, start and end, summary, venue and status. Pick an event to see the exact output.

?cr8v_action=download_ics&event_id=112&nonce=<wp_create_nonce('cr8v_ics_112')>

text/calendar · event-112.ics

SYSTEM 04 · NATIVE CUSTOMIZER

Live Design Tokens, No Page Builder

Twelve Customizer sections cover header, hero, FAQ, every page and a dedicated Design Tokens section. Colour tokens use postMessage transport so the preview repaints instantly; content partials use selective refresh. Try the pickers.

$wp_customize->add_setting('rce_tokens_gold', ['transport' => 'postMessage','sanitize_callback' => 'sanitize_hex_color']);

Customizing · Design TokensPublish

Accent (gold) Hero background Highlight (crimson) 35 settings use postMessage

Culture.
In motion.

Explore Our Work

Upcoming:root { --rce-gold; --rce-purple; --rce-crimson }

SYSTEM 05 · TRANSACTIONAL DISPATCH

Dual HTML Email Dossier

One generator, two audiences. The Red Cap team receives a structured commissioning dossier; the client receives a branded confirmation. Both come from cr8v_generate_intake_html_email(), and the inquiries app includes a settings page with a live test preview.

cr8v_generate_intake_html_email( $name, $email, $phone, $services, $scope, $is_admin );

Mail preview

SYSTEM 06 · ATOMIC PROVISIONING

Install, Activate, Seed

The theme bundles TGMPA v2.6.1 to install its companion plugin through WordPress's own upgrader, then a demo importer seeds events, gallery items and pages on activation. A separate media tool finds duplicate uploads and re-links them to the canonical image.

add_action('after_switch_theme', 'rce_maybe_auto_seed_content');

Provisioning log

Showcase 03 · Interaction Design & Commissioning Flow

Interaction Design & Intelligent Routing

How the front end behaves: the brief form and the four server-side gates behind it, the editorial component language, and the self-healing routing that keeps every page reachable.

INTERACTION 01 · THE BRIEF FORM

Ten Service Cards, One Brief

Visitors tick any of ten service cards and describe the project. The form submits over AJAX with a no-JavaScript POST fallback. Before anything is saved, four gates run on the server: an invisible honeypot, a two-second time gate, an IP rate limit of five per ten minutes, and a nonce. Tick a few cards and send it.

wp_ajax_nopriv_rce_submit_contact_form → rce_ajax_submit_contact_form()

Let's Talk · Services required0 / 5 this window

Full-scale concert production Festival staging & tour rigs Artist & headline talent booking Corporate gala & awards staging Private luxury celebrations Concert audio & sound engineering Intelligent lighting & stage SFX On-site floor & stage management VIP & celebrity hospitality Event marketing & tour promo

← click to run the four gates

1 · Honeypot rce_hp_checkidle 2 · Time gate (≥ 2s)idle 3 · Rate limit (5 / 10 min)idle 4 · Nonce rce_contact_formidle

Two services are pre-selected. Press Send Your Brief to watch the gates run.

INTERACTION 02 · EDITORIAL COMPONENT LANGUAGE

The Production Card & Ticket Tiles

The two components that carry the whole interface, as they appear on the live site. Click the numbered markers to see which field drives each part of the card.

Traders Fair and Cultural Showcase poster

AUG2026PAST

Festivals & Public Programmes · Diaspora Commerce & Craft

Traders Fair & Cultural Showcase

Sheffield Exhibition Centre View Details →

WhatsApp+44 7760 699326 • Message Us Direct

Email[email protected]

Based inWoodborough Road, NG3 4JP

INTERACTION 03 · SELF-HEALING ROUTING

Route Fallbacks & One-Shot Syncs

If a core page route ever 404s, a fallback map resolves it to the correct template. Navigation and database syncs sit behind versioned option flags, so each migration runs exactly once. It plays on its own; press Replay to watch it again.

Route fallback map · 11 aliases

/productions/archive-event.phpidle

/farida-atanda/page-biography.phpidle

/press/page-press.phpidle

/gallery/page-gallery.phpidle

/blog/home.phpidle

Versioned one-shot syncs

rce_menus_sync_v6Primary navigation rebuilt once

pending

rce_events_db_clean_v10Event records re-synced once

pending

Waiting to run: 5 route aliases and 2 one-shot syncs queued.

Showcase 04 · Technical Architecture

Engineering Deep Dive

Nine code-level decisions behind the platform, each one distinct from the systems shown above. Pure typography and live code widgets, no screenshots.

01 / DATA MODEL

Three Post Types, Three Visibility Rules

Each post type is registered with the exposure it actually needs: a public archive for productions, a rewrite-only gallery, and a private inquiry store.

02 / SCHEMA

Event Meta Schema

A production is a post plus a prefixed set of meta keys, so every field is addressable by templates, the calendar endpoint and the admin columns.

03 / ADMIN UX

Custom List Columns & Status Pills

The events and gallery lists are re-columned so the team sees what matters at a glance: venue, date and a live or concluded pill.

04 / SANITISATION

Sanitise Callbacks on Every Setting

All 40 Customizer settings declare a sanitise callback. Colour settings use sanitize_hex_color, which returns the value only if it is a valid hex. Try it.

05 / DATA PORTABILITY

Nonce-Guarded CSV Export

Inquiries export as a UTF-8 CSV with a byte-order mark so spreadsheets open accents correctly. The request is protected by check_admin_referer.

06 / MEDIA HYGIENE

Duplicate Media Scanner

A Tools page groups attachments whose filenames differ only by a numeric or -scaled suffix, re-links featured images to the master and removes the copies.

07 / DESIGN TOKENS

CSS Custom-Property Token System

Every colour, font and radius is a custom property on :root, so one Customizer change repaints the whole interface.

08 / ACCESSIBILITY

Contrast of the Real Token Pairs

The brand pairs checked against WCAG 2.1 contrast thresholds. Ratios below are computed in your browser from the actual hex values.

09 / EDITOR EXPERIENCE

Branded Admin & Editor Styles

The WordPress admin and the editor stylesheet carry the Red Cap identity, so the team edits in an environment that already looks like the brand.