Annual Report
15 September 2025 — 14 September 2026
Our second year
This was our second full year. The site had more than twice as many page views as in our first year, over 1,000 events were listed, and about 20 new listings went up each week.
Since we launched in September 2024 the site has had more than 250,000 page views and 92,000 visits. Last year we said we would add festival and exhibition listings. Both are now live, and ten festivals used them this year.
The year in numbers
- Page views Year 1 Year 2
- Visits Year 1 Year 2
- Events added Year 1 Year 2
Since 15 September 2026 our visitor figures have only counted people who accept cookies, so this year stops on 14 September, the last full day before that change. Our first year ran to 21 September 2025, so the two years share one week.
We’ve changed how we measure visits to put privacy first: we now only count visitors who choose to accept cookies. At the moment that’s about one visit in three, so next year’s visit and page view figures will be much lower, roughly two thirds lower, even if just as many people use the site. Event and organiser numbers aren’t affected.
2.4×
Visits from the UK were up almost two and a half times, and made up 87% of all visits.
1 in 3
About one visit in three was from someone coming back, slightly more than last year.
22 Aug
The 1,000th listing of the year went up on 22 August. More than 1,800 events have been listed since we started.
“Today” was used more than twice as often as any other filter, so most people are looking for something to do that day. Saturday was the busiest day in both years, and visits pick up again in the evening.
29%
Nearly a third of listings were free to attend (311 events), up from 27% last year. For events added by organisers themselves it was 4 in 10.
106
Venues in 8 communities, from Heptonstall to Todmorden. 64 were new this year, and a third of the events organisers added were outside Hebden Bridge itself.
1 in 5
Visits started on an event page, usually from a shared link or a search, rather than the home page. Tens of thousands of visits came from search engines, mostly Google.
- 68% Mobile
- 30% Desktop
- 2% Tablet
Two thirds of visits were on a phone, slightly more than last year, which is why we design the site for phones first.
What we’ve built
Festivals
Festivals were the main thing we promised last year. Each festival now has its own page with its own branding, its events show which festival they belong to, and partner websites can show a festival’s programme. Festive Happy Valley was the first. Since then venues have been setting up their own.
- Festive Happy Valley Oct · 44 events
- Wainsgate Piano Weekend Feb · 7 events
- Hebden Bridge Film Festival Mar · 20 events
- Spring at Wainsgate Mar · 7 events
- Happy Valley Pride Jun · 18 events
- Summer at Wainsgate Jun · 7 events
- Harvest at Wainsgate Jul · 6 events
- Heritage Open Days Aug · 6 events
- Unspeakable at Wainsgate Aug · 6 events
- Jazznights at Wainsgate Sep · 4 events
Wainsgate Chapel
Wainsgate set up six festivals with 37 events between them, from the Piano Weekend in February to Jazznights in September.
Happy Valley Pride
Pride listed 18 events in one programme. Its festival page was the most viewed of the year, and its events had over 1,000 views between them.
In 2026, Happy Valley Pride achieved its biggest audiences yet – over 12,500 people attended throughout the week. What’s On in Hebden Bridge was a huge help getting the word out in the run up to the event, and we were thrilled to see the whole town support the LGBTQ+ community.
Exhibitions
An exhibition now shows as one listing with its opening hours, rather than a separate listing for each day. Galleries, studios and venues can start using it now.
Trades Club listings added automatically
Trades Club events now come straight from the Trades Club’s own listings, in the same way as the Picture House programme. Between them the two venues added over 500 listings this year without anyone entering them by hand.
Events in several places
Trails, open studios and town-wide events can list several venues, or “various locations”, on a single listing.
Posters as event images
Organisers can upload a PDF poster as the event image, since that’s often what they already have.
Copy a listing
Organisers can copy an existing listing, dates included, and edit it before publishing. Useful for events that come round again.
Find and manage your events
An organiser’s events are now split into upcoming and past, with dates shown and a search box.
Accessible to everyone
We checked the site against the WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility standard, fixed the problems we found and published a new accessibility statement.
Other changes
Also this year: sold-out labels, finished events that show when they last ran, better results in Google, a simpler add-event form, downloadable stats for organisers and a choice over cookies.
Beyond the website
Some of this year’s work happened away from the website.
Town Hall volunteers
We’ve been working with volunteers at the Town Hall so they feel confident telling visitors and organisers about the site. The kiosk in reception lets them show people what’s on.
Calderdale Events Roadshow
We took part in the Calderdale Events Roadshow and showed the site to event organisers from across the district.
Christmas in the valley Coming up
We’re working with Hebden Royd Town Council so that this year’s Christmas events and activities across the valley can all be found in one place.
Social media
We share listings on Facebook and Instagram, and those posts bring people back to the site.
Most new followers came in spring, with about 100 a month in March and April.
Facebook accounts for about two thirds of our new followers and views, and nearly all the visits that come from social media. More of our followers are in Hebden Bridge than anywhere else.
Organisers
Most listings are added by the people running the events. The Trades Club and Picture House programmes come in automatically.
Last year’s roadmap
What we said we would do in last year’s report, and how we got on.
-
Delivered:
Exhibition and festival listings
Festivals launched in October 2025 and exhibitions in September 2026. -
Delivered:
Engage the community on festival and exhibition coverage
Ten festivals set up pages this year. Exhibition listings are ready for galleries and venues to use. -
Delivered:
Review organiser feedback and make improvements
We reworked the add-event form and added location choice, copying a listing, a clearer events list and a festival branding preview. -
Delivered:
Continue social media and marketing
Over 700 new followers on Facebook and Instagram, over 44,000 views of our posts and 44% more visits from social media than last year. -
Delivered:
Additional integrations and interfaces
Trades Club and Picture House listings now arrive automatically, and open data feeds let other sites reuse the listings. -
Partly delivered:
Wider widget adoption and supporting resources
We added festival-only widget feeds, but there are still three partner sites. This carries over to next year. -
Partly delivered:
Further engagement and promotion at local events
Training for the Town Hall volunteers, the kiosk in reception and the Calderdale Events Roadshow. More is planned for Christmas. -
Partly delivered:
More coverage of regular events
56 regular classes, clubs and groups were added, and two of the five most-viewed events are regular sessions. Weekly and monthly events now repeat properly. A page just for regular groups is still to do.
The next 12 months
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Email alerts
Sign up for the kinds of events you like, such as music, film or family events, and choose whether to hear straight away or in a daily, weekly or monthly email.
-
Smart add
Upload a flyer or paste a link to an event you’ve already put online, and the form fills in the details for you to check.
-
Social media and local events
Keep posting on social media and turning up at local events.
-
Wider widget adoption
Get more local websites showing the listings, and make them easier to set up. This carries over from last year.
-
Emails for organisers
An email when your event goes live, with a link to share, and a monthly summary of how your events are doing.
-
More festivals
Help more of the valley’s festivals put their programme on the site.
Thanks
What’s On Hebden Bridge depends on the people and organisations who support it. Thank you to everyone who has helped, and in particular:
- Hebden Royd Town Council
- Hebden Bridge Community Association
- Mike Stephens
- Ebony Andrews
- Verity Herrington
- Bryony Moore
- Graham Mynott
- Helen Meller
- Upper Calder Valley Ward Forum / Calderdale Council
- Emma Charleston
- Giles Dring
- Dave Smith-Markl @ Visit Hebden Bridge
- Scott Borrows @ Totally Screwed Hardware
- Jan Scott
- Georgia Cook
- Hebden Royd Business Forum
- Hebden Bridge Picture House
- The Trades Club
Tell us what you think
We’d like to hear your feedback and ideas. Email us at info@whatsonhebdenbridge.com.
Sep 2024 — Sep 2025
Our first year. We launched in September 2024, after a year of research, planning and working with local people, as a free, community-run events calendar for HX7 and beyond.
By the end of the year, organisers had listed more than 800 events. The listings also appeared on partner websites, on an interactive kiosk in the Town Hall, and on a digital screen in a Market Street shop window. All Picture House films came in automatically.
Read the full 2024–25 report