New theatre journalling app to launch at Musical Con
A new app designed specifically for theatre lovers will launch at Musical Con this weekend, offering audiences a private place to capture not just what they saw - but what a show meant to them.
gloami, a new theatre journalling app created by marketer, theatre fan and amateur performer Hannah Haworth, will make its public debut at Musical Con at ExCeL London on 17–18 October.
Designed as an alternative to public review platforms and social media, gloami allows theatregoers to build a private record of their theatre life - logging productions, capturing memories and photographs, journalling about performances and keeping track of the shows they still want to see.
For Haworth, the idea came from realising that some of the most important parts of a theatre experience rarely make it into a conventional review.
She said: “Some shows stay with you for years, but it isn’t always because you thought they were technically five stars.
“It can be who you saw it with, a song that found you at exactly the right time, watching somebody you know step onto a stage, or just remembering what was happening in your life when you saw it.
“We have lots of places to publicly rate and review theatre. I wanted somewhere for the part that’s just yours.”
Users can record details including when and where they saw a production, who they attended with and where they sat, alongside photos, ratings and guided journalling prompts designed to encourage deeper reflection.
The app also includes discovery features, including a personalised gloami score, designed to help users find productions based on their own theatre tastes rather than simply relying on an overall public rating.
Hannah adds: “Two people can watch exactly the same show and have completely different relationships with it.
“That’s one of the things I love about theatre. gloami isn’t trying to tell you whether a show is objectively good. It’s interested in whether it might be right for you.”
Another principle built into the platform is that a person’s theatre history should not create a hierarchy between professional and amateur productions.
Haworth, who played Belle in MAODS’ 2026 production of Beauty and the Beast and will play Elsa in its production of Frozen in February 2027, says some of her most memorable theatre experiences have taken place far away from the West End.
“Amateur theatre is such a huge part of the theatre ecosystem, but when we talk about theatre online, it can sometimes disappear behind the West End and major touring productions.
“If you saw your friend give the performance of their life in your local theatre, why should that sit in a different category of memory from the professional show you saw the following weekend?
“I want people’s gloami history to look like their actual theatre life.”
That approach was reflected in the app’s invite-only beta launch, which brought together theatre lovers from across the Lancaster and Morecambe amateur theatre community, including attendees from MAODS, LADOS, Lancaster Red Rose Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society and Morecambe Warblers.
Guests were invited to trial the app and feed into its development, while members of Lancaster Red Rose’s upcoming production of We Will Rock You performed a special set during the evening.
Director of Lancaster Red Rose Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society’s production of We Will Rock You, Vanessa Whittle, said:
“We were thrilled to be invited to perform at the gloami app beta launch amongst all our am dram friends! gloami is such a brilliant idea, and it's lovely that our local amdram scene is getting the recognition it so richly deserves. The standard of amateur theatre is at such a high level nowadays, and it's great to have the support of something like this, which is a completely unique concept.”
Haworth says the beta reinforced the appetite for somewhere that records theatre as an experience rather than simply a transaction or review.
“Theatre fans are brilliant collectors. We keep programmes, tickets, photos, cast recordings and memories of tiny moments that nobody else would necessarily understand.
“But all of those pieces end up scattered everywhere.
“I wanted to create one place where you could look back and see your theatre life unfolding over time.”
gloami will initially be free to use and launches publicly at Musical Con at ExCeL London on 17–18 October, where visitors will be able to try the app and begin building their own theatre journals.
And despite the technology behind it, Haworth says the ambition for the product is deliberately human.
“Theatre is ephemeral. You sit in a room, something happens in front of you and then that exact performance is gone.
“gloami is about keeping a little bit more of it.”