Google's John Mueller gave some advice on how to handle show web pages, for when the event or show or performance is complete. How do you handle those old show URLs. He said it is similar to dealing with products and he gave similar advice a couple times around event web pages.
In short, if you think the old show page would be useful for people, then keep it and explain the history of that URL. If not, then eventually 404 it or redirect it to the new show page, if relevant.
The question was:
What to do with shows (on their own urls) that have passed their performance date - these urls are unlikely to get any traffic (or minimal) - delete or keep?
John responded on Bluesky:
I see it a bit like products that are sold out, or which are no longer made, I'm sure there are many articles on how ecommerce sites can deal with that. I am certain there's no one-size-fits-all solution for this though.My thinking is that for some "products" (or "shows"), a site might be a fantastic long-term reference if the product is sufficiently unique, and interesting for users long afterwards. If you're the last / only one to run a show, that's a nice reference to keep for longer - people will seek it out.
For other "products", there might be a time-limited interest, perhaps for a few months. "I went to X-show last month and liked it, who was in it?" For these, perhaps you want to give a bit of time for things to drop out of interest, and then 404 the pages.
And for yet others, maybe if it's sufficiently commodity, and you have a lot of things coming and going on the site, perhaps you just 404 immediately to clean up and move on. I doubt you'd need "unavailable_after", it seems overkill for this, but it's also an option.
This advice is super similar to what to do with old event pages.
Forum discussion at Bluesky.
