In September 2003 the pilot of the Patrons and Performances Web Site was publicly launched. It contained data about appearances in Lancashire by travelling professional performers who were identified in the REED Lancashire volume as having patrons. The pilot also included patrons who were primarily resident in Lancashire or held offices and/or significant properties in the county, although no record existed in Lancashire of the performers they patronized.

Before uploading the data from each REED volume, any corrections to the performance data (Events and Troupes) are made, and further research on those patrons resident in the city, county or counties covered by each REED volume is undertaken. This research involves rechecking and correcting the exisiting data and supplementing it with new research. In some cases, this has enabled us to correct misidentifications and/or eliminate one or more people who have been identified (in the published REED collections) as possible patrons of a particular troupe.

As we proceed, patrons resident in cities/counties covered by forthcoming REED collections will undergo the same rexamination. The amount of detail provided for patrons therefore varies according to whether or not they are resident in a city or county that has been published as a REED volume and whether the data from this volume has been uploaded onto the Web Site.

This web site also contains data resulting from new research into performance venues, patron residences/properties and genealogies, which extends the scope of data available in the REED volumes. Because data will be added to the web site county by county, this new data will become available when the county in which the patrons were primarily based or the venues were situated is added.

The 'Search the Maps' section of this site includes the newly designed Interactive Map of England and Wales linked with the other data, as well as a sample section of Antiquarian Maps that will be expanded in future. The modern maps include major road networks before 1700 and locations associated with performance events and patrons for the first 18 volumes published in the REED series.

As of April 2015, the data relating to all REED collections in print is uploaded, although performance venues research connected with some of these volumes is still ongoing.