About Sorted in Dorset

Sorted is run by Olli Smith and his mum, Jane Jones — and the name has a history that goes back well before this platform existed.

Jane has spent many years creating and running events across Dorset. For around 15 years she organised Party in the Park at Ashley Cross, bringing people together for live music, food, entertainment and community.

In 2018 and 2019, that evolved into Sorted in Dorset, a festival celebrating the people, businesses, culture and character of Dorset.

The festival gave the name its meaning.

Sorted wasn’t intended to mean that Dorset had everything figured out. It meant that there was already an incredible amount going on here. You just needed somewhere to find it.

That idea stayed with us.

Olli was born in Poole and grew up with Dorset as home.

Through working with local businesses and creating content around the area, he kept seeing the same problem from different sides.

There were brilliant independent businesses doing interesting things. There were events, experiences, walks, restaurants, artists, makers and communities worth discovering.

But the information was scattered.

A business might announce something on Instagram. An event might live on a Facebook page. A restaurant might be recommended in a local group. A brilliant walk might be known by locals but almost invisible to everyone else.

At the same time, people living here were asking:

• “What’s on?”
• “Where should we go?”
• “What’s good around here?”
• “What haven’t we discovered yet?”

Sorted was created to help answer those questions.

We don’t want Sorted to become another list of businesses and events.

There are already plenty of places to find information.

We’re interested in discovery.

We want to make it easier to stumble across somewhere you’ve never heard of, find something happening this weekend, save somewhere you’ve been meaning to visit, discover a local business, or find a part of Dorset you didn’t know existed.

That means combining useful information with human curation.

• What is it?
• Where is it?
• What’s happening?
• And, most importantly, why is it worth knowing about?

Dorset is our home and the place where Sorted began.

It’s a county with an extraordinary mix of coast, countryside, towns, villages, culture, food, independent businesses, heritage and communities. From Bournemouth and Poole to the Purbecks, the Jurassic Coast and beyond, there’s far more to discover than many people realise.

Our ambition is to help people appreciate that.

For locals, that might mean discovering somewhere five minutes from home that they’ve somehow never visited.

For visitors, it might mean finding the places that don’t appear on the standard tourist itinerary.

And for local businesses and organisations, it means having somewhere that helps the right people discover them.

Dorset is our starting point. Sorted is the bigger idea.

Sorted is being built by people who actually live here, care about the area and want to see it thrive.

Jane brings decades of experience creating events and bringing Dorset communities together.

Olli brings a background in creative work, branding, marketing, digital products and content, alongside a lifelong connection to Dorset.

Together, we’re trying to build something that reflects the place itself:

local, curious, independent, social and always worth exploring.