Our Latest Film Festival Website Development Project | BIFF 2016
By the way — the site is awesome! Great job…
~ John Shepherd
President, Mpower Pictures
Hey my friend-you guys are cutting edge!
I don’t think any other festival I’ve been in has done anything even remotely similar for filmmakers. Bravo.
~ Damien Patrik
Director, In the Blink
Eight Years of Film Festival Website Development:
BIFF 2016
Here’s the trick…
How to take so much film and event content with the complexity of a film festival and simplify it to provide a compelling, as easy-to-use and intuitive user experience as possible.
Quality content + website usability = positive user engagement and conversions.
This was our eighth film festival web development project.
Film festivals are hugely complex events with a vast amount of content to organize and simplify so as not to overwhelm the festival-goer and website visitor.
You see, most film festivals across the country are situated in a single arts theater or theater complex with an installed, legacy ticketing infrastructure. BIFF on the other hand spans 10 days, five non-theater venues, nearly two hundred different, individual ticketing events combining online ticketing with box office etc. The site needs to visual mobile, compelling yet nimble enough to update quickly and easily as the event evolves over time.
As you have surely experienced from your own business, it takes a lot of work and insight to make things easy for your clients and users. We continue to get rave reviews for the BIFF site. You need only Google “film festival” across a range of metros to see the BIFF difference.
Film Festival Event Ticketing Management
If you are an event manager and need deeply experienced web development that can handle the complexity of your event you should know we don’t scare easily.
We’ve already done it, with this and other client projects. We’re not learning on your project.
Consider a BIFF ticketing event that has:
- Ten Days
- Twelve Venues
- Over three hundred individual films
- Over 200 individual ticketing events of different kinds
- Coordinating online ticketing with central box office and individual venue ticketing for ticket inventory
- Shopping cart for purchasing multiple events
- Multiple ticket prices
- Package pricing
- Multiple ticketing exceptions, discounts, comps, members etc.
- The detailed, real-time and post-event reporting
- And still more. The devil is in the details
There are few ticketing events more complex than a film festival. Most ticketing systems simply cannot handle it. The expertise required to spec, configure and integrate into a dynamic web presence… this is heavy lifting. Resonate has the battle hardened experience and expertise to manage any kind of event you can throw at us.
Responsive Web Design for Film Festivals
A full 45% of our BIFF website traffic is from mobile devices.
During the festival this jumps to 72%!
Optimization for mobile use is a priority.
Responsive web design is increasingly important. We already know that many patrons want to continue to access the most current information via their tablets and smart phones while attending the event and in-between performances for updates, trailers and more. Further, tight and timely website integration with various Social Media was a key aspect. Given the increasingly ubiquitous smart phones and tablets, consumers are choosing to access the more current and expended information available online rather than the content-thin, outdated and more expensive printed collateral. Further track-able and optimized QR codes were integrated into print pieces to further ease and integrate with the website via mobile devices.
Festival, Tourism & Event Web Marketing
Given the dynamic nature of most events the ability to quickly and easily update information as the festival evolves is a business imperative.
Both event managers as well as attendees know that information committed to print days and weeks in advance cannot be as fully up-to-date or accurate as what is being actively maintained on the website. Complex and dynamic events will always benefit from current and updated website content. No, simply updating the Facebook page is not good enough. Not for serious promoters. Your website needs to be the ultimate authority whose content does not drop off the bottom of your FB page. Your patrons will appreciate it as well. Finally, the strategy behind structure, organization and presentation of event content for ease of use is likewise key. The more complex the event the more strategy needs to be applied to usability and presentation.
Content Marketing
In Internet Marketing and SEO circles the term “Content is King” is frequently used. That is because it is true.
Unless you have good content much of the rest is patchwork and trying to compensate for weak content. BIFF content development was rich, deep and extensively integrated both internally and externally. Value-add, current, easy to access and consume was the focus. Don’t be boring, the mantra. Finally, the content was easy for the user to update because the site was developed using the WordPress CMS.
Additional development / content management:
- Expansive and complex ticketing integration and management
- Dynamic online event schedule
- Ongoing content updating throughout the event
- Expansive use of multi-media
- Tight integration with Social Media channels and updates
- Bi-lingual English/Spanish presentation
The benefit for you, your Film Festival or other event
Updating your website for the upcoming season or event can be a huge and critically important undertaking. You have too many other things to take care of to make your event a success.
Flashy pictures is the easy part. You’ve likely experienced sloppy or amateur work. You’re trying to take your event “to the next level”. What you need is the expertise and attention to detail of proven event marketing professionals.
Let us take care of the complexities of the website engagement for you. We are deeply experienced in how to manage these things with quality so you can focus on your events.
