A great event can still struggle if people can't work out what's on, when it is or how to get a ticket. For most of your audience, your website is the first real look they get at your festival, and often the place they decide whether to come at all.
We've built websites for festivals and events across Prince Edward Island, from Fall Flavours and the Island Tides Yoga & Wellness Festival to Taco Battles and the PEI Festival of Wines. Here's what we've learned about helping an event succeed online.
Put the essentials on the first screen
Someone landing on your site wants three answers right away: what is this, when is it and where is it? Island Tides puts the next festival's dates and location in the opening lines, with a clear button to the schedule. Nobody has to dig for the basics.
Answer the questions people hesitate over
Price, what's included, who's taking part and where to stay are the details that turn "maybe" into a ticket. Put them where people can find them without leaving your site. The fewer reasons someone has to go looking elsewhere, the better.
Help people find their event
Once a festival runs to dozens of events, a long list stops working. For Fall Flavours we built a custom events calendar with schedule, calendar and map views. Visitors can filter by day or by featured ingredient, from lobster and oysters to beef and potatoes, and see prices, locations and sold-out events at a glance. Each signature event then has its own page with a direct link to tickets.
Give people a reason to take part
The best event websites give people something to do, not just something to read. Taco Battles turns Charlottetown's restaurants into a friendly competition, and the website is where it plays out. People can search by restaurant or taco, filter by chicken, pork, beef, seafood or veggie, check for gluten-free and dairy-free options, and vote for their favourite. It's the kind of page people want to browse and share, and it keeps them coming back until the winners are crowned.
Design for the phone in someone's hand
Most of your visitors will be on their phones, and some will be standing at your event. That changes what your website needs to do. For the PEI Festival of Wines we replaced the printed brochure with a custom web app. Guests filter every wine by country, grape, style and price, locate each table, and save their favourites to an account they can come back to after the event.
Plan for the whole trip, not just the ticket
If people are travelling for your event, they're planning a trip around it. Island Tides lists its accommodation partners alongside the schedule and venues. Fall Flavours goes further with an interactive trip planner, where guests add restaurants, places to stay and events to a personal itinerary, see their total driving time and save it for later.
Welcome visitors in their own language
Festivals on the Island draw visitors from across Canada and beyond, so English and French matter. Every page of Fall Flavours is available in both, using Lake Translate, our in-house translation plugin. It creates dedicated French pages that Google can index, so French-speaking visitors can find your event in search too. We cover the options in our guide to bilingual websites.
Show what it feels like to be there
A schedule tells people what's happening, but photos and video make them want to go. Real images of your crowd, your food and your setting will always beat stock photos. If you don't have them yet, plan to capture them at this year's event so next year's promotion is ready to go.
Build it to last more than one season
An event website shouldn't start from scratch every year. Build in templates for events, sponsors and seasons so your team can roll it over with new dates, lineups and photos. We built the wine festival app with this in mind, and later adapted it for the PEI Spirits Festival.
Start earlier than you think
Ideally, start a few months before your tickets go on sale. That leaves time for design, content and testing before you begin promoting, instead of finishing the site while your first ads are already running.
Planning your next event?
Whether you're launching something new or refreshing a festival that's been running for years, we'd love to hear about it. See more of our tourism, festival and event website work, or get in touch to start the conversation.
