Bradford Literature festival

Client

Bradford Literature Festival

Services

Discovery, UI / UX design, front-end development, back-end development, WordPress, maintenance & support

bradfordlitfest.co.uk

How we support one of the UK’s largest literature festivals

Bradford Literature Festival (BLF) is an annual arts event and year-round cultural outreach programme. We have had the pleasure of helping to support their enterprising vision and ambitious goals since 2015. During this time the popularity of the festival has increased significantly, encompassing a wider range of audiences and content. To support this growth, we have helped BLF to evolve the website year-on-year.

Ahead of the 2023 festival, we worked closely with the BLF team to plan and build a new website. That year BLF received record-breaking audiences and became the largest literature festival in the UK. Their programme continues to grow, spark, and support the community’s love of literature and creativity.

KEY FEATURES.

Adapting the website’s focus to meet seasonal goals

Client Problem

The emphasis of the BLF website should change during festival and non-festival periods. Leading up to a festival, there should be a high focus on marketing and ticket sales before switching to providing information for attendees during the festival. Outside of these times, the priority is keeping users engaged through on-demand content and building anticipation for the next festival.

Our Solution

We designed three versions of the website around the content demands of the three periods. These were developed into pre-configured components that made it easy for the BLF marketing team to seasonally change the emphasis of the website.

Supporting an expanding programme and a mobile audience

Client Problem

The BLF programme has grown each year. In 2023 there were 678 events, up 30% compared to the previous year. The format of events has widely expanded to include concerts, performances, book launches, workshops, interviews, debates and child-friendly events.

In the lead-up to the festival, attendees will be relying on the website’s event calendar to plan their festival experience. During the 10-day festival period, attendees would be using their phones to access event information, venue details and other events of interest to navigate their way around the festival on the day.

Our Solution

We built a custom online calendar with multiple filtering options making it easy for attendees to find events by theme, format or date. Additionally, we built multifaceted search functionality to help users search by artist or event title. Both of these features were optimised for use on mobile devices to provide attendees the best festival experience.

Visual Identity.

Persian Red

HEXD33932

RGB211 57 50

CYMK0 73 76 17

Tulip Tree

HEXE9A445

RGB233 164 69

CYMK0 30 70 9

White

HEXFFFFFF

RGB255 255 255

CYMK0 0 0 0

Seashell

HEXF1F1F1

Black

HEX000000

Heading

Body Text

Streamlined media player for YouTube and SoundCloud content

Client Problem

As the festival has increasingly gained in popularity, there has been a growing demand for content outside of the festival periods. This has led to the production of an ongoing podcast series, festival highlights and other audio and visual content by BLF. We needed to incorporate this content into the website making it accessible to users all year round.

Our Solution

The content was to be hosted on YouTube and SoundCloud, however, it needed to be accessible as a library on the website. We built a custom “Watch & Listen” player for users to access all content and filter by theme or format. Where required, age restriction notices and filters were added to inform users of age suitability.

At a glance

Top 3

Largest literature festivals in the UK

550,000

Attendance since 2014

664,000

Website visitors (2023)

283%

Increase in page views (2023)

testimonial

What our client told us

Over the years, Vibe Agency has consistently provided us with exceptional customer service and technical expertise, and our collaboration in 2023 was no exception. Bradford Literature Festival aims to provide a seamless and enjoyable experience for our attendees, and Vibe Agency has played a crucial role in achieving this goal.

As our festival has grown over the years, so has the number of visitors to our website. Vibe Agency’s expertise allowed us to scale our website effectively, ensuring that it could handle the increased traffic without compromising on performance. This technical support has been instrumental in maintaining a smooth user experience and accommodating the +283% increase in page views, achieved in 2023, compared to our previous peak year. This accomplishment was pivotal in Bradford Literature Festival achieving our goal of becoming the largest literature festival in the UK.

In 2023, we worked with Vibe Agency to enhance our user experience, making it more intuitive with additional filters and information, helping us engage our audience and ensure that they can easily access the content they’re interested in.
Vibe Agency is reliable and responsive, turning around solutions quickly whenever challenges arise. This level of support has been invaluable in helping the Bradford Literature Festival reach new milestones and become a standout event in the UK’s cultural calendar.