The Brief
The Bay of Fires Winter Arts Festival required a new website to showcase and inform about a range of events in the area. The coordinators of the arts festival required the ability to quickly and easily add new events to the website, while the website required functionality for online art submissions.
The Approach
We developed a custom website using Wordpress, a content-managed system which allows Festival coordinators to easily edit parts of the site and add new events in the future. The website was supplemented by the inclusion of online competition entry, allowing artists to enter the Bay of Fires Art Prize by submitting high-quality images through the website. Following the development of the website, the combined use of social media and an e-newsletter were implemented to create awareness and increase traffic to the website.
The Results
The Winter Arts Festival’s new website made it easier for artists to enter the competition and created a space for guests to see all the information around the events happening during the festival. The use of Facebook event promotion increased the awareness of the events, reaching an average of over 2,000 people per day with information about the various events, a 188% increase in performance compared to 2018. The first year of accepting online entries was a success for Bay Of Fires, with the website facilitating over 160 entries, and one of the festival coordinators describing 2019 as one of their ‘best ever Winter Arts Festivals’.
"The Bay of Fires Winter Arts Festival has been the premier arts event in the North East of Tasmania for a number of years. After the 2018 festival the committee realised that it was time to do things differently, We spoke to at+m integrated marketing in Launceston to ascertain what they could do for us. After just one meeting we decided that at+m was just what we needed to assist us to promote the festival in different ways. The first step was the development of a new web site. The initial focus was on the Bay of Fires Arts Prize, followed by the promotion of many other aspects of the festival. Our new web site has attracted broad acclaim. at+m also guided the committee in harnessing the power of social media to increase awareness and interest in the festival.
"The Bay of Fires Winter Arts Festival Committee is delighted with the outcomes from the relationship we have established with at+m integrated marketing. They have helped us to greatly improve the productivity of committee members and we have no doubt that we are destined to have one of our best ever Winter Arts Festivals."