Getting Webby with It

Forty-seven percent of event planners consider online registration to be the tool they most want to include in their event websites, according to the 2007 Event Solutions Annual Forecast. In the survey, online registration was followed by e-newsletters, a “my events” feature and message boards.

The same survey also revealed that 33 percent of event planners considered the development of online registration to be the most promising recent advancement in Web technology. E-newsletters, webcasts, interactive capability and video clips followed this in order of importance.

However, these are the ingredients that are used to construct a site, much like nails and wood are used to build a house. But what philosophy should be followed? What are the guidelines? Without proper direction, these technological tools would be as useless as nails and wood without a blueprint.

For answers, Event Solutions went to the experts — in this case, some of the Web design whizzes responsible for building the websites that were nominated for 2007 Webbys, one of the Internet’s highest honors, in the “event” category.

Content Drives Design

Springbox, based in Austin, Texas, built the website www.lollapalooza.com for Lollapalooza, the alternative music festival slated to be held this August in Chicago.

The site features a series of cell phone-like screens rising from a lunar surface as stars twinkle overhead; each screen covers a particular category, like merchandise or tickets. The largest screen displays rotating photos of some of the bands performing. Other buttons, designed to resemble planets, lead visitors to completely separate areas for “Community” and “Experience.” One of the screens invites users to build their own rock star, reflecting the current popularity of avatars.

“In a good website, content drives design,” says Chris Mayfield, the project designer and Springbox art director. “You have to try and create an effortless user experience.”

While the Lollapalooza site is filled with numerous unique and interactive concepts, Mayfield noted that this end result came about after numerous other good ideas and designs were discarded as either unworkable or unsuitable. He cautioned against trying to shoehorn a good idea into a concept it doesn’t fit.

“Sometimes a great idea doesn’t work,” he says. “You have to know when to move on.”

Because there’s so much content on the Lollapalooza site, Mayfield says, it was important to break it up. However, the scattering of information had to fit in with the site’s main purpose, and that is to support the event. The eye is immediately drawn to the site’s center, where the event name, date and location are prominently displayed. Event sites should never be too clever that they overshadow the event.

Another thing that drives an event site, he added, is the strength of the brand name. Since Lollapalooza is such a well-known brand, it was imperative that it not be obscured. Prominently displaying the brand name reinforces the site’s purpose.

While Mayfield used his experience in building the site, he also listened to the client. Lollapalooza wanted a strong visual image, and rejected text-only concepts like scrolling.

“Structure, navigation, content, flexibility…all these are important [for an event website],” he says. “You have to know what your ultimate goal is.”

Reflect the Event

The BBC’s Electric Proms, a music festival held in October 2006, is another Webby-nominated site, at www.bbc.co.uk/electricproms. Like Lollapalloza, the site is heavy on visuals, showing photos of various bands that performed at the festival. Since Electric Proms also featured film, however, there are ways to access trailers and other information related to music-oriented movies.

Like Lollapalooza, the Electric Proms site immediately grabs and pulls in the viewer — and that’s no accident, said Andrew Barron, senior producer of major music events at BBC Audio & Music Interactive in London.

A good event website should “reflect the feel of the event,” he says. “It needs to share the excitement of what is going to happen.”

Barron used his experience to help him and his team construct the site. Yet he also pointed out that throughout the site-building process, they tested prototypes on potential users. This helped them determine what worked and what did not.

“The visual look and feel [of a website] is very important,” he says. “However, it needs to be clean, clear and easy to use. Often websites get overloaded with ‘bells and whistles’ that make the website pretty and clever but hard to use.”

Something often overlooked for event sites is that the site can still be utilized even after the event is over. For a week after the event, the Electric Proms site displayed video of every performance. This allowed those who could not attend the event but were still interested to experience it — and helped build an audience for the next event.

“The overriding aim [with an event website],” explains Barron, “is to create something that all users with different Web experience can easily use and enjoy.”

Simple and Attractive

From Texturemedia, based in Boulder, Colo., comes a third Webby-nominated site, www.kellyslaterinvitational.com, which was created for the Kelly Slater 2006 Invitational, a surfing competition sponsored by surfing legend Kelly Slater to benefit the preservation of the ocean’s coral reefs.

The site is a mixture of surfing competition and fun, featuring visuals of participating surfers as well as information about a reef-preservation organization. The entire site has a water theme, and clicking on different buttons produces a wave or water effect.

According to Texture Media Creative Director David Schell, one of the cardinal rules of event websites is to keep them simple and easy.

“Keep it simple and attractive,” he said. “It should be easy to use and easy to navigate.”

Also important is to know and understand the audience to whom the website is directed. While websites for younger audiences might be able to get away with fancier footwork because young people are more Internet-savvy, websites targeted at older folks might have to cut back on the techniques and tools used to build the site because the audience is less comfortable with the Internet.

For instance, the Kelly Slater site uses Macromedia Flash Player 8, which can be downloaded if necessary. Young people won’t think twice about downloading it; an older age group might not want to.

“The Kelly Slater site is aimed at the MTV generation and those younger,” says Schell. “Make sure that the information presented [for an event website] is in a suitable format for the audience.”
While the two music sites did not require much data gathering beforehand, the Kelly Slater site required a “tremendous amount” of competitive research so that Schell and his team knew what other surfing sites were out there. Data gathering before an event site is built can be a critical step.

To keep the flow of information logical and unencumbered, Schell white-boarded it so that potential trouble spots could be identified early on. In addition to his experience, he was able to call upon the expertise of someone who was a surfer to assure that what was going on the website was accurate.

“Know what is real [for your event website],” Schell says. “Back it up with logic.”

Links to Webby Award winner and nominee websites are available at www.webbyawards.com.