Background

Vivid Sydney is Australia’s largest festival; for 3 weeks in May, Sydney plays host to 400 events spanning light, music and ideas. The festival has shone brightly for many years, but now in its 11th year, research showed people were beginning to tire of the festival - they did not believe they would see or experience anything new. Users were also not seeing the value in the website as a tool to inspire, plan and then book their Vivid trip. We needed to work closely with Destination NSW to reinvigorate the website to deliver to user needs and give Vivid Sydney the brilliant digital experience it deserved. Our key objectives for 2019: More meaningful personalisation A focus on Vivid curated programs Increase ticket sales

Describe the creative idea

Taking user research learnings on board, we crafted our UX design criteria. This criteria was our checklist which informed our creative solution, ‘Make Vivid Yours’. Mobile First Renewed focus on mobile Personalisation Driving users to sign up across multiple platforms and points on site Discovery through search and filters Smart, exploratory search inputs to guide users to the content they need in an intuitive way Contextual content Consistently updated homepage with upcoming events, powered by the user’s MyVivid preferences Interactivity More interaction states for a sense of playfulness and to increase engagement We refreshed the brand design, remixing existing brand elements to breathe new life into the 11 year old festival and to align with a more modern design aesthetic. We integrated user profiles with Salesforce and uncovered key moments within the user journey to re-engage with targeted eDMs to keep site visitors engaged before, during and after the festival.

Describe the strategy

Each Vivid Sydney event attracts a unique audience, therefore the festival appeals to a general cross-section of Australia’s population. An independent UX audit by Mobile Experience of the 2018 site drew our attention to a few key improvements to be made to improve the user journey. We also conducted user research into key behaviours when planning and attending Vivid Sydney. We spoke to mums, empty nesters, SINKS and DINKS to figure out their pain points and identify key opportunities along their journey where we could increase engagement and simplify the experience. With such a broad target, our strategy focussed on personalisation. The idea of ‘Make Vivid yours’ was a way to ensure every user is getting exactly what they need from the site. By prioritising setting of preferences, we would achieve our vision of the site being fully utilised as a tool to inspire, plan and book a Vivid trip.

Describe the execution

Wanting to maximise the time available to us, we kicked off with a workshop with the Destination NSW team in August, 2018. By September 2019, we were in our UX phase, conducting user research, wireframing up the site, testing with real users and then moving into design. From there, we worked closely to devise the technical approach, as 2019 marked a migration for Destination NSW from Drupal7 to Drupal8, which we would need to consider in our development sprints. The team tackled the build together, with us delivering a React powered frontend and the Destination NSW’s developers delivering an API-driven backend. Destination NSW’s developers worked from our studios several days a week to increase velocity, while fostering an awesome team vibe. The site went live to the public on March 19th, and was live until the festival finished on Jun 15th.

List the results

The recently released Vivid 2019 results hit on our focus of personalisation, increasing the number of signups and driving ticket sales. With the integration of Eventbrite into the site, we were able to create a seamless checkout process for the user, never having to leave the site for ticket purchases for Ideas events, with the module embedded directly into the site. The results this year ticked all of our objectives: 14% increase in site visits 26% increase in leads 159% increase in events added to ‘My Vivid’ 137% increase in interaction with ‘Personalise MyVivid’ 48% increase in ‘Buy tickets’ after Eventbrite integration All major events sold out 41% increase in database sign ups to MyVivid 22% increase in users creating a MyVivid profile