The Australian Burlesque Festival is back! Bigger an better than ever. Now in it’s third year, and with more cities added.
The ABF team wanted something more grown up this year. They worked with Kathy St. Clair (check out her postcards) to produce the logo rework and titling, then Artballs used the branding colour scheme and created new site layouts.
The site was extremely successful last year, and as mentioned here, top of Google for a lot of Australian Burlesque related search terms. This is in part due to SEO management being an integral part of the site structure (admittedly it is also in part of Artballs nagging advising the team to post more! 😉
The site flow has been turbocharged based on looking at the site analytics. The site still features the ‘high street’ banner system from last year. This is basically a cute looking column of banner ads (not showing on this screengrab – 2012 sponsors live shortly!). Rather than have annoying and intrusive ads within the page, Artballs came up with the High Street idea – of putting all the banners together, all on, all the time. Audacious, but it had the feel of shopping on a high street, hence the clever name!
The ads were very positively received displayed in this way and got huge click throughs.
If your business is involved in burlesque, cabaret, costume or make up (headline sponsor was Illamasqua last year), his site is THE top online advertising/sponsorship destination in Australia right now.
Just Google ‘Australian Burlesque’ if you don’t believe us!
Now here’s the really fun stuff. The site navigation has been improved. It is easier to navigate and find things, and on the back, easier to update too – bonus!
Each city was represented in the header last year, and this year we had the cunning idea of incorporating the city names directly into a secondary ‘Buy Tickets’menu bar. We used a 1930s style ‘feathered’ ticket office arrow to give it that subtle ‘romance of travelling’ hint! So, you not only see which cities the festival comes to this year, but the city names are functional too!
The menu code design improves Google sitelinks – Buy tickets now shows – pow!
The slideshow is fully iPad/touchscreen compatible and the description text (showing on the Google screengrab) is lifted straight out of the user editable animated slidewhow – see SEO built right in!
Our favourite feature is the map – which features event dates and ticket links. We think it is the easiest ticket system we’ve ever come across! You just roll over the city stars and the show dates magically appear. Clicking the star gives you full show info and a ticket link. Voila!
Trumpet blowing, but Artballs is about innovation and fun.
If you are in Australia between 7th–24th of June, the Australian Burlesque Festival is the hottest ticket in town.
Australian Burlesque Festival 2012 website
Wanna see the old site?