Rainbow Serpent Festival started as a small gathering in a secluded clearing 17 years ago and is now an internationally recognised, multifaceted weekend of dance, colour, expression and celebration. People travel from all over the world to western Victoria to experience what some have said is the best outdoor festival of its type in the southern hemisphere.
heiDigital has been integral with the design, development and management of the Rainbow Serpent Festival website for the last ten years.
Originally created in Joomla, the website was moved across to Drupal in 2011 when the artist application system became digital and a whole new world of database driven code was explored. Drupal is perfect for crunching through heavy database codes the 15 different types of applications generate. Creating a seamless user experience was our main priority. The 30,000+ users can now create an account on the website and have all of their previous year’s applications archived so they can access and resubmit at the click of a finger.
Users can comment on news articles and forum topics and there is also a staff forum for private department conversations. All staff members have access to their department’s application forms and, once an application is approved, the applicant’s data can be viewed by the public after the click of just one button by festival staff.
An eCommerce shop is also available for users to purchase merchandise and many custom made plug-ins have been created to view social media channels such as spotify, youtube and instagram. Our custom built instagram module was the first of its kind in the world, which we made available to other Drupal developers to implement in their own websites … we are all about spreading the love!
Along with the website, our resident social media guru Tim Harvey manages the Rainbow Serpent Festival facebook page (with over 130,000 active members), Instagram, Twitter and Google + accounts. Our digital team also manages tickets sales and staff email accounts. Our copywriting superstar, Sandra Purvinas, liaises with media to organise PR for the event. Sandra works alongside our design team who manages all of the festival’s print requirements such as promotional brochures, billboards, merchandise and the 68 page souvenir program provided to event participants every year.
As part of our total digital package, we also produce the retrospective videos on the festival youtube account and curate the soundcloud music account.