A highlight of the coming spring will be the 40th Shetland Folk Festival, a hugely popular event we’re proud to have been involved with for a number of years.
Back in 2012, the festival committee commissioned us to design and build a new website to provide information about visiting and local artists, and to promote the programme of concerts. But, beyond this, they were also keen to move away from their long-standing, paper-based ticket sales process, which was cumbersome and admin heavy. We were tasked with replacing this with an entirely bespoke online system, designed to meet with the very specific needs of the festival and its many members.
The system NB developed significantly improved the customer experience for those buying memberships and tickets, speeding up the process and making the entire festival much more efficient to manage for the committee.
We’ve worked closely with the committee ever since, continually upgrading the website and improving the booking system to make use of newly available technologies, and to respond to suggestions and feedback. The committee keep the content fresh via the easy-to-use content management system, and we assist where required with the ticket sales process to ensure everything runs smoothly.
We are particularly involved when tickets first go on sale to the festival's early members. This eager audience is fully informed about the visiting acts from the listings on the site, and they are hugely motivated to secure their preferred concert tickets at the earliest possible opportunity. As a result, the website and booking system experience a significant spike in traffic around the time that the ticket sales officially open. We’ve implemented a range of effective (and cost-effective) measures to ensure that the site can handle this period of high demand, and the NB team is always on standby to immediately troubleshoot any unforeseen issues.
Diane Wood from the Shetland Folk Festival Committee said: "The combination of the ongoing commitment from NB Communication to support the festival, it’s local knowledge and the understanding of the festival vision makes this partnership pretty unique. This collaboration wouldn’t be the same with any other company. The Shetland Folk Festival are hugely grateful for this and hope that the relationship continues for many years to come."
Echoing Diane's feedback on the long-standing partnership, NB’s managing director David Nicol said: “We love working with the Shetland Folk Festival committee. They do such a great job organising an amazing weekend of music, fun and laughter which is regarded, quite rightly, a highlight of the Shetland calendar. I’m really proud that the website and booking system play such a big part in the success of the festival today. It’s always a little bit hectic when tickets first go on sale but hopefully we’ll help as many people as possible to get their first-choice tickets again this year.”
To book your tickets to this year’s event, head to the Shetland Folk Festival website. (Note that early memberships are on sale throughout February - we recommend you buy one). And, to get you in the mood, check out the 2020 Shetland Folk Festival playlist on Spotify.