With festival kickoff just weeks away, the all-new 2015 Sydney Film Festival website has launched to the biggest day of sales on record. It’s a landmark achievement for the 62-year-old festival, which has become one of Sydney’s most revered cultural events.

TheFARM has been Sydney Film Festival’s digital partner since 2011. With the last iteration of the website setting the benchmark in Australia for festival websites, Sydney Film Festival asked TheFARM to help them do it again.

Client and agency worked collaboratively to redesign and develop the new website as a one-stop-shop for both film enthusiasts and those new to the festival. With over 250 films screening at the festival, and so much information to sift through, the team wanted to ensure that the online experience was conducive to user happiness, a celebration of the love of film and an online experience true to the festival, one where you could practically smell the theatre popcorn. TheFARM took the Sydney Film Festival team on a journey to do just that with their Product Design Sprint process: a five-day-series of workshops involving design thinking, rapid prototyping, stakeholder and customer interviews.

The result? A fresh new look with smart filtered search, offering users simple options to easily discover and select screenings from the extensive film and event schedule. Designed as the comprehensive guide to the festival, to work across all devices, the site includes special events, film guides, venue information, dining packages and screening times, along with online ticket purchase options for both single screenings and ‘Flexipasses’ for multiple screenings.

Craig Donarski, marketing manager at Sydney Film Festival said, “Simpler, faster, and easier to navigate – a huge leap forward for the festival and the thousands of people who attend. We are still reeling from how TheFARM managed to build a whole new site in such a short space of time and have it launch on time, on budget and fully functional.”