The Project

A brand that moves crowds both in-person and online

How many brands create as much emotional connection with their audiences as Rock in Rio? The project is responsible for translating all this passion into its digital presence, which, since 2017, has been managed by a proprietary event platform, instead of creating specific hotsites for each edition. The strategy stemmed from the grandeur and uniqueness of Rock in Rio and was guided by the different moments in user's interactions with the festival.

The Challenge

A magical and modular stage for multiple moments and editions

Two major challenges were revealed at the outset of the project: the first functional and the second emotional. The first is building an evolving platform to accommodate different moments and editions within the Rock in Rio event lineup. The second challenge is for the website to reflect Rock in Rio's ambition for grandeur and originality, especially in the lineup experience, which will unfold over time.

The Process

Intersecting the user journey with the festival journey

When we began modeling the user journeys, we realized that most of the tasks to be performed depended on moments very well defined by the roadmap for each edition of the festival. For example, when the Lisbon edition is announced in a few months, the Rio edition is on fire, with tickets on sale. So we began mapping the user journeys, within each of the seven moments defined for an edition. The website modules are reorganized by the tasks to be performed in each of these moments.

Additionally, an in-depth analysis of the previous website's metrics was conducted over six editions of Rock in Rio, since 2012. Among all the discoveries, the disproportionate importance of the lineup (festival attractions) stood out, which therefore became the project's main challenge.

Product Key

Bye Bye Mosaic

Offering the most memorable lineup experience of any festival in the world was the goal. Researching over 30 festival websites, we found that most worked with a band mosaic, a model we needed to move away from. Others published the festival poster itself as a static lineup page. None of the solutions we researched seemed to deliver what we wanted: visual hierarchy, filtering or sorting options, and emotional connection.

We developed three prototypes with different approaches and chose the most typographical version, which started with a hierarchical list divided by day and revealed full-screen images of each band upon interaction. We used a standard sorting by day, highlighting the main attractions and thinking about personas who had purchased a day ticket. Using filters, users could organize the attractions by stage or in chronological order.

The Solution

Rock in Rio's digital identity

The design system features a repertoire of modules that span the entire width of both mobile and desktop screens. This facilitated the adaptation of storytelling to the festival's different moments. For example, a module featuring historical videos that is featured prominently on the homepage during the "historic" moment (when there is no announced or current attraction) moves to the bottom of the page during the "announced" moment (when a new edition of the festival is announced).

The main challenge of the design system was to balance the imagery, particularly that of the bands and artists, who submit completely different promotional photos, lacking the Rock in Rio personality. We quickly realized it would be crazy to propose photos produced exclusively for the festival, so we came up with the idea of ​​artificially creating a visual unity between the images. The images were then uploaded as normal, but their colors were manipulated by software on the frontend. In addition to balancing the imagery, resulting in a consistent and attractive presentation model, the manipulation allowed us to create interesting transition and mouse-over effects.

Results

Multi-festival Platform

Instead of simply a website for the event, the result was a platform capable of creating events within a predefined design system. Each event entity can be configured for different moments. Since 2017, the platform has hosted the websites of different editions of Rock in Rio (Rio), as well as Rock in Rio Lisbon and Game XP, an event by the same Dreamers Group, which took place in the same Olympic Park as Rock in Rio. In each edition of the event, the website mobilizes 8 million users. A true (virtual) city of Rock.