As I understand it information architecture is a way to organise the navigation and content of a website (this is needed to ensure overall usability) and it is important to note that content must be arranged in a way that makes it easy for users to find what they are looking for. I have done a lot of research into various event sites but I felt it was a good idea to go back and look at some of the bigger festival websites whilst focusing specifically on how these sites have managed and ordered content.
Source:http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/
Both Glastonbury and Reading are big popular music festivals (so it can be assumed that due to their size and popularity that they have been organised in a way that is the most usable).
Glastonbury's site has separated out their content into what forms their main headings, these very simple and straightforward titles lead to one page- this page may have additional side bar navigation with links to other pages but its main navigation is literally what you can see at the top of the page (its also a sticky nav bar which means that even when the pages are slightly longer its still easy to navigate to another section).
Reading's site works in a very similar manner (I would say that it has probably been organised a bit better than Glastonbury's but only because it has more content on it). Its main navigation matches Glastonbury's in terms of order (something I should consider as a template for mine) but it differs on the lineup page- it has a splash page with all the bands/musicians on and then when you click on that bands name it takes you to another page with more information- since my event is a one stage 2 day event (with between 8 and 10 bands) I think it would be good to have the lineup link to the external band pages - or at least link their websites to my site somehow (not least because this will help better optimise it).
Source:http://www.offf.ws/#/
I did have a brief look at a design festivals navigation and layout - just to cross reference - but I didn't find it as helpful because it had much smaller categories and segments than what a music festival event page will need. So I plan on mostly referring to the Glastonbury and Reading pages when I need to check my content organisation.
I made a few initial flow diagrams in my sketchbook - but I kept getting confused and wanting to move things so I instead made up a diagram in illustrator.
The top line is just a list of everything I need to include and plan to put on the individual pages (not as separate pages as actual content). I mostly copied my main heading navigation order from Glastonbury and Reading so I know that it has been arranged in order to ensure ease of use.
The second light pink diagram- is the one that I plan to follow (I created the last one to see if I could condense any of my pages but I think having all my sections as a part of the main navigation will ensure that my users can find what they are looking for better than condensing them into other sections). According to the brief we have to include a social and blog section - initially I would have liked to put the social media links as icons on main navigation - but I'm going to place them under contact for now just incase I can't find a theme that will let me do that. I also haven't really thought about what will go on my footer - if I have one- so I'm thinking that the contact section is probably the most interchangeable segment and if I do end up finding a theme that allows me to include a footer then the contact section can be placed on it (I have noticed that a lot of design festivals place contact and social media on their footers).
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