Sculpture by the Sea is an outdoor sculpture exhibition held annually at the iconic Bondi beach (Sydney) and Cottesloe beach (Perth) and for the first time in 2009, in Aarhus, Denmark.
The over-arching goal for the online channel for Sculpture by the Sea is not only to provide information to exhibiting artists and visitors about upcoming exhibitions but to showcase previous years works, sculptures for sale and to extend the strong physical Sculpture by the Sea community to the online environment. People have an emotional attachment to Sculpture by the Sea - it has often been referred to as "The People's" exhibition - works are displayed in landscapes that have rich physical communities and are accessible to all.
Long-term we want to ensure Sculpture by the Sea is a year-round experience - not just about the physical exhibitions throughout the year.
We worked with Sculpture by the Sea to align the site with their emotive brand and create an experience that revolved around both the primary goals of Sculpture by the Sea as well as those of visitors. We used our smartMOB platform to realise efficiencies in developing cross-platform content and functionality: PC site and a mobile site (with multiple device profiles).
Sculpture goes mobile
The aim of the mobile version of the site was to assist visitors on the ground at the exhibition: let them know which events were on that day, where to find food and drinks, public amenities, images of sculptures from the current exhibition and an integrated twitter stream that includes tweets from Sculpture by the Sea (@sculpturebysea) and all tweets that mention the event or used the official hashtag for the event.
Without a doubt the rise of the iPhone over the past 12 months has completely changed browser/usage behaviours of users. The iPhone made up 79% of mobile users who accessed the site via a handset and viewed all content. This included extensively consuming photographs of the sculptures in the exhibition via the integrated Flickr and official gallery.
Results
The site launched the day before the Bondi 2009 exhibition opened. In the first 4 weeks after launch:
- There was over 400GB of traffic through the site - over 400% increase on the same period for the Bondi 2008 exhibition.
- 300% increase on unique visitors for the same period in 2008 (during the Bondi exhibition).
- Over 3.5 million sculpture images viewed in the official image gallery across PC & mobile. This excludes the integrated Flickr photos of the Bondi 2009 exhibition posted by the community.
The increase in traffic can be attributed to:
- Implementation of a user-centred design approach.
- A robust site architecture and infrastructure
- Rich image galleries
- Regular content updates and cross-promotion of different content throughout the site to encourage visitors to explore all areas.
An augmented sculpture experience
For the Bondi 2009 exhibition MOB created a mobile AR experience using buildAR that highlighted various Points of Interest around the exhibition site, including sculptures (that linked to additional information about the sculpture and the artist), public amenities, the Sculpture Inside galleries, the information marquees and bus stops.
