The Brief
The South African Book Fair, managed and run by the South African Book Development Council (SABDC), plays a pivotal role in the overall development of our nation’s book sector.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 Book Fair was not able to take place as a physical event. The SABDC approached Realm Digital to assist them in transforming the South African Book Fair (SABF) into a digital event.
The Solution
The project kicked off with two half-day discovery workshops, facilitated by Realm Digital, to help the team unpack the business goals and requirements. All the feedback was documented by Realm. A Project Charter included the project objectives, approach and relevant stakeholders. This enabled us to agree on prioritised functionality, and a development Roadmap.
The second phase of the project looked at mapping out the various pages and functionalities required on the website. Provision was made for Quicket integration, to allow for easy purchase and managing of tickets. In order to provide a seamless event experience, the user flow included event programme listings, a detailed marketplace listing, a detailed list of all the exhibitors, as well as featured authors.
The third phase of the project looked to enhance the website’s performance, to improve the sites speed.
The Result
Realm Digital assisted with the following:
- Helped to conceptualise the SABF Online event in terms of how it will run and how to solve certain business issues
- Managing the engagement with the ticketing partner
- Consulting to SABDC on the technology requirements needed to run the event
- Designing and building the system, screens and integrations required to run the event
- Assisting with management and monitoring of the technology during the event.
The Virtual SABF 2020 had to be conceptualised and implemented in a short space of time. Realm Digital was fully on board to make it happen and was as invested as we were in the success of the project. Many parts had to be integrated to make the diverse offering of the SABF work virtually, and Simon and his team went beyond the project to ensure everything worked well together. We look forward to continuing our digital journey with Realm Digital in 2021 and beyond.