BVCA Summit 2019 Website

We’ve worked with BVCA for a number of years, supporting the development of their main website and other smaller projects such as the IPEV website. So, when BVCA approached us to create the campaign microsite for their 2019 Summit conference, we were excited to bring their vision to life.

BVCA Summit is the BVCA’s key flagship event on the calendar held every October. The event attracts leading figures from across the globe within the business, finance, and politics industries. Heavily promoted throughout the year at other events, through direct mailings, and advertisements in event programmes, BVCA required an outstanding microsite which would capture the event’s high profile and drive event bookings. Our objectives for the project were simple:

• Develop and design a microsite which displayed the two-day event in an effortless, but attractive manner,
• A focus on improving user experience,
• Increase awareness of the Summit 2019 event,
• Represent and reflect the theme of 2020+ Vision.

Since the 2018 Summit event was such a huge success, BVCA asked us to redesign a new microsite for the 2019 conference. We were confident that we could continue to drive really positive results for BVCA.

We focused on a design that would work well across platforms, concentrating heavily on user experience. The site needed to be highly useful and display relevant information such as agendas, sponsors, and speakers, for each day of the event – but it also needed to be easy to navigate through and consume on mobile devices. Our design process was mobile-first from the ground up.

A strong visual style was required which would fit the theme of 2020+ Vision. Therefore, we needed to find a balance aesthetically between being attractive to high-profile users, but still being really simple to use. We chose the large moving graphic of a camera lens to feature prominently on the homepage as this really represented the notion of vision, with an almost futuristic feel. This was also immediately eye-catching as soon as a user landed on the site.

Having a really simple timeline feature for each day’s agenda worked well too. This made it much easier from a user’s perspective to find the sessions they were interested in, see what times things were taking place, and switch between each day painlessly. The booking process was made much simpler, and event tiles on the homepage were created for easier viewing.

The results from the campaign site were fantastic, with highlights including:

• 1000+ delegates across the two days,
• 37,925 pageviews across www.bvca.co.uk/summit,
• 13,708 pageviews of the homepage and sponsors page,
• 89,775 Tweet impressions,
• 633 Tweet engagements and 217 clicks,
• 404 Tweets posted using #BVCASummit2019

Cantarus has also designed the 2020 Summit microsite for BVCA’s upcoming digital event later this year, so be sure to go and check it out.