Case Study · Festival & Events

A landmark Toronto festival, with a website to match.

The Lavazza IncluCity Festival (ICFF) is one of Toronto’s signature cultural events. Digital 6ix gave it a website to match, rebuilding the experience from the backend up, prototype by prototype, into a fast, modern, and easy-to-navigate site the festival team is proud to share. In the three months around launch, the site pulled 47.9K clicks from Google search and served 82K people.

Client

Lavazza IncluCity Festival

Industry

Film Festival & Events

Services

Web Redesign, SEO, GEO

Annual Attendance

250,000+

Year

2026

The Challenge

The festival had outgrown its website.

ICFF had spent years becoming one of Toronto’s signature cultural events, drawing more than 250,000 people a year to the Distillery District and beyond. The site had not kept pace. Every year brought more films, more venues, and more people trying to find them, and the structure underneath was never built for that scale.

The clearest evidence was not in the analytics. It was the phone ringing at the festival office with questions the website should have answered: what is playing, where, and how do I get a ticket. Every one of those calls was a visitor the site had failed, and staff time spent on something a well-built page does for free.

Underneath, the foundation had drifted too. The server was running an unsupported PHP version, and Search Console had roughly 250 mobile URLs flagged as needing improvement on Core Web Vitals, on a site whose audience is overwhelmingly on a phone, often standing in the Distillery District looking for the next screening.

→ Phone lines fielding questions the site should have answered
→ Roughly 250 mobile URLs failing Core Web Vitals
→ An unsupported PHP version and an ageing server environment
→ A growing lineup outpacing the page structure built to hold it
→ No structured data, so search and AI engines could not read the events
→ A mobile experience for an audience that is almost entirely mobile

The Approach

Rebuilt from the backend up, prototype by prototype.

Fix the foundation

We went into the AWS backend and updated the server environment, including the outdated PHP version, so the site was secure, stable, and ready for a modern build.

Prototype first

Before building anything live, we designed prototypes of each page so the festival team could see and approve the direction, no guesswork, no surprises.

Build page by page

We developed the approved designs into fast, responsive pages, transforming the site one section at a time into a cohesive modern experience.

Optimize for search and AI

From May 2026 we layered in technical SEO and GEO, including JSON-LD structured data across the lineup, events, and sponsor pages, so the festival could be found on Google and cited by AI search, not just seen by people who already knew the URL.

What We Built

A modern festival site, end to end.

Filterable film lineup

A dynamic lineup page pulling live from the WordPress REST API, so films and events stay current. It became the single most-visited page on the site.

Custom navigation

A bespoke header with mega-panel dropdowns and a smooth mobile drawer for easy browsing.

Interactive festival map

A Leaflet map of the Distillery District with named walking routes to guide attendees between venues.

Splash intro animation

A polished intro animation, tuned across browsers and devices, to set the tone the moment visitors arrive.

Technical SEO and schema

JSON-LD structured data across key pages so search and AI engines understand the events and lineup.

Email list rescue

Cleaned the mailing list of bot signups, enabled double opt-in and reCAPTCHA to protect deliverability.

The Results So Far

Faster, findable, and easier to use.

47.9K

Clicks from Google search, off 672K impressions at a 7.1% CTR

456 / 456

Mobile URLs passing Core Web Vitals, up from roughly 250 flagged as needing improvement. Zero poor

17.3%

Homepage bounce rate. More than 4 in 5 visitors engaged rather than left

82K

People reached this year, 44% of them arriving through Google organic

Fewer

Support calls to the festival office, visitors found what they needed on the site itself

Interim figures. The 2026 festival is still running and SEO and GEO work began in May 2026, so these numbers cover roughly two months of optimization on a live event. Search data from Google Search Console (April 14 to July 15, 2026), audience data from Google Analytics 4 (January 1 to July 15, 2026), Core Web Vitals from the mobile report as of July 2026. Full-season results to follow.

AI Search Visibility (GEO)

Cited by the AI engines, not just crawled.

Mentions

+12.2%

Times the festival came up in AI assistant answers about Toronto film, culture, and things to do.

Citations

115

+35.3%

Times an AI engine linked the site directly as its source. The metric that actually sends people to you.

Cited Pages

+29%

Distinct pages being cited, not just the homepage. The schema work made the lineup and event pages quotable on their own.

People increasingly ask an AI assistant what is on this weekend rather than typing it into Google. That answer is assembled from sources the model can parse and trust. The JSON-LD structured data we added across the lineup, events, and sponsor pages is what makes ICFF one of those sources, so the festival shows up in the answer itself instead of hoping someone scrolls to a link.

AI visibility tracked across the major assistants over the period shown, with percentage changes against the prior period.

“

After the new site went live, we noticed we were not getting the usual flood of phone calls asking where to find things. The flow and structure of the website were done so well that people could find everything themselves.

Mara Cataldi

Managing Director, Lavazza IncluCity Festival

The Work

Before and after.

The line-up: from one day at a time to the whole festival at a glance

The 2025 line-up showed a single day per tab. Seeing a festival that runs for three weeks meant tabbing through a date strip that scrolled off the screen, with no way to filter by category, venue, country, or genre. The rebuilt page shows everything at once, filters on four axes, and surfaces Few Left and Sold Out badges at the browse stage. It is now the most-visited page on the site.

Before · 2025 ICFF 2025 line-up page showing one day of events at a time

Three events visible. One day per tab, on a date strip that scrolls off screen.

After · 2026 ICFF 2026 line-up page with filters and full grid

Full grid, four filters, live from the WordPress REST API. Sold Out and Few Left surfaced while browsing.

The homepage: from brochure to front door

The 2025 homepage led with a full-bleed hero and three rows of sponsor logos before a visitor reached anything they could act on. The 2026 build puts dates, attendance, View Line-Up and Box Office above the fold, then organizes the festival into Special Programs and Beyond Toronto so people can find their way in.

Before · 2025 ICFF 2025 homepage

Line-up reachable only below the hero and sponsor row.

After · 2026 ICFF 2026 homepage

Primary actions above the fold.

Navigation organized around the visitor

The mega-panel groups the festival by what someone is trying to do: Film & Industry, Art & Music, and a Plan Your Visit column answering the exact questions that used to reach the festival office by phone. Our Theatre, How to Festival, Festival Map.

After · 2026

View Full Line-Up as a primary action from anywhere on the site.

Want a site your team is proud of?

We rebuild outdated sites into fast, modern experiences that get found and get results. Let’s talk about yours.

Book a Free Strategy Call →