what new features....?

[eFestivals]

eFestivals is finally having a makeover, and they'll be a nice new shiny version coming soon. The changes will be to both the forums and to the main part of the site.

I don't guarantee that all suggestions will be incorporated, and it's quite possible that the changes won't be what you'll be expecting, but these things have all been given a lot of thought both from the perspective of site users and to ensure that eFestivals continues to strongly support the UK's festival scene (as well as the best of overseas festivals that people from the UK are likely to have an interest in).

The makeover will have a number of changes and new bits and pieces, and i'd like to think that I've taken on board many of the suggestions that have been made over the years, but it's of course very possible that some have been forgotten or overlooked, so this is your chance to make any suggestions you might have that will improve your experience of eFestivals and your enjoyment of festivals - so give 'em to me.

[timespeedsup]

1. Link each festival review to a thread on its forum page - so that people can comment/debate the review - at least where the fest has a forum. Or have a comments box underneath the review as per the blogs. Similarly comments for festival photo galleries, if nothing else to give efests further ideas for the Xmas calendar.

2. Under each festival description and each festival review, include suggestions of similar festivals.

3. Have a better festival search facility. You've got some basics but you could do better. For instance, in terms of geographical area, should be able to have a facility to enter your postcode and search from within a set radius of that point. Would be useful to have a family-friendly component, max number of punters, a walk-from-car-to-camp component, an all-night-or-not component etc but that all depends on how efficient it would be to set up compared to likely use.

4. An email update option for when there's news on your favourite fests. Much like if you subscribe to a forum thread, but get efestivals to email you promptly if there's news on 'your' festivals.

Does that help?

Oh yes, bring back efests radio too

[eFestivals]

thanks for the comments, they'll be kept in mind.

[PeterD]

When do you see them going live?

[eFestivals]

see what going live?

[thegremlin_1999]

ooooooh, RSS feeds for news and maybe threads on the forum

[eFestivals]

ooooooh, RSS feeds for news and maybe threads on the forum

they'll defo be an RSS feed of eFestivals news. There may be other feeds as well.

[kerplunk]

Small thing perhaps but I've always found the "Festivals" drop down menu rather busy and hard to read with the repeated use of the word 'Festival' on almost every line.

We know it's a festival website so 'news', 'reviews', 'photos' etc don't need the word festival in front of them and it would be easier to select what you're after without it.

[eFestivals]

Small thing perhaps but I've always found the "Festivals" drop down menu rather busy and hard to read with the repeated use of the word 'Festival' on almost every line.

We know it's a festival website so 'news', 'reviews', 'photos' etc don't need the word festival in front of them and it would be easier to select what you're after without it.

noted.

[PeterD]

The website Neil, when do you see the updated version going live?

[eFestivals]

it depends when it gets completed enough for it to be able to go live.

All of the bits of the new site might not have been completed at the point it does get made live - as long as it has all of the functionality of the existing site completed, then it'll get made live and any other bits will be dealt with over the following weeks & months.

I'm hoping that it'll be sometime between 1st and 5th Jan. The website might get taken off-line completely for an hour or two while all of the new site is put in place, tho it might get done in a more adhoc manner, I've not decided yet.

[eFestivals]

I'm nearly there with all the bits and pieces for the new website, but it's now looking like the new site will be launched early next week. Apologies for the slight delay.