American RevivalAmerican Revival: A Festival Site Built for Belonging
TypeCommunity
rolesWeb Designer
Squarespace Developer
Creative Direction & StrategyBittersweet Creative
live websiteThe Overview
American Revival is a traveling music and arts festival that brings neighbors together for joy, connection, and small acts of service. In partnership with Bittersweet Creative, we designed and developed the festival’s website: a home base that carries the spirit of the event online and invites people to take part, whether they come to a show or not.
The Challenge
American Revival is growing city by city, and the site had to grow with it. It needed to feel like a movement, not a ticketing page, and welcome first-time visitors, longtime supporters, press, and potential helpers alike. The usual nonprofit template, heavy on statistics and donation prompts, would have worked against the warmth at the heart of the festival. The design had to:
Make upcoming dates and tickets easy to find in seconds.
Keep each city’s event feeling distinct without fragmenting the brand.
Turn a one-night experience into an ongoing invitation to stay involved.
The Approach
Working from Bittersweet Creative’s direction, we built the site around the festival’s three pillars: Joy, Action, and Connection. Each one has a clear place in the experience, from performers and artists, to simple pledges like volunteering or calling a family member, to meeting the helpers already caring for your community.
We kept the structure simple. Five pages cover the whole story: About, Events, Stories, The Experience, and Stay Involved. A visitor can go from “what is this?” to “I’m in” without hunting for the next step.
Hi-Fidelity Wireframes
Design & Development
An editorial, human-first look. Large photography, generous space, and bold type let the festival’s crowds, performers, and moments do the persuading instead of numbers and badges.
Motion across the whole site. Scroll and hover animations run through every page, giving the experience a sense of movement that fits a touring festival. Content reveals as visitors scroll, and interactions respond to the cursor.
Postcards by city. Each event reveals its own postcard artwork on hover, so every stop feels local while the brand stays one. New cities slot into the same template.
Custom Squarespace development. Custom CSS shaped the header, navigation, animations, and layout details to match the design precisely, while keeping the platform easy for the team to manage themselves.
Press and stories in one place. A Stories page gathers coverage and reflections from the road, building credibility with new visitors.
A clear path to stay involved. Newsletter signup, a “Be the helper” call to action, and donation links extend the experience past the night of the show.
Final Homepage
The Impact
The site gave American Revival a digital home that matches the feeling in the room: warm, welcoming, and built for the people who show up. In its first month, it drew 1.3K visitors, and American Revival appeared in 88% of branded ChatGPT prompts, so people asking AI assistants about the festival by name get accurate answers.
Key Outcomes:
1.3K visitors in the first month after launch.
88% AI search visibility in ChatGPT for branded prompts within a month of launch across 10 prompts tested.
A flexible template that adds new cities without a redesign.
A clear path from first visit to tickets, newsletter, or volunteering.
