A website for an arthouse cinema Elektriteater

About

Elektriteater is the only arthouse cinema in Tartu. Their content focuses on Estonian (and, more broadly, European) feature films and documentaries. They opened in 2011 and are proud members of the Europa Cinemas Network. They differ from other cinemas with their diverse movie program that contains a large variety of film genres, including short films, animations, silent movie screenings with live music, etc. In addition, they also have frequent Q&A sessions with Estonian filmmakers. It is a cozy place where movies that would go unnoticed by mainstream cinemas can get their well-deserved screen time.

This project started as a pro-bono pet project for a few of us and ended up as a business opportunity for the whole team. We were driven by a love for films and enthusiasm for good user experiences, so we took it upon ourselves to create Elektriteater’s home page. We eventually ended up building them an almighty back-end system for ticket ordering, read more here .

Process

The main problem with the old home page was that it was outdated with a poorly optimized content management system. It was uncomfortable to use on smaller screens, time-consuming to manage, and did not reflect the awesomeness of their program. So, for the site’s look and feel, we wanted to enhance Elektriteater’s principle that the cinema experience does not start with pressing “play,” but rather begins when you walk through the cinema doors. We wanted to take that a step further and have the experience begin with browsing the site. The visual look was inspired by old movie theaters lined with eye-catching posters that create the same kind of excitement that candy boxes generate for kids. (You’ll want to try every single one of them!)

Results

Every month, they have an average of 47,000 visitors! That’s almost half of the population living in Tartu. We’ve received great feedback for the web and we were truly honored when the widely popular Estonian Black Nights Film Festival decided to sell their tickers through Elektriteater’s platform – as we heard, it was just so well done!

And although Elektriteater is one of a kind, their business model is comparable to many other smaller cinemas and theaters. That’s why we see it as a great opportunity to offer the same back-end solution to other similar businesses. Our goal is to make it easier for theaters and cinemas to handle the paperwork and sell tickets.

Ever felt that you’ve mastered telepathy? Well, that’s exactly what we felt like during our collaboration with Nope Creative. The webpage for our art-house cinema got a long needed refresh and we couldn’t have hoped for a better partner than Nope - their team was fully invested in solving all our design needs and UI problems that we didn’t even know existed. The designer showed a deep love for design and movies, understood our requirements and the result is even better that we could have dreamt of. Thank you!

Tartu Elektriteater