DCB Agency

With A-list acts Kutless, Stellar Kart, Everlife and Disciple, Platform Management's new booking agency needed a great web site that not only looked good, but did some serious heavy lifting on the business side. Platform's Darren Tyler called Generator to create the first web site for DCBAgency.com to put them on the concert booking map.

Design

DCB wanted a professional, corporate image for their new booking agency, so we stuck with a fairly conventional color palette. However, they didn't want the site to be your standard "boring" booking agency site. We kept the simple, clean layout, but we spiced it up with a Flash logo in the header and a Flash-based music video player in the sidebar. A simple white page background allowed their collection of band photos to stand out and become the star of the DCB show.

Sidebar video player

Without a doubt, the main attraction to the DCB Agency web site is the video player in the sidebar. Built in Flash, the video player streams directly from the Generator servers with no lag time. Buttons under the screen allow the visitor to slect the video they want to watch.

In addition, the videos don't start playing until the user selects one — so the office surfer won't unexpectedly blast a Kutless video from their cubicle. Nice rollover effects indicate when the user is hovering over an active button.

Sidebar Flash artist buttons

We believe that the most important part of a good web design is smart, easy and effective navigation. Good navigation begins with the main navigation scheme, but also includes deeper sections and pages that certain levels of visitors are likely to which they may want immediate access.

At DCBAgency.com, it was pretty obvious to us that the most important information to this site's user group is artist information. That's why we built Flash buttons into the sidebar that include interactive rollovers, as well as direct links to each artist's biography, photos and videos and calendar. We also added a direct link to the booking form, so a potential sponsor is just one click away from successfully scheduling one of DCB's artists for a concert.

Booking form

Forms aren't the kind of thing that designers like to draw attention to, but they are an absolutely crucial part of the concert booking business. Agencies need to collect a huge amount of data before booking a show. As a result most booking forms are confusing and redundant.

Armed with a wheel barrow full of "must have" form fields, we created a booking form that is incredibly easy to navigate, fill out and submit. Though DCB is requiring a veritible ton of info, the form's ease of use and logical section headings keep the customer moving through the form in good pace, giving them a sense of progress as the move down the form.

The booking form proved so successful that the client proudly informed us that they had paid for the entire site design in the first month of bookings.

To check out the booking form, click here.