Snake Alley Festival of Film

An editorial home for a four-day short-film festival at the historic Capitol Theater in Burlington, Iowa — built to sell tickets, attract filmmakers, and make a dense program feel effortless.

// the challenge

One site, three jobs.

A regional film festival's website has to do three things at once: sell tickets and passes to the public, convince filmmakers to submit their work, and present a packed four-day, fourteen-block program clearly enough that nobody gives up trying to read it. Do any one of those badly and the festival feels smaller than it is. The site also had to feel crafted — a festival celebrating filmmakers can't look like a generic event template.

// the approach

Editorial first, functional underneath.

I leaned into a print-inspired, editorial look — big serif display type and room to breathe — then wired the working parts in behind it.

Live countdown: A ticking counter to opening night on every page — quiet urgency that nudges visitors toward tickets.
Multi-block schedule: Fourteen blocks across four days, grouped by night so a visitor can find the screening they want without wrestling a spreadsheet.
Passes & ticketing: Three clear ways in — a single $8 block, a day pass, or a full festival pass — so casual visitors and regulars both know exactly what to buy.
Filmmaker submissions: A clear path for filmmakers to submit their work (via FilmFreeway), so the festival fills its program from the same site that sells it.
Editorial design: Print-inspired serif typography and generous space, so the site feels as considered as the films it screens.
Photo gallery: A cinematic gallery of festival photography, synced from the festival’s Flickr and served from a CDN — hundreds of photos without weighing the site down.
Self-managing seasons: The site knows what time of year it is: countdown before the festival, live schedule during, winners after, and an archive + “returns next summer” mode between seasons — no emergency edits required.

The SNAFF schedule page — fourteen blocks across four days — // the schedule — fourteen blocks, four days

The SNAFF passes page — single ticket, day pass, and festival pass tiers — // passes — three ways in

~/snake-alley-film/stack.txt

// built with

Next.jsReactTypeScriptTailwind CSS

→ Fast, mobile-first, and SEO-ready — it loads quickly on a phone in a theater lobby.

→ Content is structured so the schedule and passes stay easy to update year over year.

→ Built to the same standards as everything I ship — see how I work.

// the result

It ran the whole festival.

VOL. XIV ran on this site from first countdown to final award — four days, fourteen blocks, over a hundred short films from around the world, with passes sold through the site the entire run. When the festival wrapped, the site rolled itself into winners mode, published the awards, and picked up a photo gallery of the whole weekend. It's live at snakealleyfestivaloffilm.com — now serving as the 2026 archive while it points filmmakers at 2027 submissions.

festival days

screening blocks

100+

short films

258

festival photos

Have something like this in mind?

Events, arts orgs, small businesses — if it needs a site that does real work, let's talk.

next build

$ compiling route

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// this usually takes no time at all

One site, three jobs.

Editorial first, functional underneath.

I leaned into a print-inspired, editorial look — big serif display type and room to breathe — then wired the working parts in behind it.

Live countdown

A ticking counter to opening night on every page — quiet urgency that nudges visitors toward tickets.

Multi-block schedule

Fourteen blocks across four days, grouped by night so a visitor can find the screening they want without wrestling a spreadsheet.

Passes & ticketing

Three clear ways in — a single $8 block, a day pass, or a full festival pass — so casual visitors and regulars both know exactly what to buy.

Filmmaker submissions

A clear path for filmmakers to submit their work (via FilmFreeway), so the festival fills its program from the same site that sells it.

Editorial design

Print-inspired serif typography and generous space, so the site feels as considered as the films it screens.

Photo gallery

A cinematic gallery of festival photography, synced from the festival’s Flickr and served from a CDN — hundreds of photos without weighing the site down.

Self-managing seasons

The site knows what time of year it is: countdown before the festival, live schedule during, winners after, and an archive + “returns next summer” mode between seasons — no emergency edits required.