Booking solution for one of Denmark’s biggest one-day events

A unique insight into the journey from farm to table

“Mum, where does milk actually come from?” Every autumn, the curious among us can get a unique insight into the journey from farm to table, when around 60 farms across the country open their doors and fields to children and adults. The event is organised by the Danish Agriculture & Food Council and takes place on the third Sunday of September every year. It’s called Open Farm (Åbent Landbrug).

The main focus of Open Farm is to bring the countryside and the city closer together and create a great experience for visitors. That’s why it needs to be easy to book a farm visit and find out what each farm has to offer, explains Jan Morre Christensen, project manager for Open Farm.

“Managing expectations is important,” he says. “Our website needs to bring farming to life and reflect what visitors will encounter when they visit the farms. They want to know what activities they can take part in and whether they can pet a sheep. That’s why it’s important that we can add tailored content and good photos for each individual farm. We used to have a booking system where we couldn’t edit the content ourselves. That didn’t work for us.”

Two organisations – one shared solution

The Danish Dairy Board faced a similar challenge. As described in another case study on this website, it organises the one-day Økodag event every spring, when organic cows are let out to pasture across the country. So the Danish Agriculture & Food Council joined forces with the Danish Dairy Board to develop a new booking solution. And as the Danish Agriculture & Food Council has worked with Illumi for many years on a wide range of digital solutions, Illumi was the natural choice as their digital development partner.

With two relatively similar events, Økodag and Open Farm naturally have many of the same requirements for a booking solution. There are, however, some differences that the solution needs to accommodate. For example, at Open Farm, visitors can choose whether to book a morning or afternoon visit. As well as farms, they can also book visits to various food businesses. There are also additional veterinary requirements for visitors to farms with pigs. The booking solution takes all of this into account, along with several other differences between the two events.

“Of course, there was a bit more to consider when two different organisations joined forces to develop a solution,” says Jan Morre Christensen. “But there’s been a lot of value in working together, and with Illumi’s help, we found a good balance between meeting the different requirements and keeping the solution simple to use.”

We’re delighted that we’ve been able to build on the experience we’ve gained working with Illumi over many years. We’ve had a couple of regular contacts throughout the project who knew where we wanted to go and helped keep us on track. It’s been a really good process.

Jan Morre Christensen, Project Manager, Open Farm

Booking data enables us to respond

“We’re particularly pleased that we’ve got a great website that’s optimised for all devices,” continues Jan Morre Christensen. Most users visit the website on their mobiles, and they won’t spend very long on it, so it has to be easy to find what they’re looking for. It’s also easy for them to change their booking if, for example, they want to bring an extra child along, and our users are actually really good at doing that.”

It is crucial for Open Farm to be able to monitor trends in bookings so that they can take appropriate marketing action. The solution provides both an overall view across all farms – and a detailed overview for each individual farm.

“I keep an eye on bookings every day, and if anything deviates from expectations, we can react,” continues Jan Morre Christensen. “For example, we can launch an extra local marketing campaign if some farms have only a few bookings. Or, if we suddenly receive a large number of bookings, we also check whether this coincides with us having been on television or carried out other initiatives – so that we can continually learn more about what works.”

Preparing for peak periods

As Open Farm is held only once a year, the website naturally experiences a peak in traffic. Jan Morre Christensen explains: “We’ve put a lot of effort into making sure the website can handle a high volume of visitors. In the weeks leading up to the event, the traffic is fairly steady, but on the day itself, a lot of people need to check the address or other details about the visit they’ve booked. The system needs to be able to handle that, of course.”

“There’s a lot that needs to work for us to run a successful event and give both guests and hosts a great day. Our new solution plays an important part in making that happen,” concludes Jan Morre Christensen.