01/08

EST Napoli Innovation Festival

A festival PWA, built end to end.

Role

Designed and built the bilingual festival PWA: a React app with no build step, a programme compiled from one spreadsheet, offline caching, a personal agenda with calendar export, an in-browser souvenir poster studio, and the festival films.

In numbers

events over six days, all searchable: 75+
interface strings, Italian and English: 250+
souvenir finishes, two behind secrets: 7
Lighthouse performance on desktop, 100 on SEO: 97

Problem

The festival needed one bilingual home: its identity, a programme of over 75 events across six days, a gallery and a souvenir studio, kept current by a team that works in a spreadsheet.

Constraints

Italian and English from one set of copy keys
Programme changes arrive in a spreadsheet, not in code
The venue’s signal is patchy, and visitors check the programme on their phones
Every motion respects reduced motion

Decisions

No build step: one HTML document with React vendored, every route rewritten to it by the host.
What the repository holds is what is served, so a fix ships by editing one file.
Not chosen: ~~A bundler and a build step between the repository and the site.~~
The programme is generated from the team’s spreadsheet, wording and emphasis intact.
Editors stay in their spreadsheet, and a script compiles the bilingual programme data, so nobody retypes it.
Not chosen: ~~A separate CMS for the festival staff to learn.~~
A service worker keeps a copy for the venue: network first, the copy only without signal, and the site installs as an app that opens on the programme.
The full schedule and personal agenda still open in a hall with no signal.
Not chosen: ~~Fetching the programme live on every visit, which fails without signal.~~
Unfinished sections stay in the source behind flags.
A section goes live by flipping a flag, not by restoring code.

Outcome

Live at festivalnapoliest.it for the 21 to 24 October 2026 edition: installable, readable offline, with a personal agenda that exports to any calendar, a strip of what’s on now on festival days, and a souvenir studio whose posters can turn into collectible cards.