The 2008 Perth Inter­na­tional Arts Fest­ival is well under­way, and we’re really pleased to be involved once more.

Art dir­ec­tion for the 2008 site was provided once again by Block Brand­ing, to fit in with the over­all Fest­ival theme. Per­th­Web provided host­ing and addi­tional sup­port, pre­par­ing images and video and cre­at­ing the MySpace page for Beck’s Music Box, the great new music venue on the Esplanade.

Clever Star­fish turned Block’s designs into a func­tion­ing web site, and integ­rated changes to the cus­tom con­tent man­age­ment sys­tem to allow Perth Fest­ival staff to main­tain the events on the site. A sig­ni­fic­ant change this year was the increased focus on the My Fest­ival Plan­ner, the online tool to allow people to plan their Fest­ival events. Pat­rons can now upload a photo to their My Fest­ival pro­file, and the home page fea­tures event lists from selec­ted profiles.

Our fea­ture event this year is diva Cesaria Evora, who sings soul­ful, bluesy Creole-Portuguese folk tunes to Afro-Cuban rhythms — a real melt­ing pot of amaz­ing sounds and tex­tures. More inform­a­tion about Cesaria’s two per­form­ances can be found on the site: Cesaria Evora — Perth Inter­na­tional Arts Fest­ival 2008.

Other events that you’ll find Star­fish staff at include Black Watch, about the legendary Scot­tish Black Watch Regi­ment, The Turn­ing, based on the Tim Win­ton novel of the same name (and a col­lab­or­a­tion with Perth Theatre Com­pany, who we also provide web site ser­vices to), and New York rock­ers Sonic Youth.

The Fest­ival pro­gram, under new Artistic Dir­ector Shelagh Magadza, includes an amaz­ing array of theatre, dance, music, film, visual arts and free events, so there’s def­in­itely some­thing for everyone.