UC Berkeley Homecoming

UC Berkeley's annual Homecoming celebration needed a modern, performant website that could:

• Handle thousands of concurrent visitors during peak event weekends
• Provide a dynamic, filterable event calendar without sacrificing SEO
• Deliver fast page loads even with rich media content (photo galleries, videos)
• Maintain accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1) for inclusive campus community engagement

Built a Wagtail CMS-powered event platform with modern progressive enhancement:

Dynamic Features with HTMX:

• Event calendar filtering with zero page reloads (HTMX-powered AJAX)
• "Show More" pagination for event listings without JavaScript dependency
• Progressive enhancement pattern (works without JavaScript, enhanced when available)

Performance Optimizations:

• Django Compressor for optimized CSS/JS bundling and delivery
• Lazy-loaded images with responsive picture sets
• SVG sprite system for fast, scalable social media icons
• Gunicorn + Nginx production stack with caching strategies

Content Management:

• Wagtail CMS for staff-friendly content updates
• Custom StreamFields for flexible page layouts
• Social media integration (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Bluesky)

Delivers reliable, high-performance event platform serving the campus community:

• Scale: Successfully handles traffic spikes during Homecoming weekend (Oct 9-10) with thousands of concurrent users
• Engagement: Central hub for alumni reconnection and campus event discovery
• Accessibility: WCAG 2.1 compliant with semantic HTML and ARIA labels
• Long-Term Maintenance: Sole developer responsible for all technical aspects since 2015, demonstrating ownership and reliability