---
title: Salon du Livre de Montréal
description: Discover the interactive digital event ecosystem designed by Kffein for the Salon du Livre de Montreal
url: "https://kffein.com/en/projects/salon-du-livre-de-montreal"
date_modified: "2026-11-09T10:29:23-05:00"
---

 *Version française : [Salon du Livre de Montréal](https://kffein.com/fr/projets/salon-du-livre-de-montreal)*

# Project: Salon du Livre de Montréal

**Taking back control of a critical platform weeks before one of North America's most significant literary events.**

In 2023, Kffein came to the rescue, taking over the Salon du livre de Montréal’s website, weakened by years of technical debt. Within weeks, our team conducted a complete audit, stabilized its infrastructure, and optimized the website, cutting load time. Since then, Kffein has continued to guide the Salon's digital ecosystem through an ongoing transformation.

- **Client:** Salon du Livre de Montréal
- **Category:** Digital Transformation
- **Year:** Since 2023
- **Website:** <https://www.salondulivredemontreal.com>

## Context

The Salon du livre de Montréal's digital platform plays an essential role in the organization’s operations: it structures programming, facilitates searches, centralizes content, and supports the organization's literary outreach mission.

## Challenges

The mandate rested on a fragile technical foundation, requiring speedy intervention to guarantee stability and performance, especially during peak traffic periods like the eventitself. With a large volume of content to manage—activities, authors, books, and exhibitors—the site architecture had to handle the load without failure.

Beyond immediate stability, we needed to initiate a progressive transformation of the digital ecosystem, including a hybrid low-code/full-code architecture and effective synchronization mechanisms. Certain existing features, such as search and personalized profiles, also required significant improvement.

## Our Approach

Taking over a digital project of this scale, just weeks before a high-profile event, required precision, attentiveness, and responsiveness. Our involvement unfolded in three key phases:

##### FAST PROJECT ONBOARDING

Architecture analysis, code audit, evaluation of third-party tools (Tadabase, Algolia, and AWS), and a thorough understanding of the existing ecosystem.

##### STABILIZATION AND TECHNICAL FIXES

Front-end code restructuring, API pagination implementation, database connection corrections, technology standardization, and optimization of critical load times,particularly regarding the programming page.

##### TAILORED TEAM SUPPORT

Given that the organization was relatively lean with only 14 people on staff, we provided technical and pedagogical support to ensure they could become fully autonomous on content entry, while remaining available in real time during the event.

## Timeline

- **May 2023** - Project takeover Onboarding and full ecosystem evaluation
- **October 2023** - Technical debt resolution Code fixes and platform stabilization
- **November 2023** - Event support Continuous strategic and technical accompaniment during the Salon
- **2024** - Programming site redesign User research, UX/UI, and technical development
- **2025** - Event feature enhancements Including real-time content editing for future editions

Product evolution roadmap

### Technical overhaul and code optimization

We restructured the backend and frontend code to improve performance, particularly on the programming page. The result: a 98% reduction in loading time.

### Visual identity integration

We adapted the existing site to reflect the Salon's new artistic direction.

### Large-scale data migration

We managed the synchronization between the Tadabase platform and Craft CMS to ensure the migration of tens of thousands of entries without any data loss.

### Groundwork for the future redesign

We laid the strategic foundations for an upcoming redesign: modular structure, content personalization, and convergence of low-code and coded data.

## Key Figures

- **1,9 M**  : searches conducted in the programming section
- **153K**  : active visitors during the 2025 event week