Tour de France Grand Départ 2027: Creating the digital home for a global sporting spectacle

Launching the digital platform behind one of the world’s biggest sporting events

When Great Britain was announced as the host of the Tour de France Grand Départ and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2027, the organisers needed more than a brochure website.

The new platform had to become the central communications hub for one of the world’s largest annual sporting events, bringing together routes, host locations, news, volunteering, social impact programmes and public information, whilst integrating with existing systems and launching to a fixed national deadline.

With Phase One required within weeks, there was no room for delays.

The challenge

The existing temporary website had served its purpose, but a far more capable platform was needed to support the event as excitement built towards 2027.

The new website needed to:

• Become the official promotional hub for the UK Grand Départ
• Inspire participation across cycling and local communities
• Support volunteers and public engagement
• Promote ten host locations and multiple race stages
• Capture sign-ups and integrate with existing systems
• Be fully editable by the internal team
• Meet ASO branding and publishing requirements
• Launch within an extremely tight timeframe

Unlike many projects, the launch date wasn’t flexible. The website needed to be ready for a nationally coordinated campaign.

Our approach

We proposed an agile, phased delivery model that allowed the organisers to launch functionality as it became available, rather than waiting for a single “big bang” release.

Working closely with the Tour de France Grand Départ marketing team, we designed and developed a bespoke WordPress website that balanced editorial flexibility with technical robustness.

The project focused on giving the internal team complete control over future content, while ensuring every page reflected the prestige and excitement of one of the world’s biggest sporting events.

What we delivered

Bespoke WordPress platform

Rather than relying on off-the-shelf templates, we created a fully bespoke WordPress build using Advanced Custom Fields, giving the marketing team flexible page building capabilities without compromising consistency or performance.

Phased delivery

The website was delivered across multiple phases, allowing volunteer registrations, promotional content and later spectator information to be introduced as the campaign evolved towards 2027.

Integrations

The platform included integrations with:

• CRM for newsletter and campaign sign-ups
• Rosterfy volunteer management
• Google Analytics 4
• Downloadable toolkit tracking
• Social media feeds
• YouTube content

The result was a website that not only informed visitors, but also captured meaningful engagement throughout the campaign.

Mobile-first experience

With millions of spectators expected across the event, the website was designed mobile-first, ensuring fast performance and intuitive navigation whether users were planning a visit, viewing stage information or registering as volunteers.

Built for growth

As the event moves closer, the website provides a scalable platform capable of supporting new routes, host locations, news, campaign content and spectator information without requiring redevelopment.

The result

The website launched successfully for the required campaign deadline, providing the organisers with a robust digital platform that could continue evolving throughout the build-up to the Tour de France Grand Départ 2027.

Most importantly, the project demonstrated the value of combining agile delivery, technical expertise and close collaboration to deliver a high-profile public-facing website under significant time pressure.

We were delighted to work with Pixel Kicks on the development of our website. From the outset, the team moved quickly, understood what we needed, and got the project up and running in a short space of time. They were responsive, easy to work with, and consistently focused on finding solutions. Most importantly, they ensured the website was built, tested and ready to go for our fixed launch deadline, which was critical to the success of the project.

Esha Glen, Marketing Lead ‑ Tour de France Grand Départ 2027