Filmmakers submitting through FilmFreeway and festival attendees checking screening schedules on thehiff.com almost always browse on their phones. Under the surface of the WordPress + Elementor site featured in LA Web Design LLC's portfolio, every homepage visit currently loads 26 separate CSS stylesheets and 27 JavaScript files (53 individual code files) after a 665-millisecond server wait on an end-of-life PHP/7.4.33 runtime.
What Our Diagnostic Found on TheHIFF.com
- 26 Render-Blocking Stylesheets + 27 Scripts (53 Code Files): Elementor and your active WordPress plugins load 26 separate
.cssfiles and 27.jsfiles across an84 KBHTML document, delaying how quickly festival announcements, laurels, and screening schedules appear on mobile phones. - Exposed End-of-Life
X-Powered-By: PHP/7.4.33Header: PHP 7.4 reached official end-of-life security support, and broadcasting the exact version in HTTP response headers invites automated WordPress scanners. - 665 ms Uncached Server Response (TTFB): Because WordPress rebuilds the page in PHP on each visit without full-page static caching, two-thirds of a second passes before the first byte of HTML arrives.
Festival Site Speed Upgrade: Upgrading PHP 7.4 to PHP 8.3, enabling static page caching, and combining those 26 stylesheets into one file will make thehiff.com open in under 90 milliseconds during peak festival week traffic.
Telemetry Recorded on TheHIFF.com
| Festival Site Layer | Measured on TheHIFF.com | Recommended Spec | Impact on Filmmakers & Attendees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stylesheet Queue | 26 separate .css files |
1–2 combined stylesheets |
26 CSS round-trips delay initial page paint on mobile connections. |
| JavaScript Queue | 27 script tags |
3–4 deferred bundles |
Keeps screening schedules, trailers, and ticket links responsive. |
| Server Runtime & TTFB | 665 ms (PHP/7.4.33 exposed) |
Under 90 ms on PHP 8.3 |
Faster server response and modern PHP security. |
| Homepage HTML Size | 84 KB |
Under 30 KB |
Lighter markup loads smoothly at venues and theaters. |
Ways We Can Help the Hamilton International Film Festival
1. Consolidating the 53 CSS & JS Files for Instant Mobile Speed
We can help you bundle the 26 Elementor stylesheets and 27 scripts and enable edge caching so filmmakers and festivalgoers can pull up schedules and ticket info immediately—without changing a single detail of your visual design.
2. Upgrading PHP 7.4.33 to PHP 8.3 & Hardening WordPress
Upgrading your PHP runtime and stripping the exposed X-Powered-By header keeps your festival site fast and protected year-round.
3. Structured Festival & Screening Event Schema
Adding Festival and ScreeningEvent Schema.org JSON-LD markup helps Google surface your festival dates, venue locations, and official selections directly in search results.
Let Us Know If You Would Like a Hand
Feel free to share these notes with whoever maintains thehiff.com so they can upgrade PHP 7.4 and combine those 26 stylesheets. If you would ever like a hand speeding up or updating the festival site, view our work on the WebDesigner.LA Portfolio, pick a time on my Consultation Calendar, or call or text me at (818) 903-2338.