Promoting Your Sponsors! (Part 2)

 Here are a few simple ideas:

• Find ways to use sponsor’s products. For example, if it’s a soft drink company, insist that all food vendors sell the sponsor’s products.
• If you are being interviewed by television or radio, make sure that you mention as many sponsors as possible.
• If you have a key sponsor, try to wear a shirt or cap with their logo. Especially when you are being interviewed.
• During the event ask sponsors to set up product displays. Make the space part of their sponsorship package.
• A comprehensive promotion plan should be put into place and all team members should be fully aware of the plan and should carry it out throughout the festival/event.

The better you promote your sponsors, the more likely they will return next year, even in a poor economy!

Promoting Your Sponsors! (Part 1)

 Some time ago, we visited the Fall Fair in Kingston. One of their sponsors was “Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)”.  Almost every farm participant we saw was eating a KFC box lunch! What a great promotion! When I saw it, it started me thinking about how festivals and events do or don’t promote their sponsors! If sponsors “make or break” events, why don’t festival/event organizers go all out to promote their sponsors? Some do, but many don’t! Perhaps the best example of an organization that takes full advantage of promoting their sponsors is NASCAR.  Every time you see a driver or crew chief (or for that matter any NASCAR employee), being interviewed, they are continually promoting their sponsors! They eat, drink, wear and talk about their sponsors! You might think that this is over kill, but you are wrong. When sponsors hand over buckets of money, they want to know that those they are sponsoring are doing everything possible to promote them. They want value (over value) for money spent! It’s no wonder, that in these economic times the good NASCAR promoters are able to keep their key sponsors! This brings me back to festivals and events. Festival and event organizers should take a serious look at how NASCAR promotes its sponsors and then look to see how they can promote their own sponsors.

(To be continued in Part 2)

Curb Appeal… (Part 2)

 3. Clean Up – Prior to the event taking place, the location committee should prevue the facility to make sure it is clean and tidy. If it is not, arrangements will need to be made to have it cleaned up. Any contracts with facility owners should have a clean-up clause. Make sure that everything that can be done to improve the facility is done prior to set-up!

4. Visitor Friendly – When you are making your improvement plans, you should make sure that you include ideas to beautify the facility and to make it “visitor friendly”. This could include flowers, plants, informative signs (professionally created) and other items that enhance the theme of the festival or event.

5. Site Plan – During the planning stages, a comprehensive site plan should be prepared. This would include the best use and layout of the venue for both participants and visitors.

6. Attractions – Make sure when you are planning where to place your attractions that their placement makes sense and that they are visually pleasing.

7. Visualize – The best suggestion I can make is that you and your committee walk the location and visualize what it is going to look like on event day(s). The more clearly you can see the final set-up in your mind, the better the “Curb Appeal” will be!

Curb Appeal… (Part 1)

 A while ago, Gary and I attended an event that had very little “Curb Appeal”! It’s too bad because it really took away from what could be a great event. As Judi pointed out, if we had just been passing by, we’d likely not have gone in. That being said, we did go in and as a result, I am writing this article.

The main problem with this event was their venue. It was older and not in very good repair. It was also too small for the type of event being held! To be honest, the best solution to the problem would be to move locations, but this is probably not a viable solution. So here are a few suggestions for organizers to help them improve the Curb Appeal of their festival or event:

1. Preliminary Inspection – Once you have decided on a location, make a thorough preliminary inspection of it. Be very critical of everything, especially how it will look to festival visitors on event day. After completing your inspection make a list of both the positives and negatives. Strike a location committee to determine what can be done to minimize the negative aspects of the location and then prepare an action plan.

2. Work with Location Owner – After you have completed your inspection list, you might want to contact the owner of the property to see if he/she will remedy some of the problems. If the owner is not willing to help or there are problems the owner can’t or won’t fix, the location committee will have to see what improvements they can make.

(To be continued in Part 2)

The Importance of a Festival/Event Name… (Part 2)

As you can see, all these names connect with the main festival plus they suggest what the sub-events are all about. Choosing your name carefully is not only important for event identification, but it is additionally important for event marketing and promotion! This is especially true for internet promotion on your website. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts agree that one of the quickest ways to gain page ranking on one of the main search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing/MSN) is to have keywords (your event name) that potential visitors, on the internet, will use to “search” for events like yours. This is why your name is so important. The internet has now become one of the most powerful and least expensive marketing tools available. Let’s say you live in a town called “Acme” and you are holding an art festival. You’d likely want to name your event the “Acme Art Festival”. Then when people make their event search, they will likely type in the words “Acme festivals” or “Acme Art”. If they do, your events name should be listed on the first search page. Of course, there are other things you need to do to “optimize” your website, but a “smart” name is one of the main keys! 

The Importance of a Festival/Event Name… (Part 1)

 One of the most important decisions any new festival or event committee must make is the naming of their event! Your festival/event name should tell potential visitors exactly what the event is all about. Before choosing the name, organizers have to decide the main purpose of the event. That is, is it a sporting event, an art show, wine festival, music festival, etc? Once a theme has been agreed upon, you need to decide if including your geographical location in the name is necessary. Depending on the type of event or area, adding your location may be positive or negative. Sometimes if you have a broad-based event, you might want to have a general name and then a number of sub-names. A good example of a broad-based event is the Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest. The main name tells where the event is being held and what the theme is, Oktoberfest. Within this great event they have a number of events. These include such events as their Oktoberfest Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Miss Oktoberfest Gala Ball, Oktoberfest Idol and the Onkel Hans Food Drive! In fact, they have over 40 different events!

(To be continued in Part 2)

What’s In an Article?

 Over the past 14+ years, we have written articles about each of the 350 plus communities and their attractions and events Gary and I have visited. We try to keep each article fresh and interesting. When you visit and write about as many events as we have, it can be a daunting task! We enjoy it, though. Not only because of the challenge, but because it gives us the opportunity to think carefully about the uniqueness each of the festivals and events we visit. Sometime when we write, we are able to use my own experiences to tell the story, while other times we just describe what we have seen and heard. One of the tools that really helps us recall the details of each event are the photographs and videos taken at the event. Right now, we have over 100,000 photographs in our archives and about 5,000 videos! Another tool we use just for accuracy and content is personal. Before, and as, we write an article, we bounce ideas off each other. We always come up with something that we have forgotten! We are also our harshest critics. When I write an article about an event that we have visited, we always try to find the positive aspects of the event. We are not critics! We don’t want to be! There are enough of those in this world! We believe the festival and event organizers try their hardest to produce the best product possible and, most events are run and organized by dedicated volunteers. They deserve all the help and accolades they can get. The whole purpose of Ontario Visited and our festival and event articles are to provide potential event visitors with information about the events we have visited. In doing this, we also hope that we are helping to promote all of Ontario’s fantastic festivals and events.