Evaluating a Festival/Event

Gary McWilliams
aka "The Festival Nomad"
Co-Owner of Ontario Visited

As I mentioned in my previous Blog, one of the ways Judi and I occupy our time on the long trips home from a visited event, is to complete an informal evaluation of the event. This series will explore some of the events aspects that we discuss.

Event Promotion
Obviously one of the important pre-event activities is event promotion. Where possible, Judi and I try to look at each event’s promotional efforts.

Websites (Part One)
In today’s day and age, it’s hard to imagine an event not having some sort of internet presence. I know that this happens, especially with small local events, but now a-days, not very often. That being said, Judi and I always head to the internet, and to Google, to research an event we plan on visiting. Believe me, over the years, we have seem all types of websites – good, bad and downright ugly! A website is an event’s chance to “shine”, to attract people to their event, so it’s important that a website be attractive, informative and accurate! However, most important of all, it has to be able to be found! This has to be the number one priority! A lot of organizers, who are not familiar with the internet, believe that all they have to do is to create a website and people will automatically find them. I know that I did when we started our first website! Unfortunately it’s not as simple as that. Like any good project or good organization, it’s all in the planning and the details. In developing a successful website, there are certain rules. My best advice is to contact a competent, reliable web designer and then work with them to create the best website possible. Judi and I use Web World Strategies. They always give us great advice and help us out when we are in a bind!
(To Be Continued)