Evaluating An Event

As I mentioned in previous Blogs, 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.

Advertising and Promotion (Part Six)

Eventually the organizing group decided that they wanted a separate a Program Guide. They approached the local newspaper to see if they wanted to produce it for us. They did, and made a proposal. Their offer, essentially, was to produce a multipage glossy magazine that would contain all of our event's information. They, in turn, could sell ads in the Guide. In doing this, we received a sum of money, the production of our Program Guide and a number of extra copies to hand out. In addition, the Guide was sent out with their newspaper, thus giving us fabulous media coverage. Over the years the Guide has been very successful and the amount of revenue to the event has increased. The advantages of this arrangement, for us, was have a professionally produced Program Guide, exceptional distribution of the Guide, sponsorship money and a way of getting our message out, at no cost to the event! The advantage for the newspaper were that they were able to earn extra revenue through ad sales in the Guide, they were also able to increase their visibility in the community, they became the “official” newspaper of the event and they had the “honour” of supporting the successful community event. All-in-all a winning combination for everyone! 

(To Be Continued)