PLANNING & MARKETING AN EVENT

North East England Festivals and Events Toolkit - Planning & Marketing an Event

Planning and marketing an event is about reaching and communicating with people who are interested in what you are doing, giving them access to something they want, and building a closer relationship with them.

THE TEN STEP PLAN TO A SUCCESSFUL EVENT 1. What are you offering and why? Your product could be a person, an exhibition, an artwork, an idea, a performance, an annual event, a workshop and could last for an evening or a year. Research your product or idea thoroughly and ask yourself things like:

A planned promotional activity over a period of time weeks, months or years is referred to as a marketing campaign. Marketing campaigns are designed to generate a response, i.e. getting people to come to a performance or exhibition, encouraging people to sign up, attracting donations, enlisting volunteers, or changing how people think about your organisation.

Why are you doing this work? Why are you doing it now? Has it been done before? Whats the central idea? What experience will it give your customers? How do you want your customers to feel about the event or idea? What do you want them to do afterwards?

Its also about building customer loyalty so that, once you have got your customers on board and they are attending your events and activities, you can monitor and evaluate what they do, and communicate with them year-on-year.

Make sure that your main objectives are very clear and your overall aim can be summed up in a sentence, so that you and your partners can stay focused. 2. What is your budget? How will the event be funded? Is there any budget? Is there funding available in the local authority, or arts council? Is the event free or will there be paid-for ticketing? Is it joint-partnership, stakeholder funded, or are there sponsorship possibilities? Will funding cover marketing and media activity, and if not, how will that be funded?

This factsheet is a step-by-step guide to planning and marketing your event. It helps you think logically about what you are promoting, who you are promoting to, the practicalities of organising an event, the marketing activities involved, and finally, follow-up and evaluation.

North East England Festivals and Events Toolkit - Planning & Marketing an Event

Are there local community groups, local businesses, clubs and societies or other organisations who can offer help in kind or by working in partnership? Research funding opportunities and devise a realistic budget covering every potential cost and contingency. Costs will include hiring or use of a venue, fees for performers, publicity material and costs of PR and promotion, designers & printers, staffing, ticketing, insurances and practical things on-site like signage, banners, traffic coordination, and parking. Think and plan carefully spend your time and money on a few well-selected marketing activities rather than trying to do everything you can think of and doing none of it properly. And for sponsorship, be clear what benefits you can offer a sponsor and dont over promise. Sponsors will be looking for profile opportunities leading up to the event and on the day. Build in resource for a visitor survey if at all possible. 3. Plan well ahead If your event is going to happen every year it is worth getting it right first time. Visitors will remember an excellent firsttime experience and will make a mental note to come again the following year as well as spreading the word to family and friends.

Put together a master plan that you can distribute to everyone involved. A Gantt chart format is really easy to use and sets all tasks against a timeline from which you can then monitor progress (see www.mindtools.com/pages/article/ newPPM_03.htm, but you can also get your own chart template set up in Microsoft Excel in no time as well). Set up a core team to work on the event with regular meetings to check progress and allocate tasks to individuals. Organise a meeting the day before to conduct a walk-through (literally) to make sure that everyone is clear about their roles on the day. 4. Research your target audience Do some research on past events and find out how they went, and why. Is it possible to tie-in the event with other event-rich times of the year that are already pullingin visitors? e.g. Heritage Open Days in September, St Patricks Day in March, National Poetry Day. Who is your event aimed at? Is it suitable for all age groups from young families through to senior citizens? Or is it an interest-led event that appeals to art lovers, photographic experts, gardening gurus, or sporting fanatics? And how are you going to reach your target audience? Do you already have an interactive website or web pages that promote to your key audiences with regular online communications to your customer contact database? Or are you starting from scratch?
3

North East England Festivals and Events Toolkit - Planning & Marketing an Event

Test the water with your target audiences. Doing some simple research will help you to establish if there is a demand for your event and what you need to do to make it a success. 5. Focus Once youve decided on an event and its theme, give it a name and choose the date. Make sure everything about your event caters to your chosen market; from venue to facilities, to dates and times, to the language you use in your marketing material. Check your event doesnt clash with other events locally - dont try to stage a food event at the same time as a regional Taste Festival (unless of course you can become part of that festival). Think about what will bring your audience in. Consider a hook for the event . the headline attraction in your marketing. What are you USPs (unique selling points)? Ask yourself what are the unique things about your activity or event that will encourage people to interact, participate and attend. Once youve decided on these they will form the basis of your marketing messages throughout all your activities. They could include:

i.e. does it have mass appeal or is it more for art-lovers, opera buffs, families or sport fanatics?

Topicality: does it relate to a hot topic of the moment such as a renovated park, a conservation landscape, a rejuvenated part of town? Need: will it help people in their lives, at home or at work? Known credentials: has it had previous success? Are the performers familiar? Perhaps a well-known artist, writer, musician?

6. Location Think about the venue, how viable is it for a public event and what permissions are needed? What facilities does it have, is it accessible, is there parking and public transport nearby? Is it dependent on the weather? Does the venue have experience of hosting events? Does it have staff on hand to help? What are the costs? What is the capacity of the venue? Is catering available or do you need to hire it in or can you change caterers for a stand on site? 7. Partners Identify potential local partners and talk to them early on about your idea, e.g. colleagues within your Area Tourism Partnership or One NorthEast, local traders and associations, business groups, travel providers, to see what reaction you get and whether they can provide any support financial and/or in-kind.

Rarity: has it ever been seen before? What makes it unusual? i.e. location, size, material Scale: a spectacular, one-off, unique attraction on a large scale? Appeal: is it funny, entertaining, escapist, food-related, or particularly creative? And who will it attract?

North East England Festivals and Events Toolkit - Planning & Marketing an Event

Make sure that your colleagues and key stakeholders are aware of your communication activities, as their own campaigns may be able to carry your promotional messages as well. 8. Safety and Authority Is the event big enough that you can set up a task force group of a mix of representatives from your Area Tourism Partnership, the local authority, traders associations, the private sector, health and safety bodies, community organisations, local police, who will be involved the whole way through? Think about the health and safety requirements that youll need on the day, well in advance, e.g. police, St Johns Ambulance, power (outdoor generators, cabling), and audio-visual equipment, public facilities, entrances and exits, rubbish collection, and other services such as catering and entertainment. Will you need to think about insurance, such as public liability or cancellation? 9. Marketing Build in the marketing, press & PR campaign into the plan from the start, as this is crucial to the success of the event. Decide early on your main marketing messages to ensure consistency across the board. And are you offering any incentives that will pull the punters in such as kids go free or early booking discounts? Make sure you start your promotion as early as possible and build up to the event itself with a phased programme of marketing activity.

Use your online presence as much as possible to promote the event with backup from whatever other publicity materials you can afford, i.e. flyers, posters, banners. Do you have a press office you can call on? Or are you doing this yourself? Plan your media campaign well in advance to make sure you meet editors and journalists deadlines. Dont leave marketing, press and PR to the last minute. Send out press releases early and ring the media to remind them. Check if theyre sending anyone to cover the event. Identify one spokesperson who is comfortable giving interviews. Who will be taking photographs of and/or filming the event? Are local celebrities and/or dignitaries involved? Can you get them to speak to the media or quote them in a press release? Consider social networking opportunities set up a Facebook page and send out invites and or/special promotions to those that sign up word of mouth will benefit from this. Or, if you already have social networking channels set up such as a blog or twitter feed or Flickr feed, start conversations early about your plans for the event and see what reaction you get from people. Seek out other like-minded blogs and start following like-minded twitter feeds so you can start spreading the word about the event yourself. Control all your communications to make sure that key messages, design and wording are consistent.
5

North East England Festivals and Events Toolkit - Planning & Marketing an Event

10. On the day Who is in charge on the day (or days)? Have a one-page contact list for everyone involved and a timeline itinerary as well. How will you communicate with your team, walkit-talkies/mobile phones? Who is looking after the artists or performers/ greeting VIP guests / sponsors / venue liaison / media? Can volunteers carry out the visitor survey? Do you all need badges? What signage do you need to set up (toilets, entrances/ disabled access, road/pathway directions, and fire exits?) How early do you need to get on site to do this and do you need permission first? If your event is ticketed, can people buy tickets in advance and if so, how? If tickets are available on the day youll need to set up a secure temporary box office (even if its a manual system) that can count admissions and deal with cash sales.

Analyse web stats leading up to and during the event, and look at social media responses and comments what kind of feedback are you getting from these? Write a blog post about the event, give feedback yourself about the event on your Facebook page or via your twitter feed it all helps to generate interest, enthusiasm and visitors for your next event. Upload events and film from the day onto your website, social media networks, onto YouTube and on Flickr, and use your imagery and film to generate feedback and visitor response. If you are gathering personal information through research or ticketing, then check out and make sure you comply with the Data Protection Act (1998). Monitor press and media coverage and work out an EAR (equivalent advertising revenue) based on what the cost would have been to take out, say, a double page spread in a local or national publication. All your evaluation will help shape and plan your next event as well as provide facts and figures to present to partners and stakeholders to get them on board for next time.

After the event and evaluation After the event, thank all those involved. Set a date and a clear agenda for your debrief. Reflect on what went well and where and how things could have been improved. Record your conclusions for next time. Co-ordinate evaluations from the visitor survey, visitor count, solicit comments from your events team and task group and any other sources you may have, such as visitor feedback forms.

North East England Festivals and Events Toolkit - Planning & Marketing an Event

FURTHER INFORMATION

Event Marketing: How to successfully promote events, festivals, conventions and expositions (The Wiley Event Management series) available on Amazon, www.amazon.co.uk The Event Managers Bible the complete guide to Planning and Organising a Voluntary or Public Event by D G Conway available on Amazon, www.amazon.co.uk The Data Protection Act (1998) www.ico.gov.uk (The Information Commissioners Office)

North East England Festivals and Events Toolkit - Planning & Marketing an Event