Pitching a Music Festival Fundraiser: The Diversity of Community and Communication

Frank Murdoch has Master’s degrees in Social Work, Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling, and Vision Rehabilitation Therapy. He serves as vice president of a small local non-profit organization devoted to providing services to the physically disabled in the region of Lafayette, Louisiana. Their goal is to provide access to media that might not otherwise be available to those unable to read print materials. Murdoch, an avid comic book fan who lost his vision at the age of twenty-four, has a personal interest in this goal and can readily communicate the importance of the project.

The long-term fundraising goal is $10,000 over the next two years. In the short term, they hope to raise $3,000 to get started.

The group has held successful fundraisers in the past, but they have also experienced some fundraising disappointments, so it’s important that they get this one right. Murdoch plans to offer the board his own pitch for a music and cultural festival, dubbed “The Diversity of Community and Communication.” He likes the theme of diversity because the program addresses “the diverse ways in which to provide information to all of us equally.” The theme would allow him to “incorporate multiple things from the community to our advantage and still press our agenda: more inclusive inclusion of persons with disabilities into the community.”

Murdoch envisions an event showcasing a diversity of cultures, especially in regards to food and music. If his idea is approved by the organization, he will then pitch his idea to various sponsors.

“The first thing I’ll do,” he explains, “is pitch my idea about diversity and equality… then talk about the richness of diversity in the community appealing to their cultural backgrounds and appreciation for food.” He would also discuss how the proposed program could create “more access [for recipients] for everything from cultural awareness events to important governmental practices and then into their pockets: sales and advertising.”

To create a diversity of music, Murdoch would like to approach a diversity of artists. With help from others in the organization, he has complied a list of acts he hopes will agree to perform, including Acadian musician Nellie Harrington, indie group The Wooden Wings, classic rockers Strazza & Company, blues musician Dege Legg, rockabilly group The Howdies, Cajun rock and rap artist Michael Juan Nunez, zydeco groups Nathan Williams and the Zydeco Cha-Chas, Curley Taylor, and Rosie Ledet, and Southern Creole Blues group Henry Gray and the Cats. In addition, he hopes to showcase “an interactive act in between set-ups and breakdowns,” including belly dancers from long-time supporters, Desert Shadows, Oasis Bellydance Studio, and Trybe Habibi Bizarre.

In order to arrange for a prize draw, Murdoch wants to approach local restaurants, to showcase the diversity of food in the community including Cajun, Creole, Asian, Italian, Mexican, and Middle-eastern cuisine. He knows that many businesses “are happy to provide a thirty-dollar gift certificate to promote their restaurant at the gig,” and adds that he could further help his sponsors by providing them with additional publicity. If his pitch goes forward, “several weeks before [the event] people see four thousand fliers around the city and residential areas to inform people that there is going to be an event and who is sponsoring it.”

Murdoch advises those hoping to pitch a similar music festival to think about reaching the broadest possible audience. Of course, you want to create something new and different. Figure out who your crowd is, and then “appeal to that crowd’s mental and emotional aspects that will get them to help you out.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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QR Code Posters for Music Event Ticket Sales

Your fans love your music.

Your fans want to see you perform live.

Your fans have smart phones.

Your fans have lives.

Do you love your fans? Show them a little love by making their lives a little bit easier. How? Make it simple for them to get tickets to your upcoming show the moment they see your print publicity. You can make the experience totally hassle-free for you and your fans with QR Code Posters advertising the gig. They actually sell tickets for you, so your fans don’t need to search around for the right link, stand in line at a ticket counter, or deal with any exorbitant ticket broker fees.

It’s So Easy

We’ve streamlined the process. First, we created an online box office at TicketRiver.com. In five minutes, you can register your show and set up an event page where your fans can find all your event details and purchase tickets. You can even sell different kinds of tickets—VIP Passes, 18-over, ½ price, whatever you like—to the same event. It’s fast and easy to create your page, complete with its own unique URL.

A Little Help from Your Friends

But that’s not all we’ve done for you. We’ll get your fans to the link in no time at all with a custom QR Code Poster. Whether you’ve got a design in mind or need one of our graphic artists to create an image that suits your particular needs, all you’ve got to do it is call our customer support at 888.771.0809. They’ll help get your order going. We’ll design your posters, generate your QR code, and send out a proof for your approval. We never print until you’re satisfied you’re getting exactly the Poster or Flyer you need.

Waiting Here for You

Wherever you hang your high-resolution QR Code Posters, your fans can scan the code with their smart phones. It will take them right to your TicketRiver event page where they can buy tickets right away.

TicketRiver sends users print-at-home tickets to save you time and money, but, if you still want to use paper tickets, you can order those too (at a discount for TicketRiver users) and mail them out, or hold them at will call.

It’s that easy! QR Code Posters are there for you, selling tickets night and day, from the moment you hang them until you sell out your event.

It’s just one more way to show your love to the people who support your music.

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Country At The Cabin: Vacaville’s First Country Music Festival

“Our ticketprinting.com experience was very good. I was impressed by the quality, speed, and ease of ordering… We got several compliments from the venue, other bands, and guests by the quality and professional look of the printed materials. It definitely made us look legit and like we knew what we were doing even though we didn’t.”

~Austin Jansen

On Saturday, July 16, Vacaville’s First Country Music Festival was held at The Elmira Cabin in Elmira California. Acts included  48 Straight, the Jesse Woodside Band, the Taryn Cross, and the Amber Snider Band. Free mechanical bull rides , dancing lessons, catered barbecue and drink specials were a part of the night’s festivities.

To promote Country at the Cabin, the organizers chose collateral from the Natural Riffs collection on Ticketprinting.com. The design features an acoustic guitar against a sepia background with stage lights, invoking the feeling of a country music venue. Natural Riffs collateral has space for logos and photos of performers and the text is customizable.

I recently caught up with Austin Jansen, promoter for the event and drummer for the Jesse Woodside Band.

I asked Austin about the role his organization played in organizing Country at the Cabin. “My organization is an event promotion company. We organize/plan music, fundraising, and special events based around music. The particular event we ordered products from you was a first (hopefully) annual country music festival held locally to our organization.”

How did Austin and the other organizers promote the event?  They relied on more than one method to get the word  out. ” We distributed our tickets between the bands, the venue, our Facebook page, a radio ad, an online tickets sales site, and several local businesses. We pre-sold most of our tickets through our bands and the majority of our tickets were sold at the door the night of the event.” Austin explained. ” We started selling our tickets 2 weeks before the event and started our radio ad 1 week prior due to budget limitations.”

What might he do differently next time, and what advice would he offer to others hosting similar events? ” If I could do it again I would start the radio ad 1 month prior as well as selling tickets earlier. Next year we hope to have a larger headliner and charge more for the event.”

What was the highlight of Country at the Cabin? ” The highlight of our event was how busy it got. We were concerned with low pre-sale figures that event attendance might be low,  but we packed the house!

“My band had the largest crowd, and they were completely involved and loved us! My band also played the best we have ever played. Everything actually went pretty smooth.”

Country at the Cabin sounds like it turned out to be a great event! We definitely look forward to hearing about it when it comes around again next year!

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Fast, Easy, Economical Online Ticket Sales

If you want to make music, you can do that in your garage, on a subway train, or out in the woods. If you want to sell tickets to your upcoming performance, there’s a little more work involved. Big symphonies have their own box offices, but what about you? Even if you can sell tickets through a box office, can you sell them at 2 o’clock in the morning? Can you serve patrons in the middle of a blizzard, or when you’re short staffed?

Wouldn’t you rather give your fans the option of purchasing concert tickets online?

You don’t need an expensive shopping engine built into your website, and you don’t need to pay a third-party company big bucks to help you advertise and sell your next gig. All you need is a simple application like Ticket River.

It’s the fastest, easiest, most economical way to sell tickets online, providing you with maximum versatility for ticket sales. Whether you’re selling tickets for multiple dates, multiple venues, or multiple levels of access, it’s simple for you to set up your event, create your own page, and start selling tickets. You can even sell tickets for reserved seating events, and choose whether your patrons will print their tickets out at home, or pick them up at will call.

Best of all, this service is free!

It costs nothing to create a page for your concert. The only fee is a 3% surcharge on each ticket sold. You can pay it yourself, pass the cost on to your fans, or split the cost with them. Compared to markups of 50% or greater with online ticket sites like TicketMaster, that’s not much.

Performing a free concert? You can still use Ticket River to ask your guests to check in online, so you know how many to expect. If your part of a nonprofit group, you can even collect donations on the site.

All you have to do is log in, enter your event details, trick out your page with a background and a photo of your choice (if you want) and you’re ready to start selling. Ticket River provides you with links to send to potential guests, tracks all your sales, and handles payments from PayPal and all major credit cards.

You can use this service in conjunction with any other method you’re using to sell tickets, so you’ve got nothing to lose. Help the music-lovers of the world find even more to love about your music: simple, online concert ticket sales.

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The Drummer from Minutes Talks Concert Tickets, Social Networks, and Music

His first week of college in the big city (Grand Forks, North Dakota), rural kid Isaac “Ike” Turner attended his first punk show, “and the game was totally over. Honestly,” he says, “it changed my life.” A year later he was officially a drummer in his first band, and fifteen years and a few bands later, he’s still on the scene. Today, the thirty-something musician plays guitar and drums in a “straightforward, economical punk rock” band called Minutes, “the most satisfying music-related experience” of his life.

Minutes formed in 2008, counting Wire, Mission of Burma, Fugazi, and Neil Young among their influences. Turner counts his band mates, all experienced musicians, as his best friends and counts his blessings as a musician. Starting with no expectations, including never really expecting to play a single gig, the band has toured across the Midwest and produced an eponymous seven-inch EP (distributed by Dischord Records), which, to their great surprise, sold out, and has since been made available as a high-quality free download on the website Bandcamp. Currently, they’re working on a full-length album, as well as collaborating with Seattle indie-rock group The Bismarck on another album.

In regard to giving away free music, Turner is “actually very proud,” about being able to share the EP. “Totally free,” he says. “You can put it on your iPod or burn a hundred copies and give them away. I’m really in support of that type of porous border in music.” Using Bandcamp provided a surprising metric of success for the group, allowing it to reach “a lot of folks that it wouldn’t have otherwise.” Although it’s possible to sell music through the site, as well as merchandise, Minutes has not taken this route.

Does giving away free music help sell concert tickets? Turner is skeptical. “At our level, which is very small in comparison to, say, Beach House or Weezer or Danzig, it doesn’t really make much of a dent at all in how many people show up to see us play.” Minutes isn’t working on creating a buzz. Rather, the guys in the band are “hard-hat and lunch box dudes, and have always been very workman-like…lots of touring, lots of recording, no financial success or accolades on any grand scale at all.” They’re making music for their own enjoyment, and they’re happy if their work provides others with the same enjoyment.

If giving away free albums doesn’t get fans to your gig, then, what does? According to Turner, it’s Facebook updates. The post that takes thirty seconds to write is “like a neat little reminder for your entire social group, and sometimes that makes a difference in the folks that come out.” The members of the band make an effort to update their fan page on Facebook a couple of times a month. They also maintain a MySpace profile, which, admittedly, has not been updated in some time, although they do try to respond to all comments left by the five hundred or so fans they have on that site.

For now, leaving messages in online forums for those prepared to seek out their messages works for the band. Turner wouldn’t change their methods: “I don’t think we’re too annoying with our current approach. I certainly do not want to be invading anyone’s inbox.” It’s enough for him “to provide a venue for our information to be available (we’re not recluses, after all, although we like Pynchon and Salinger a lot). I like the balance we’ve struck so far.”

In the real world, Minutes relies on flyers, screen-printed by two members of the band, to announce upcoming shows. What else does a punk rocker need to know about marketing? Not much, according to Turner, who believes “the most important aspect of being in a successful band is to never, ever think about selling yourself at all.” For Minutes, it truly is all about the music: “We happen to make music that we love, and we are lucky to play shows.” They don’t need outside help, and are pleased the band can function “without any intermediaries at all—not one person outside of our band makes decisions for us. Not one. We have no managers or screwballs or anything like that. So, as far as marketing, we really, honestly, can let the music speak for itself.”

True to their punk roots, Minutes keep their expectations low. Asked about his goals for the band, he says, “I hope we can keep practicing once a week or so, write songs, record songs, play shows, ad infinitum.” He’d love to tour again, for a week or two, “not necessarily a marathon one like we used to do” but mostly he’s happy playing great shows with great musicians and creating great experiences. He “would say having no goals is a great goal for us, because then we feel absolutely zero pressure whatsoever.” After a moment’s consideration, he adds, “Wait, let me take that back.  I want to finish our album before May. There. That’s my goal.”

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            They’re trophies.

 

            I don’t know who it was that originally taught me to do it.  I’m not even sure I was aware of the tradition until I’d already been to a few shows and disregarded what was left of my concert tickets.  But at some point, I realized those stubs had value, and that they were part of a long standing concert going tradition, a tradition that’s important to keep in mind when printing event tickets of your own.

CD Display Case

            The stub from a concert ticket is a piece of personal history and, as such, needs a place to be put on display, a way of cherishing and remembering that concert for years to come.  The advent of CDs, or more specifically CD cases, gave people the perfect place to put those event tickets.

            The idea is a simple one: take a CD by the musical act you just saw, and place the ticket from that show in front of the CD insert.  If you see a musical act multiple times, then follow the same routine with multiple albums.  In some ways it becomes motivation to go to more shows in an effort to get a ticket stub for every album.  The ticket stubs serve to promote the next show without even trying!

The Digital Revolution

            A few years ago, I decided to make the big switch from CDs to a digital only music library.  I spent hours a day ripping my CDs into media files and then getting those CDs ready to sell.  But I had forgotten about one thing: my concert tickets!

            Without my convenient display cases, what was I supposed to do with all the concert tickets I’d accumulated over the years?  I couldn’t just get rid of them, not have all this time!

            It was then that I realized just how important custom concert tickets were.

The New Frontier of Stub Collecting

            Concert tickets are like snapshots of moments in life, so I figured I should treat them just like I would pictures and give them their own album or, better yet, incorporate them into my pre-existing photo albums.

            Putting them on display by themselves, though, really underscored how important the look of a concert ticket is.  A generic event ticket is fine for conveying information and still manages to induce nostalgia for shows gone by, but a custom printed ticket really stands out and makes those memories flood back even more vividly.

Make Your Tickets Memorable

This is essential when considering custom printed event tickets: make them memorable! With a wide variety of event ticket templates to choose from and the ability to personalize your event tickets, you can make sure that even the left over stubs are able to keep the memory of your event fresh in your audience’s memory.

            In the end, memorable event tickets can mean repeat business, and repeat business is good news!

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My buddy’s band was just starting out. They’d practiced in his garage, played some family events, and gained a following after booking gigs at small clubs, usually as the opening act. They had fan pages on Facebook and MySpace and were growing their base. They’d recorded a couple CD singles to pass out to music-lovers, critics, local radio DJs, and others in the music industry and had just put together a full-length CD. They were ready to move on to the next level. They wanted to book and promote a live concert on their own terms—a CD release party—for their fans, and make it all about the music. They worked, begged, and borrowed to get the cash to invest in themselves. They would reserve a space, take care of their own publicity, and, they hoped, make their money back in sales: from the concert tickets, the T-shirts, band stickers, and posters, and, of course, selling their CDs.

 

It was a controversial decision, but they chose to handle their own ticket sales, including designing and printing their own event tickets online. That part was easy, since anyone can find an online ticket printer, choose a relevant design, and fill out a ticket template. The template even reminded them to add all the important details: who, what, when, and where. Some readers may be interested in their process:

 

When and Where

As with any event, they needed to consider the best time and place to have the concert, limited, of course, by the number of suitable local venues and available nights for shows. You must consider times and places that would give your band the best exposure and best turnout. If there is a festival or fair in the area where your concert will be, decide whether this would add or detract from your event ticket sales. Sometimes other events can assist you in securing a large turnout, or they may hinder turnout; these are factors that must be considered in choosing a time and a venue.

 

Printable: Your Customized Event Tickets

Once they chose the time and place and booked the space, they began to design event tickets for the concert. As I said, they used online event ticket templates to create their own unique custom tickets. You may want to add your band logo to the ticket in addition to the information about the concert, and many ticket templates let you upload an image right from your hard drive. You can also choose a design that signifies your musical genre: a saxophone for a jazz quartet, an electric guitar for a rock band. After the tickets are designed, you should be able to generate a ticket proof. Some companies will send you free samples of their tickets so you can check out the quality, but for the most part, the proof should show you exactly what your ticket will look like.

 

Price of Admission

You’ve got to take into account what concert tickets cost in your area, and my friends considered all their expenses in deciding on a ticket price, including factoring the cost of printing the tickets, reserving the venue, and the venue’s minimum bar guarantee (some clubs will ask you to pay extra if your fans do not spend a certain amount on drinks!). One the one hand, you’re an artist and you want to create something beautiful, but on the other hand, you need to make profit from the concert. The exposure you receive is important, but if you don’t break even, you can’t repay your investors or promote another show, so consider a reasonable amount for the tickets that will also result in a profit for the band. Selling merchandise—T-shirts, posters, and CDs—at the show should earn you money, too.

 

Distribution: Get the Tickets Out

Gather your friends, family, and fans and get the word-of-mouth network going. You can sell face to face, but you should also consider an online ticket sales application. My friends had great success with a new site called TicketRiver.com, where they could sell e-tickets at no cost to themselves. Use all your networking tools to advertise: website, email lists, Facebook and Myspace, music forums, newsletters, and blogs to promote your concert. Make sure everything knows where they can get the tickets to your concert. Distributing tickets via a local radio station along with local and indie record stores will also help you to reach out and attract the audience who most desire to attend your concert.

 

 

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Frank Zappa once said, " Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." When you're selling event tickets for a fundraising event, you're also making a type of sculpture, bringing folks together into one place to work together for a common creative goal. Why not put  music at its center? You could plan a small choral performance, a full-on music festival or perhaps the ultimate in participatory events: A battle of the bands!

 

Unite your community, listen to great local musicians, sell more tickets, raise funds for a cause, and share prizes. From beginning to end, picking a venue, guests judges, and prizes and even choosing and printing event tickets, a battle of the bands can take a lot of preparation. Many elements must be considered when planning this type of event, but the final product is well worth the effort.

 

Plan a safe and fun event for everyone—If you want to have a good time and raise funds for your cause, make sure you appeal to a broad audience. Plan a family friendly, safe event that everyone can enjoy. You'll want to print event tickets that reflect this and help to manage the flow of people into and out of your venue.

 

Create a clear set of rules for participants—Make sure the rules of the battle are clear beforehand. Let acts know what kind of music you would like to showcase. Will the winners be picked by judges or the audience? Will bands play one song or a short set? What prizes are winners eligible for?

 

Choose judges from the community—If you plan on having judges choose the winners, consider recruiting popular figures from the local music scene. When printing event tickets and other promotional materials, make sure to include this information, so you can further peak  attendee interest.

 

What kinds of prizes will you offer?—Will you simply offer winners bragging rights or something more tangible like cash or other coveted rewards?

 

Will you rely on sponsors to help?—Sponsors can be a great resource when organizing your battle of the bands. They can help provide funding for equipment or the venue, advertise for your event or defray the cost of event ticket printing. If you're fundraising for a special cause like providing money for local school music programs, you may find sponsors lining up to help. You can add their logos to your event tickets for greater publicity.

 

Pick an appropriate venue—Once you're ready to host a battle of the bands, you'll want to choose a venue for your event. Make sure the space is the right size and will accommodate your equipment. Check to make sure that you have the right permits to host the event, if you need them.

 

Plan your promotion—Promote, promote, promote! With your initial planning done, it's time to get the word out, so that you can get your attendees together to rock out! The internet is a great resource for free promotion. Social networking and event planning sites help you to advertise and sell more tickets. Contact local radio stations about your cause and get your sponsors involved.

 

Pick promotional collateral and print event tickets that are well designed and reflect the nature of your event. Using an online event ticket printing site can make this easy. You can choose the type of collateral you would like to use, choose your designs and customize them using an event ticket template. Professional y printed event tickets can really raise the profile of your battle of the bands.

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Let’s talk low tech.

Of course, you need to hype your band with blogs, homepages, forums, free downloads, viral videos, and email newsletters, but you don’t live your entire life online, and neither do your fans. You can’t skip Internet marketing, but you can’t stand on it either. Fortunately, there’s a time-tested, low-cost, high-profile way to spread your name and grow your fan base: Stickers.

What goes on a sticker?

The perfect band name, perhaps coupled with that perfect band logo, is all you need to start. Save it as a digital file. For very little money, you can print that file on a stack of custom Vinyl, Bumper, or Economy Stickers. Choose the option that fits your budget, or order an assortment.

Band names and logos are merely your jumping off point. You can start with a single design, but you’ll do better with a few different ones. Don’t underestimate the power of fan art! If you already have an active Internet community around your band, ask them for designs based on album or song titles, lyrics, or even caricatures of the band. Another option is to enter into a deal with an artist whose work you admire. You may be able to buy or barter the rights to a design you already love, or commission one especially for your band.

Be sure to include your website in the design, so fans know where to go to learn more.

You’ve got Stickers. Now what?

Stickers are the ultimate stealth marketing tool. They create a presence for your band wherever they go, and they can go literally everywhere. Depending on the size of your band, the power of your reputation, and the number of people who are willing to help you out, you’ve got three basic options.

• Give your Stickers away for free to your fans
• Sell your Stickers to your fans
• Place the Stickers yourself as part of a viral marketing campaign

Give it away, give it away, give it away now

If you’re just starting out on the scene, or if you have a small but passionate fan base, you may want to choose option one. Free Stickers help you give back to the community. Everyone loves getting something for free, especially if it’s swag from someone they admire. You can offer free Stickers to people who sign up for your newsletter, or attend certain events, or, if you’re feeling lucky, you can simply give them out in front of clubs or other venues where music lovers hang out.

Free Stickers end up on laptop computers, class notebooks, water bottles, high school lockers, and other high-profile locations. If you’ve already got an eye-catching logo, potential fans will notice the Stickers on their friends’ possessions and ask about the band, visit your website, or Google you. It an easy way to spread your influence.

Money, money, money, money, money

If you’re already turning a profit and just want to expand your reach, offer your fans something new, and come out even, you’ll want to sell those Stickers. Bands with merchandise tables find that inexpensive Stickers sell themselves, even with a relatively large markup. They’re cheaper than T-shirts and, while most folks will wear a T-shirt no more than once a week, a Sticker can proclaim your allegiance every day.

You can also sell Stickers online. Your virtual merchandise booth is a great way to figure out how much interest you’re generating. If you see spikes in Sticker sales after a big promotion or event, you know people are paying attention.

Down in the Underground

Stealth, underground, or viral marketing is the hottest way to spread the word. You can use the same Stickers, or you may want to create mysterious and not entirely clear designs that compel viewers to check out that website. The trick is to place them where folks are likely to notice.

Giving these Stickers away to a particular, elite group of fans, with instructions to place them where they will be seen, is one way to go. However, you’ll want to place many yourself for an extra edge.

Don’t make the mistake of upsetting potential supporters by littering the world with your Stickers. Defacing public or private property is likely to backfire. It’s OK to stick them on public message boards or places where hanging Posters is acceptable. It’s not OK to put them in the middle of other peoples’ plate glass windows.

The cardinal rule of Sticker placement on private property?

• ASK FIRST!

Many club owners will be happy to allow to you stick them around the club. Others will not. It’s important to know before you act. Once you have permission, be creative. Let your Stickers wait in unexpected places: on the ceiling, under counters, behind doors. Viral Sticker marketing campaigns should provide pleasant surprises, amusing moments for viewers. Depending on local ordinances, it may be OK to stick them on places where they won’t last long, like sidewalks. Again, find out the rules before your begin.

The greater your coverage, the more effective your campaign. Make lists of places where potential fans congregate and try to get your Stickers nearby.

Tying your Sticker campaign to an event such as a show, a CD release, or a new video provides a sense of purpose as well as a time frame. If you’ve created a desirable Sticker and band image, your underground marketing Stickers can become a commodity of themselves.

The bottom line is that the right Sticker in the right place can help your band get the attention it needs to succeed.

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What you don’t want: boring events that look and feel the same year after year. What you do want: hot new ideas, unexpected twists, and a forward-looking vibe that gets your guests talking. Instead of being

able to predict what appetizers you’ll be serving based on what you’ve served since 1996, your guests should be wondering with eager anticipation: what will they think of next?

Trends: Get ahead, Stay on Top

Whether you’re a member of the jet set or a basement-dwelling troll, you need to present your organization in the best possible light and stay ahead of the curve by keeping up with emerging trends. Unless you know your supporters are coming for a retro feel and a nostalgic atmosphere, consider how you can utilize trends in music, food, drink, and decorations to add an air of excitement to the evening. Don’t know much about what’s hot and what’s not? Let the Internet guide you.

• Twitter keeps your finger on the pulse of new trends and even points out top trends in a tag cloud on their homepage. Use  tweetcloud.com to view tag clouds on any subject, find trendsetters, and learn more about who and what people are talking about.

• TrendWatching.com offers free monthly briefings on global trends. Reporting on trends in 170 countries, TrendWatching.com offers you a cosmopolitan and timely overview of consumer interests.

• Springwise.com offers reports from 8000 spotters around the world. While this service focuses on business trends, you can sift through the information to learn more about current trends in style, design, marketing, food, and entertainment.

• Tastingtable.com is a “free daily email that delivers the best of food and drink culture to adventurous eaters everywhere.” Read this report and stay up to the minute on the most popular dining culture to ensure that everything you offer your guests is served à la mode.

• Touchey.com offers a wealth of inspiration for your design aspirations. Whether you want to create the coolest Posters to promote your event, or set the most decorative table, Touchey is sure to have some ideas for you.

• The Color Association helps your organization show its true colors. Their Color Education Program provides you with the knowledge and skills to select popular and eye-catching colors for any occasion. They also offer customized seasonal color trend information 20 months in advance of the season.

• Google Trends has always been a great tool for comparing the popularity of topics over time. Want to know what’s hot right now? Check out Today’s Hot Trends right on their homepage.

Whatever you choose, choose something new. You don’t need to let fashion dictate your choices, any more than you should rely on outdated modes of expression, but learning about current trends can help you set your own agenda. Build on popular ideas, or start your own styles. Let your creativity shine!

The Power of Public Opinion

The most powerful event marketing tool is word of mouth. If your event is spectacular in every way, people will talk about it for the next twelve months, and attendance will increase exponentially at next year’s event. If something goes spectacularly

wrong, people may talk about that too, with the opposite effect. Whatever happens, stay on top of the situation. Take control of the problem and find some way to direct everyone’s attention to the best you have to offer.

You can’t control everything, but you can take steps to make your event as close to flawless as possible. Do your best to direct the night’s memorable moments by planning well in advance so you are in charge of the buzz. Hire dedicated professional and make sure every task associated with the event is delegated to someone who knows how to take responsibility.

 

Brand Your Event

When you take the steps to craft a unique and memorable evening, you are actually creating an event brand. Your brand reflects the hundreds of individual decisions you make as a planner. When you do it right, you create a recognizable whole. As with successful businesses, great brands are not spawned from thin air. They require hard work, creativity, and sometimes a lot of luck. However, by incorporating a few of the ideas below, you can guide others to see your event as a brand.

• Name Recognition – Naming your event may be the most crucial part of your branding efforts. As with a business, a great name can practically make a brand. Your event needs a descriptive, memorable title. It should be short, compelling, and easy to remember, while creating a sense of excitement. Coming up with a great name is simply a creative process that takes time. Brainstorm by playing with language, generating lists of words and phrases associated with your group and your mission. Allow colleagues who love puns, double-meanings, and your native tongue to offer up their best ideas. 

• Create a Tagline – A tagline is another great way to communicate your brand’s identity. Again, play with keywords and meanings to think up an expression that complements your name, communicates your organization’s values, and sticks in the minds of event attendees.

• Create a Logo – Your logo is an instant expression of your brand, allowing for immediate visual recognition. You can’t brand anything without a logo, so give this the same attention as your name and tagline. The best logos are simple, distinctive, and, unless your industry is a somber one, playful. Again, you may need to find a supporter or colleague with some skill in graphic design. Large
  

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  organizations will want to hire a professional. The better your name, logo, and tagline work together, the greater the impact.

• Consistent Messaging – Every element of your event should scream, “We are a brand!” Add your name, tagline, and logo to all your marketing materials, including Posters, Tickets, Invitations, Drink Tickets, Event Wristbands, and anything else you have printed. Not only are you branding your event, you’re creating sought-after souvenirs! Ensure decorations, table settings, music, speakers, and even the venue complement each other. All these details help create an all-encompassing experience. Remember, it is possible to inject meaning into everything. You can brand any and every detail of your event. Placing your logo in unexpected places such as glasses, napkins, or bathroom towels not only surprises and impresses your guests, but also adds to the memorable tenor of the event.

• Consider Your Target Audience – Every choice you make as an event planner should reflect your audience’s taste. Consider the age and personality type of your average attendee. Some over-the-top ideas may not appeal to a group of retired accountants. The same concepts might be perfect for a group of 20 to 30 year olds in the entertainment business. Attempt to step into the minds of your attendees and visualize the experience they want. Then construct something that builds on their expectations.

These are all basic tools for those who desire to host a truly epic event. By staying on top of trends, generating positive word of mouth, and exploring event branding, you can attract new and exciting guests, donors, volunteers, and entertainers. You might even find yourself welcoming a celebrity or two. The boring event everyone forgot about last year can be the talk of town this year. All you need is a few ideas, a little creativity, and a lot of work.

 

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