Check the Calendar

When planning a community event such as a festival, carnival, or concert, be sure to check the local calendars. If you are hoping for a group of rowdy teens and young adults to attend your event, you want to make sure there aren’t any school-related events happening like a cross-town football game, homecoming, or prom. If the town is home to a university or college, you will also want to factor in whether or not the students are on a break, or moving in or out of their dorms. All of these can impact their decision to come to your event, and ultimately potentially jeopardize your ticket sales.

There are several local factors that could detract adults from attending your event if you are not paying attention to their calendars. Some towns are hosts to major or minor league sports teams, and home games might be a factor. Other towns have large concert venues, convention centers, and major airports. These may not only take people’s attention away from your event, but supporting venues such as hotels, caterers, meeting spaces, restaurants, taxi’s, or ride-shares may be in limited supply or cost more on certain days or in certain seasons because of the higher demand due to increased attendance.

In the Midwest, there are still towns that revolve around manufacturing. They make transmission parts, package cereal, and assemble cars. The “Plant” is the reason the town survives. Planning an event when the Plant is celebrating an anniversary or having their staff’s summer picnic would probably mean only those who don’t work there or live in a neighboring city would show up.

Annual city-wide events can also impact the attendance of your event. Marathons, motor cycle runs, and even jeep-week can draw enough people to them as something they do every summer so much so that you feel it in your bottom line.

It sounds like a lot of work checking all of these calendars. Of course, there will inevitably be something happening at the same time, the key is not to schedule your event during the most popular local activity. If you are truly invested in the success of your event, doing this work is a must. You don’t have to do it alone. A city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) can often guide you through their city’s busiest time of the year or when their town’s most popular events are scheduled. No CVB? Most smaller towns have a Chamber of Commerce, a Park District, a “Friends of Downtown Smalltown, USA. There is usually at least a community events web page where you can either speak with someone or see for yourself in a short amount of time what the town values as important.

To help your event reach its goals and objectives, doing your due diligence to maximize the number of attendees is key. You’ll be glad you spent time checking the local calendars if your event depends on them being there.

Have you run into a scenario where you relied on local attendees only to find out your event was competing for their attention? Share your story here or send me an email!
I’d love to hear it!

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