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Securing media coverage offers the fantastic advantage of introducing your event to fresh and diverse audiences, creating a ripple effect that extends your event’s influence far beyond your usual crowd. Not only does media coverage capture the public’s attention and improve your brand’s reputation, but it can actually be more valuable than a typical advertisement.

Creating an effective media outreach strategy will take some time and patience, and to help you with the journey we’ve compiled our best advice for gaining media coverage. 

Define Your Event & Understand Your Audience 

Start by getting the basics out of the way: define its purpose, lay out your goals and zero in on the audience you’re trying to target. How old are they? Where do they live? How do they get their news? These are just a few of the questions you’ll want to answer. Don’t forget to consider the unique selling points (USPs) that set your fair or festival apart. Do you have the tallest ferris wheel in the South West United States? Or a 300-pound sculpture of your governor carved from butter? This is what the people want to hear about!  

Create Captivating Collateral 

Next up is creating two key pieces of key content: a press release and a media kit. Craft a compelling event announcement press release that is concise and includes the who, what, where and why in a punchy manner. The press release should also include a quote from the event’s organizers and contact information for media inquiries. Journalists should be able to find your organization’s media kit and access it easily. Include high-quality images, logos, branding assets, event background information, press releases, a detailed schedule and other relevant information (like statistics).

Get to Know Media Outlets & Journalists 

Now you need to know who to pitch to. Oftentimes, the relationships you’ve built with media outlets and journalists will determine the media coverage your event gets. You’ll want to research both local and regional outlets (press, radio and television) as well as outlets that cover similar events to yours. Forge genuine connections with journalists by personalizing outreach and tailoring messages to their interests or unique perspectives. 

Offer an Exclusive

Unfortunately, the inboxes of journalists and outlets are constantly barraged with press releases, pitches and story ideas, so it’s important to stand out from the crowd. To increase your chances of landing media coverage, provide outlets and journalists with exclusive opportunities. Behind-the-scenes access, interviews with performers or a personal invite to a first-hand experience are good places to start. By offering a unique perspective you’re more likely to catch their attention! 

Tap Into Your Network

Reaching out to industry publications and familiar faces amplifies your event’s reach beyond the ordinary scope. As your network converges with media opportunities, a harmonious relationship emerges, propelling your event’s story into the spotlight and nurturing a cycle of growth that’s both meaningful and mutually beneficial.

In the realm of event promotion, securing media coverage can help you reach new audiences and launch your brand to the next level. From defining your event’s purpose to crafting collateral and from cultivating relationships with journalists to offering exclusive glimpses, every step is important in mastering media coverage.  

Sure, thousands of people (or maybe even a million) come through your gates during the fair, but what about the rest of the year?

Fairgrounds are a versatile environment that can cater to the needs of many different types of events throughout the off-season, generating revenue and keeping your fair relevant in the community. Planning and hosting an event also provides a unique opportunity for sponsorship and connecting with local businesses. 

With their vast and versatile spaces, fairgrounds can be transformed into a variety of venues, from concert arenas and exhibition halls to outdoor festivals and sporting events. The different facilities and buildings available on fairgrounds provide a range of options for event planners, including indoor and outdoor spaces, grandstands, pavilions, and even camping grounds. 

The possibilities are endless!

Below are five different off season events at fairs we’ve partnered with. Take inspiration from them and start planning your next off-season event today! 

Wine & Chocolate Festival – Enumclaw Event Center/King County Fair 

The Enumclaw Expo Center at the King County Fairgrounds hosts an annual Wine & Chocolate can sip, savor, and shop some of their favorite regional offerings.  For two nights in February, Washington State wineries and local confectioners gather at a fairgrounds just south of Seattle, and visitors come to taste wines and snack on chocolates while they shop from one of the many vendors. 

Elkhorn Antique Flea Market – Walworth County Fairgrounds   

Walworth County Fairgrounds is home to many treasures, including Southeastern Wisconsin’s largest antique flea market. The Elkhorn Antique Flea Market has been held four times a year at the fairgrounds since 1982, and today hosts over 500 vendors and attracts shoppers from all over the region. 

Bounce into Spring – Red River Valley Fair 

Over a dozen inflatable obstacle courses and slides on the grounds of Red River Valley Fair welcome kids and families to Bounce into Spring! It’s been a few years since the organization shifted focus to off-season events, but according to Elizabeth Birkemeyer, the impact in the community has been noticeable. 

Yesteryear Village – South Florida Fair 

Tucked inside the fairgrounds of South Florida Fair is a village known as Yesteryear open year round. There visitors take a glimpse into life in South Florida during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the village that consists of more than 30 historic buildings, including a schoolhouse, a general store, a church, and a blacksmith shop.

Kids Fall Festival – Anoka County Fairgrounds 

Anoka County Fair, whose annual fair is held in July, opened their grounds the weekend before Halloween last October to hold a family-friendly fall festival for children of all ages. Although it was called a festival for kids, with pumpkin painting and a not-so-scary haunted house, there were food trucks and vendors to shop at for the parents. 

By charging a reasonable admission fee or selling tickets for activities, food, or drinks, you can generate revenue while still keeping the event affordable and accessible for families. Other revenue-generating opportunities may include selling merchandise, hosting a silent auction or raffle, or offering sponsorship packages for businesses. Whether you’re planning a trade show, concert, sporting event, or festival, fairgrounds offer a wealth of possibilities for creating a memorable and successful event. Plus, with SaffireTix and Spark web management, you can manage everything in a simple, integrated platform.

Planning an event is expensive, and roughly one-third of event planners say that increasing revenue is their biggest challenge. We’ve seen and heard of many creative methods in 2021, but here are just 10 ways you can improve sales and revenue for your next event!

Sell Tickets Online

Shocking, right?! Saffire always recommends you make sure your event tickets are as accessible as possible to attendees! The main goal of ticketing is to get folks through the gates, but it’s also about improving your bottom line. Most Saffire clients see a remarkable increase after strategically selling more through their online channel. Clay County Fair first partnered with SaffireTix in 2019, and after increasing their budget to get more fans on their site, they saw a staggering 118% increase in online ticket sales.

Don’t Stop Selling Tickets Online Once Your Event Starts

Just because the physical gates are open doesn’t mean online sales should stop. After selling 13,000 tickets before their event, Red River Valley Fair kept their tickets online during their fair and sold an additional 11,000 tickets!

Host a Flash Sale

Northwest Washington Fair hosted a flash sale for their tickets last year and hit their revenue goal out of the park! By capitalizing on demand, NWWF was able to secure an enormous percentage of their revenue with over a month left to go before the fair.

Offer a VIP Experience

If you build it, they will come. And the same is true for VIP experiences! Offer exclusive tiers where you can charge more per ticket for attendees to have a more impactful experience at your event. This could be everything from a special fenced area for seating, to semi-private port-a-potties to special access to an artist!

Implement a Cashless System

Are you hand counting tickets until the wee hours of the morning? Buckets of tokens? Did you know utilizing a closed-loop cashless system can actually increase on-site guest spending by 15-30% when compared to events using traditional forms of payment? Additionally, you will save money by not needing staff or security to count and handle cash at the event.

Utilize RFID

Like going cashless, RFID systems have had a higher adoption rate since COVID. In addition to cutting out cash, RFID technology can also provide opportunities for brands to engage with attendees and track live data of attendees.

Leverage Your Sponsorships

A good relationship with sponsors is beneficial for all parties involved. Work with your sponsors to see what they are able to offer, and how to best utilize their brand into your event. One way to do this is by selling sponsorship packages. Selling a headline spot with additional promotional items or  additional brand exposure can actually help to make certain parts of your event paid for.

Make & Sell Some Merch

People want to represent the places they’re from and where they’ve gone. Work with your graphic designer (or a local artist!) to produce hats, shirts, hoodies and any other kind of collectible merchandise. Merch can be sold on-site or even on your Saffire website!

Spend Advertising Dollars Wisely

Are most of your marketing dollars going to print or radio ads? Team, it’s 2021. There are far better and way more measurable ways to get a return on your investment! Digital platforms are one of the best ways to reach your audience. Trust us, our social and digital marketing strategies have been crushing sales goals all year, and YOU could be next!

Strategically Use Your Email List

If you’ve collected attendees’ contact information, make sure you’re marketing to them! Send out emails reminding everyone of ticketing flash sales, a countdown to the event, and more. You could also send out an email following the event to gather attendee feedback to improve your next event!

Have your implemented a creative strategy to increase your event’s revenue streams? Connect with us and let us know!

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The gates to fairs are reopening, fans are returning to concerts, travelers are boarding planes, major sports games are kicking off again and people are finally attending events again. To say the pandemic has changed the landscape of the event industry is an understatement.

Here are some of the lessons we’ve learned over the past year and a half, and how events can successfully return.

Bringing Back 2020 Favorites

Did you host a socially-distanced or virtual event last year? The past year and a half has led to some pretty creative solutions from across the board that people ended up loving!

At fairgrounds and amphitheaters across the country, drive-in movie theaters popped up like popcorn. Last year, the Social Circle hosted a series of drive-in movies over Memorial Day Weekend at the State Fair of Louisiana. Before each showing, viewers also enjoyed live music from a local band.  

If you did something last year that was well received, consider hosting it again! After their first Fair Food Drive-Thru drew more than 1,800 cars last summer, Cass County Fair decided to bring it back in 2021. For three days, guests could stop by the fairgrounds to satisfy their cravings for a fresh elephant ear or other fair faves.

Cass County Fair Board President Brian Kuemin told a local reporter, “This was really well received last year, and the community really came out to support our vendors. Our first one was hugely successful. People still want community events, and with the pandemic, people want to get out and do things. This was an opportunity for families to come out, and hey, who doesn’t want fair food?”

Connecting Online

Since we weren’t able to meet up in person in the past year, it’s been crucial to connect with fans and attendees digitally. The platforms you choose to promote on (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn) will depend on who your event is for or who you are targeting. Your best bet will be to do some type of promotion on a few different platforms to get the highest reach.

Once people are ready to buy tickets, don’t make it difficult for them! Having an integrated website and ticketing platform will make the checkout experience as smooth and seamless as possible, leading to higher ticket sales and improved customer satisfaction. 

Going Cashless for a Better Experience

In order to reduce physical contact during transactions and at the box office, many events and venues switched to a digital, cashless ticketing experience. With Saffire’s contactless ticketing technology, you can create a safer, stress-free environment for anyone by eliminating points of physical contact when scanning, selling tickets and accepting payments.

When the South Florida Fair broke tradition for the first time in over one hundred years and decided to host two fairs in 2021, they also decided to introduce Saffire’s contactless ticketing system at the gates and in the midway. Attendees could skip the ticket booth line and get a digital QR code that would scan them into the fair. To encourage sales, the fair offered considerable weekend savings for advanced ticket purchasers. The South Florida Fair made history by being the only fair in the industry to hold two fairs in just four months, ending with a historic closing Sunday night.

Make Attendees Feel Comfortable

As excited as people are to get back to in-person events, they’re also conscious that some risk is still present. Making visible efforts to promote health and safety precautions will help guests feel more comfortable as they are welcomed back.

In accordance with many local mandates, proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test is required for entering a venue or event space. Think about your customers and make this as simple as possible! Some events have even offered rapid on-site testing for attendees. Ensure your space is set-up to encourage social distancing, hand sanitizer is readily available and you have a supply of disposable face masks on hand. Details can make all the difference to ensure everyone feels safe coming to your event.

Be Data Driven

By using new ticketing technologies, you can better track your event attendance and monitor the data that is gained from those digital tools. For example, during the event it may be important to know in real time what the capacity of the venue is at or how many people have checked into a certain area.

Following your event, you can send out feedback forms to attendees to collect data about their experience. In addition to looking at ticket sales and extrapolating from attendee data, this info will be the most crucial information in planning your events in 2022 and beyond!

These are just a few of the biggest things we’ve notices from 2020-2021. And as we’ve learned recently, the future is always unexpected. If you have an idea or experience to share, drop us a line and let us know!

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Whether your event is being sponsored by a big name brand or a local non-profit organization, it’s important to incorporate fresh strategy for attracting and retaining event sponsors. 

Once you’ve found the perfect sponsors for your event, the first step is to communicate with your sponsors to understand the message they are wanting to convey, and how you can help them without disrupting the attendee experience. You will want to shape your sponsorship proposal around that core message. 

Below we highlight ways to put your sponsors in the spotlight: 

Go Digital 

Sponsorships shouldn’t only be visible during the event! Highlighting your sponsors with a custom banner on your website or within your digital marketing materials will help to show gratitude and affirm your partnership long after your event ends. If you’re hosting a virtual event, you might consider selling ad space on your live stream, or even using branded transitions between speakers or slides. 

Scavenger Hunt 

Hosting a virtual scavenger hunt is a fun way to highlight your sponsor and interact with your customers! By using tools pre-built into Saffire software, it’s easy to create a custom problem-solving journey that will drive traffic and improve engagement while allowing you to collect data and capture sponsor revenue. Sponsors may also choose to offer prizes to raise the stakes of the hunt. 

Leverage Social Media

A strong online presence can reach far beyond just those who attended your event, and there are several ways you can utilize your social media to gain exposure. Update the headers on your Facebook and Twitter accounts before the event to feature the logos from your sponsorship and don’t forget to cross-promote and celebrate the work of your sponsors!

Offer a Photo Booth

Set up a fun social photo booth for guests to take pictures, GIFs, or TikToks! Use a backdrop with your sponsor’s logo and create a fun theme with props or signs. Pictures or videos that are uploaded with an event hashtag (which could also include a sponsor’s brand) are some of the most potent social content your attendees can share at an event. 

Fun Swag 

Have some swag to offer that is tailored to your guests and the event! An outdoor gear company for example may sponsor an environmental fundraiser by providing branded reusable straws. This also gives you an opportunity to offer a high-end, premium swag bag. Sponsors can reach high-tier ticket holders with more unique swag offerings.

If Instagram Reels aren’t on your radar, they should be. With their wide reach and entertaining format, Reels can generate buzz around any event and grow your social media following. What are “Reels” exactly, and are they worth the effort? We’ve gathered some basic principles and fun content ideas to help you and your team create awesome Instagram Reels today!

What are Instagram Reels?

Instagram Reels was born shortly after the mobile video app TikTok became a wildly popular app downloaded by millions of users worldwide. Similar to TikTok, Reels allows you to create fun and engaging content in the form of 3-30 second videos. Using a compilation of video clips, you can very easily edit together a short-form video that entertains and engages their audiences.

The beauty of the Reels feature is the suite of tools it offers to cut and edit video clips with music, text, filters, and other special effects. Anyone with a smartphone and an ounce of creativity can create engaging video content to help bring events and brands to life!

Why use Instagram Reels?

Reels can be a great way to get “real” with your audience! Reels let them in on the behind-the-scenes moments, they capture unique experiences only your event offers, and they show your followers you’re in on the latest trends. The best part is you don’t have to spend a lot of money on production.

Perhaps most importantly, Instagram (and many other social media platforms) will continue to favor video content – especially video that sparks engagement, saves, and shares. The more your video content is entertaining and shareable, the further it will reach new viewers.

Bottom line: Reels can turn new viewers into followers, and followers into loyal customers!

Best Practices for Instagram Reels

• Compile enough clips to have some movement every 2-3 seconds.
• Set your Reels to trending songs or audio clips
• Make sure to include text in each clip so people can quickly follow along as they watch. People don’t read long captions!
• Add titles to your Reels cover shot so when someone navigates to your Reels tab, it’s easy for them to choose a Reel they want to watch.

Fun and Engaging Instagram Reels Ideas for Events

1. Highlight a Popular Concession Stand or Vendor. Maybe it’s a popular food vendor or an activity like face painting at your event that people love; take shots of the process from start to finish and create a Reel to get people excited! Take a look at this Reel from Alameda County Fair: www.instagram.com/reel/CMm0CG5BVLl/

2. Showcase Bucket List Items: Think of a list of 4-5 things people should do to make the most of their time at your event, venue, or destination spot. Take a look at this Instagram Reel posted by Destination Dripping Springs that shows how they would spend a day in Dripping Springs, TX. For an event, this could translate into something like 1) Eat a funnel cake 2) Ride the Ferris Wheel 3) visit the petting zoo 4) end your day at a concert. Just be sure to make some of the items unique to your event! View Reel here: www.instagram.com/reel/CMcnAICF5gB/

3. Announcements: Got new merchandise or products? Take a few quick shots, pair it with a trending song and a few descriptive subtitles, and voila! Here’s an example from Pendleton Round Up’s Reels page where they announce new merch. View Reel here: www.instagram.com/reel/CPRAQpGpuBy/

4. Repurpose Content: Take your old stories and posts and repurpose them into a 15-30 second reel that highlights your event! Madera County Fair compiled photos and videos to announce their 2021 fair. View Reel here: www.instagram.com/reel/CQR0hwsp7CZ/

5. Employee or Team Culture Highlight: Showcase your organizational culture and who makes up your team! Does your team have a great sense of humor? Are there fun perks or funny quirks to your team culture? Take a look at this Reel the Wisconsin State Fair made to announce their job fair: www.instagram.com/reel/CPoVygRHMqg/

6. Insider Tour of the Grounds or Venue: Whether it’s opening day of your event, or you’re doing a walkthrough of the grounds before the event begins, give your audience a taste of what they can experience at your event! We love this Reel from Florida State Fair: www.instagram.com/reel/CN-tX50j_dz/  

Reels are a great way to entertain and engage your followers. They can generate buzz around your event and turn new viewers into followers. The feature has been out for almost a year, but we’re still not seeing too many events and festivals taking advantage of this awesome tool.

We hope this article will inspire you to try Instagram Reels, we are positive it will pay off!

In 2021, event and venue managers have their work cut out for them–they must provide the best experience for attendees, abide by new health and safety guidelines AND ensure a successful event outcome. Even for the most experienced, that’s a tall order! The good news is, there are systems event managers can set up to help ease some of these big demands.

Cashless systems are becoming increasingly popular in the fair, festival and event space and for good reason. There are plenty of benefits that come with implementing a cashless system–touch-free payments, faster transactions and shorter lines–but one of the best assets you gain by going cashless is access to robust, comprehensive data.

Here are 6 ways you can use the data you get by going cashless to improve your event experience and increase revenue:

#1 Get to know your customers. Unlike the exchange of cash or tokens, a cashless system captures valuable customer data the second a customer purchases a RFID wristband or card online, all the way through to the end of the event. Before the event even starts, you can see which customers are adding items like drink credits and ride credits to their card or wristband. Once attendees are onsite at your event, you can see exactly where they spend and how much they spend inside your event. Event managers can leverage this data to improve customer experience and increase revenue!

#2 Segment and engage your customers. Based on purchasing behavior, you can segment your customers into different categories, and send out promotional offers that best suit their interests. For example, you can engage your customers who previously bought event merchandise with promotions announcing new swag.

#3 Surprise and delight your top spenders. You can see who your top customers are and reward them with special promotions to keep them coming back. This could look like a free parking voucher or VIP upgrade!

#4 Optimize resources and reduce overhead. Real-time reporting allows you to identify which entry locations are getting customers through gates quickly, which ones are getting overloaded, and which spots are not seeing any action. You can re-allocate or cut the number of staff members and adjust scanning locations accordingly and use the data to improve the flow for the current and future events.

#5 Evaluate your vendors. You can evaluate a vendor’s popularity based on real-time customer spend and frequency. This allows you to make data-driven decisions on which vendors you should keep or cut for future events based on performance. You can also use the data to consider increasing your vendor fee or percentage cut, if the numbers make sense.

#6 Secure bigger and better sponsors. With cashless data, you can create killer sponsorship proposals with data like customer demographics, average spend per head, what kind of products customers purchase most (alcohol sales, food sales, etc). This is the kind of data that is expected to secure big name sponsors.

The data you get from going cashless can give you valuable insight to make educated improvements to your event both while it is happening, and in the future. If you want to learn more about Saffire’s cashless system, BlastPass, please reach out to us today. We’re here to help make your job a little easier, and your event more successful!