Festivals and Events Ontario (FEO) Achievement Awards

Okay, okay, I know it’s a bit early! The FEO Achievement Awards submissions aren’t due until early next year! However, I feel it’s never too early to think about them. As a matter of fact, call me crazy, but I think the award submission process should be started the day you begin planning for your next event! Let me explain. The FEO Achievement Awards judge festivals and events in a number of categories. Each category represents an area in which a festival should excel. These areas are critical to the successful planning and running of an event. If you plan your festival or event around these categories and do your best to be a winner in each of them, then your festival or event will have been planned with a winning strategy. The categories that are judged include Community Involvement, Virtual Marketing Campaign, Printed Materials (posters, pamphlets and programs), Marketing Campaigns, Innovative Partnerships, Festival Greening, Fund raising, Sponsorships and Volunteer Management. Judging is based on excellence in these categories. The judges look for how well you present your festival or event both in written application and reports and in the supporting materials submitted. The better your submission looks and reads, the greater the chance of winning one of the categories. Here’s my point, you may not win an award, but if you use the FEO Achievement Awards and their criterion as the basis of planning your event, you will have a better event. To me, the greatest award festival organizers can achieve is to hold the best event possible! My advice to festival organizers is simply this, 1 – Become a member of FEO (Enter FEO Website) if you are not already one; 2 – Ask FEO to send you the Achievement Award package BEFORE you start the planning process; 3 – Plan your event based on the Award categories; 4 – Keep accurate records of what you have done (this will make writing your Awards submission much easier); 5 – Keep good samples of all your supporting material (ads, posters, programs, souvenirs, etc.); 6 – Submit your Award entry as soon as possible.

Government Funding…

Ever wonder why some festivals or events are awarded government funding, while others are not! Last week Judi and I visited a festival in eastern Ontario and this topic was discussed. Many festival organizers, who have not received funding, may feel that it is not about what you have but who you know in the government. Having talked to a number of people about this subject, I just don’t believe that this is true. Too many festival and event organizers feel that they deserve funding just because of who they are or where they are located. This attitude just doesn’t cut it! Both the federal and Ontario provincial governments have developed great programs to help both new and established festivals financially. All that they ask is that organizers submit detailed business-like applications. After all, isn’t an organized professional plan what you need to hold a well-run successful event! If you were to apply for a business loan from a bank, they wouldn’t give you a loan just because you’re a nice person or you know the manager! They give loans based on the probability of success! So, why shouldn’t governments do the same! Festival and event funds are not unlimited. This being said, it stands to reason that the monies being given out need to be awarded to festivals and events with the best chance of success. My advice to any festivals or events looking for government funding, “don’t fight the system”! It is a losing battle! Instead, embrace the process and use it to plan and produce the best event possible! And, who knows, you’ll likely increase your chances of receiving government funding! Good Luck!

Crossing the Line...

At what point do festival or event organizers “cross the line” putting profits (dollars) ahead of value for their attendees? I believe that some organizers eventually loose sight of the things that made their event successful. Most festivals and events in the beginning try to offer more to encourage people to visit their event, but what happens when the event becomes really successful over an extended period? Don’t get me wrong, I am all for events making a reasonable profit. After all, many events these days are managed and organized by non-profit groups and most of the money is put back into the community. For the most part profit allows organizers to gauge the success of their event. Nobody likes to work for nothing! That being said, when do festivals cross the line. I don’t think that there is a definitive answer, but I think this happens when organizers forget what made the event successful and start making poor judgment changes all for the sake of increased profits. This could include canceling popular activities or attractions or reducing advertising budgets. Obviously reducing or eliminating unnecessary items is prudent, but if profit is the only motivator and the event becomes less attractive as a result, I think this is wrong. A reasonable balance must be met. Here is an example of what I mean. I know of one festival that keeps raising its admission fees each year, even though their costs have not increased and they have not added value to their event. The increased fees were only a means to increase their profits. When do they stop? They wanted to prove to their community what great fundraisers they were, but what about patrons. The people who come back year after year to support their event? By only increasing admission fees and not providing anything new, aren’t they cheating those very people? And even worse, won’t this attitude eventually come back to haunt them? If this happens, everyone losses, the community, the organizations receiving funds, patrons, vendors, suppliers and ultimately even the organizers themselves! Raising money for the community is a very worthwhile endeavor, but not at the expense of integrity!

Road Blocks to Success…

This past weekend I was at a festival helping my sister-in-law set up her art booth. During the set up I talked to an artist acquaintance who I knew participated in a number of shows throughout the year. I wanted to find out more about these shows and what he thought of them. That’s when we started to talk about the different rules and regulations that organizers and governments threw in the way to prevent festivals and events from having ultimate success. The artist gave me a number of examples of poorly conceived rules that just made me shake my head in disgust! I think the best example of fuzzy headed thinking was the festival that decided to charge vendor participants a fee for parking on their grounds! What were they thinking??!! I’ve talked about this before, but I think it bears repeating, for many events, vendors are the engine that drives people to their event. Why bite the goose that lays the golden egg?

Here is an idea to think about! Many festivals and events pay musical performers big money to come to their event! When they come, they give them the V.I.P. treatment. Why do events pay the big money? To draw crowds to the event! That’s the reason, pure and simply. While this may be necessary in some cases, there are other attractions that draw just as many people and perhaps more! I am talking about first class vendors. Why then do some festivals and events treat them like second class citizens? It just doesn’t make good business sense. Yet it does happen, and all too often! What is even odder, we charge these attractions a lot of money for the privilege of helping us draw people to our events! Most vendors don’t mind this, especially the good ones. They know that there could be a good payday for them if the event does well. But they are the ones taking all the chances, so why not treat them with respect, like the V.I.P.’s that they really are! If you want an example of how good vendors affect shows, just ask the organizers of the Buckhorn Fine Art Festival or the One of a Kid Show in Toronto! They thrive on attracting excellent participants. So, why the imbalance? Why do festival and event organizers and government regulators insist on creating so many “road blocks”? If festivals and events are the “backbone” of our communities, we owe it to ourselves to think of the consequences BEFORE we act! After all, community events need good participants more then good participants need the poor communities!