Event Development (continued)

“The following is a continuation of my Event Development Series. Several months ago I started the series with the first section, “Initial Development”. The second section is entitled “Research and Preliminary Planning”. Now that you and your team have decided to proceed with the event, it’s time to get serious! As suggested previously, any thoughts and idea are more then welcome!”

Research and Preliminary Planning
You’ve determined that you “financially” want to proceed with your festival or event and you and your committee have completed plenty of “research”. Now it’s time to start your “Preliminary Planning”.

Preliminary Planning – Considerations (Continued)
6. Are There Any Conflicting Events? – This is an important question because the success of your event will likely be defined in terms of the number of visitors to your event and how much they spend! If there is a conflicting event, it could drastically affect your numbers, visitors and revenue. “Conflicting events” don’t necessarily mean conflicting dates or locations. They could also include types of participants and visitors. For example, suppose you are planning on holding a major art show on a particular date, but there is another one being held some distance away. Because they don’t conflict location wise, your might think it’s okay to go ahead with the event. This could be a fatal error in judgment because you might not be able to attract the best artists, artists who would attract visitors. Conflicting art shows would likely split the visitor base and both events might suffer, especially if yours is the newer event. Many groups have associations which help organizers coordinate dates, participants and marketing. If this is the case for your event, contacting the appropriate association may save a lot of grief! The internet is a great way to search for these associations. On the other side of the coin are events that may initially seem to be in conflict with your event. However, they may be complimentary to your event. Research will help determine this. When this happens, cooperation is the name of the game! By cooperating with one another you can play on each others strengths! You might event find that together you can offer a lot more and even draw more people to your event! If you really find that you can work together, you might even be able to reduce your costs in areas such as advertising, transportation, parking and security (etc). Being aware of what is happening around you can work to your advantage in many ways!
(To be continued)