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
1. TYPE OF EVENT – When your considering the type of event you want to hold, or its theme, consideration should not only be given to the surrounding area but to the actual area itself. You need to hold an event that is going to have the greatest appeal possible and your area just might hold the “key”. I believe that most communities have some outstanding feature or fact that would be of interest to others. Here are some examples of what I mean:
Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest – There is a large German population located here and holding an Oktoberfest celebration just made sense. Now thousands of people from all over the world enjoy this wonderful event. The area and its people held the “key” to the type of event that would be held and would be successful.
Kleinburg Binder Twine Festival – The original celebrations “began in the late 1800’s when farmers came to the community to buy twine to bind their sheaves of wheat together”. Somewhere along the way the tradition became lost. Then in 1967, Canada’s centennial year, the centennial committee revived the idea of the festival. It has now become one of central Ontario’s best fall events.
Smiths Falls Canal, Railway and Chocolate Festival – Until recently Hershey Chocolate played a big part in the lives of the citizens of Smiths Falls. So much so that they developed a festival featuring “chocolate”, the Chocolate and Railway Festival. Unfortunately Hershey’s decided to leave the area and left the festival committee with some hard choices to make. Rather than give the festival up, the committee looked to see what other attractions were in the area. The obvious choice was the Rideau Canal. They started last year by renaming the event, the Canal, Railway and Chocolate Festival and placing a greater emphasis on events near and on the canal. This year the transition will continue. My point with this example is to show that even when one attraction disappears another will arise to take its place. Smiths Falls continues to attract people from all over eastern Ontario.
(To be continued)