The Top 5 Mistakes When Organising a Fete or Festival
The Top 5 Mistakes When Organising a Fete or Festival…and How to Avoid Them
1. Not Enough Promotion
Unfortunately it’s not a matter of ‘organise it and they will come’. Network through your group and get them to promote it. If you are selling tickets offer sellers’ prizes. Have members of your group wear promotional t-shirts in the lead up to the event. Corflute posters (similar to real estate boards) on the front fence of all members of an organisation, en masse, is really effective. Banners at local shopping centres or on fences in high traffic spaces are another way to raise the profile of your event. Register your event with local papers as well as online directories. If your target market is online, use Facebook (consider facebook competitions, posting promotional posts in local suburb grapevines or noticeboards on facebook, getting your community to share promotional posts) and Twitter. Community festivals can be shared on the local member of parliaments social media and e newsletters.
2. Not Having a Point of Difference
There are fetes and festivals on most weekends. Why should people go to yours? What makes yours different or better? Decide what it is and make that the hook of your event.
3. Choosing the Wrong Venue
From being too cramped in a location to rattling around in another. Neither provides a fun vibe. Don’t choose a location that’s too far away from public transport or where there is insufficient parking. You need to make it easy for people to get to your event. Once they are there they will want to be comfortable with plenty of shade, access to seating and toilets. If people are uncomfortable, they won’t come again next year.
4. Wasting Your Volunteers Time
Volunteers are the lifeblood of all organisations. How many potential volunteers sit on their hands after a bad volunteering experience? Where they put their hand up for a simple task but ended up working hundreds of hours. Or worse, where they were happy to help but ended up sitting around for hours as no one had organised enough work for them. Your volunteer’s time is valuable – make every second count!
5. Being Too Expensive
It’s important to raise money for your event, however you don’t want your visitors to feel like they haven’t received value for money. You might raise lots of money this year, but next year they won’t be back and they won’t bring their friends.
So now you know what to concentrate your efforts on to make sure your event is a success. So you don’t make the same mistakes when organising a fete or festival.
Originally published 19 May 2011
