Sundogs Festival 2018

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Event marketing and management for the Sundogs Festival 2018

As soon as last years’ Sundogs Festival finished, we still had work to do. We collected hundreds of event photos and hours of video footage that would all help towards marketing this years’ event.

Preparation began for the 2018 festival by producing an infographic summarising the 2017 event. We would hope that this years’ will surpass last years’ in every way possible so another infographic will be a necessity in order to compare and benchmark ready for the 2019 event.

We began with a brand revamp, just refreshing what we had built in 2017 without looking like we are recycling old work. New year, new look! All bar the banners which were needed before we had finalised the refresh. Same font just a slightly different look.

Although we uploaded hundreds of photos to help sell the event this year, we held back with the videos. They would be used as material to advertise this years’ event.

And edited together highlight footage of all the sports and the festival itself. Of which 15 of these were produced using Facebook’s slideshow function. All these videos would be published systematically, 2-3 per week to promote this years’ event. In addition to this we applied our design skills to produce unique promotional graphics specifically for Facebook, all of which have had a steady interaction of the course of the last 5 months. We posted on a daily basis as of January the 31^st.

A total of over 140 unique posts directly aimed at marketing the event. We also kickstarted the 2018 campaign by jumping on the 6 Nations and successfully holding a contest to start getting rugby fans interested in the event with as limited financial impact as possible. We also paid to promote the 1 minute long video and the Facebook event. These were done incrementally, in February to tie in with the 6 Nations as mentioned, in April as festival details were finalised so we pushed for interest far and wide then again at the beginning of June, promoting the Facebook event we created for the 3 weeks in the run up to Sundogs Festival 2018. As the festival grows we would suggest putting more money aside to advertise more regularly but marketing was done by ourselves almost voluntarily. The paid advertising was exchanged for a ‘Event Sponsor’ slot.

Offline Printed Media

We also produced an 8-page booklet with all the information teams needed to enter the Sundogs 2018. This included the incorporation of the refreshed brand plus this year we were able to personalise it to the event as we had collected a substantial amount of media

We also produced a 16-page booklet to be mailed out to businesses to reach out for sponsorship. All the opportunities were listed and priced, plus photos of last years’ event to encourage the businesses getting involved.

Other offline promotional material we produced were A3 posters and A5 double sided flyers to be hung and distributed throughout the county.

We also produced a 16-page festival programme, containing all the details of the weekend (specifically the day – the 23^rd) plus advertising spots for sponsors. This was also produced in line with the brand refresh and the 3 booklets we designed all shared a branded look.

Festival Programme

The programme included the 2018 site plan that we also designed. Improving the design from last year, we flipped the plan so it was easier to read. This was included in the centrefold of the programme, which were given to all attendees and the idea was to take as much guess work out of the event as possible. Everything available and going on was easy to locate if you were unfamiliar with the festival grounds.

Site Plan

Although we primarily focused our attention on Facebook, we still managed the website we developed for the festival. We renewed the domain and hosting ourselves, updated the information and refreshed the look in line with the brand revamp. As the festival continues to grow the website will become a more valuable asset but at the moment social media channels are the main contact points for the festival. We managed Twitter up until April but the voluntary involvement in the promotion of the event was causing strains on work so we focused on Facebook and website management. During this time we referred 5 teams from Facebook, Twitter and the website so we certainly helped do our bit!

If you came to the festival you may have noticed the tickets we designed too! Again updating the design inline with the brand refresh. Brand consistency is key to any venture, whether it is in business or an event.