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Promoting Your Flower Festival
Introduction
A Flower Festival can be a very big event for a church. As well as being an excellent fund-raiser, it brings enjoyment and pleasure to lots of people who would rarely walk through a church door. However, it takes an enormous amount of planning and work, even if very sociable and exciting for those involved. A Flower Festival usually means spending money 'up front', so ensuring visitors turn up is very important, not only to recoup ones out-goings, but in making a good profit to ensure the
future financial health of your church.
These notes are designed to help you with your publicity. You do not have to do everything suggested but a little effort with a computer and a small outlay on stamps can bring great rewards.
If your church has a heading on its notepaper you could use that. If not select a simple design which you can use for all your correspondence and press releases concerned with the Flower Festival. Make sure it looks good in black and white for ease of copying.
example
St Rose's Church
Limaton, Hopshire HY99 0AU
At the beginning
When setting up the organising committee, set up the Publicity Sub-Committee at the same time. If it is the first Flower Festival ever held then announce it in a Press Release. If it is the first for several years then announce it in the same way. If it follows the success of last year's festival then the press release will say that.
- "For the first time ever, St Rose's Church is to hold a Flower Festival. Plans are in hand for a 3-day event around the feast day of St Rose next August ..."
- After a 7 year break, members of St Rose's Church are to hold a flower Festival in 2007. A planning group has already been formed ..."
- "Following the success of St Rose's recent Flower Festival, organisers are already gearing up for an even better event next year ..."
This is your first bite at the publicity cherry and hopefully the cherry
will be big enough forseveral more bites before the big event itself!
Choosing a Theme
When choosing a theme for your Flower Festival, try to choose something that is easy to explain to members of the public who are not familiar with theology or church terms. Lives of the Saints or Church and Community is a lot simpler than Redemption or Trinity! (But you can be more imaginative than me!) When a theme has been chosen issue another press release announcing what the theme is going to be, with a brief explanation and a reminder of the dates of the Flower Festival.
"The History of St Rose in Hopshire is to be the theme for the Flower Festival at the church in Limaton. Plans are already well formed for the event to be held next August 22nd-24th. One of the organisers, Ivy Petheram, said the idea of relating flowers to local history had been a unanimous one "We all got quite excited by the way amazing pictures could be made with flowers to show the history of the church in the village," she said ...".
Creating Publicity
As preparations by the main organising group continue, it is now time to create an opportunity for publicity. What is needed to make the Flower Festival even better? Here are a few ideas that will generate interest in your festival:
- Involve the local school in a history project
- Make a public plea for historic artefacts
- Make a plea for old photographs of the village
- Make a plea for paintings of the Church
- Invite people to identify others in an old photograph
- Make a plea for something unusual that will enhance one of the flower displays (a butter churn, an old box camera, a peasant's smock ... use your imagination)
When you have identified what you might want to do, write a press release. You can use more than one of the above ideas, but leave at least 4 weeks between pleadings! BBC local radio stations usually have a help desk to which you can send your press release as well as the news desk. Follow up with a phone call.
Local papers love old photographs, as well as being keen to have pictures of what you already have collected.
Your press release will include a reminder of the date of your Flower Festival.
Send your press release out as widely as possible. Think about newspapers that cover nearby places; Birmingham Post, Wolverhampton Express and Star, Worcester Evening News, Shropshire Star, Western Daily Press as well as all the local weeklies.
Other Events
It can be quite usual to have other events going on in the village/parish. The local church/parish/village hall could be used for teas, so a photographic display or art exhibition to complement the theme of the Flower Festival can fit in well as people buy a cup of tea and a bun. There are 2/3 press releases here. One could invite photographers or local artists to submit pictures. Another could be the selection of pictures by a local celebrity or perhaps the BBC local radio could do a programme from the Hall looking at the entries. A third could be how delighted and overwhelmed organisers have been by the number of pictures submitted. A separate children's display can generate another press release.
NB You can only do something like this if you have a person keen to take on the organisation of the side event.
If other events are being organised especially for the same weekend, you might issue a press release expressing delight in the number of people involved in the weekend, how the event is pulling the whole community together or how the event is getting bigger every year!
Local businesses could do something during the Flower Festival. Encourage the local pub to have a floral display; the local shop/post office might decorate its window or have a competition in its window; village gardens might be encouraged to open to give visitors lots of reasons to come to your event.
Other Publicity
Publicity for your Flower Festival starts as much as a year in advance. The Press releases you have sent out have been 'drip fed' throughout that time to local papers and radio and at times further afield. But you will be preparing other publicity material at the same time.
A well designed poster can be very useful. With computers it is a lot simpler to produce both colour and black and white designs that look professional. Make sure it is ready and duplicated 3 months ahead of your Flower Festival. It needs to be distributed as widely as possible. There should be lots visible in the village/parish. Distribute to local businesses including garages, shops, doctors surgery, hotels, B&Bs, other tourist attractions etc. Laminating it can make it look very professional as well as weather proof!
BBC Local Radio has a free 'What's On' system so send the details to that. Never assume that because you have been sending press releases it will have reached the 'What's On' system ... for the price of a second class stamp ensure it is included.
Within the Diocese you can include it on the Events Listing in The NEWSpaper (and if you are really clever, your press releases will have gone there too so you might receive a little editorial space!) You can have it included in the Events Listing on the Diocesan website by sending poster and details to c.combstock@hereford.anglican.org or posting it to the Diocesan Office in Hereford.
You can use organisations like the Mothers Union to invite MU Branches from the West Midlands to have a day out at your event.
If you have someone who can paint attractive roadside notices then this can be a very good idea. When one Shropshire church surveyed visitors on how they had learned about their Flower Festival, they were surprised at the number who had turned off the main road having seen their brightly painted signs!
Many churches organise a Flower Festival musical programme. These events too may be the subject of press release(s).
The local school might also provide a daytime concert for Festival goers.
Other organisations within the parish might like to piggy back your festival by holding an exhibition. Joint publicity and advertising of each other's events may be very useful. Just make sure that your Flower Festival is the main attraction!
Everything suggested is a guideline. Please let me know if you try anything different that is successful so it can be shared with others. Do not forget to use the Listings Noticeboard on the diocesan website and of course your own parish or village website if appropriate. Do not rule out the idea of paying for some advertising, a small outlay could reap large rewards! And start thinking about the next one - send a good picture and some words about the success of your festival to "The NEWSpaper".
This leaflet has been produced by:
Anni Holden
Director of Communications
Diocese of Hereford
The Palace
Hereford HR4 9BL
a.holden@hereford.anglican.org
Tel: 01432 343342 or 07889 186316
Www.hereford.anglican.org