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| This section is designed to assist you in making your event a terrific
success. Through the years we have learned what works, and what does not.
Please print this up and use this as a guide to keep you on track with the
promotion of your event. I. Starting Point A. Check with your local radio station, area churches, community calendar, and other promoters in your area to see if there is a conflicting event. NOTE: Please check with your local high schools for any sport activities that may be occurring the same day as your event. B. Confirm the following: 1 - Your concert hall in writing. 2 - The date and artist in writing with the agency. 3 - The Christian Radio station will support you. C. The Buzz Your best means of communication will be "word of mouth." Here are a few ways to get the "buzz" going: 1 - Have a youth pastors lunch-in or prayer breakfast telling them all about your event and the goals of your event. ** This is crucial. Call them, email them, fax them, flat out bug them. 2 - Call local churches asking them to put it on their calendars and in their bulletins. 3 - Send churches posters to put up in their youth department. 4 - Prepare flyers with the event information stated clearly on it. These will be passed out as well as bulk mailed so please remember this when designing the layout. II. The countdown begins: A. 15 weeks prior to the concert...... 1 - Prepare to do a direct mail campaign. Please try to mail at least 1000 individuals as well as churches in order to saturate the market effectively. Also, prepare to send the top 50 - 75 churches in your area some posters (2) and a hotsheet with personal letter. This list can be acquired by contacting several churches in your area. *** It is essential that your direct mail campaign arrive at least 7 - 8 weeks prior to the day of the event. No youth minister likes to be informed of an event a few weeks before it is scheduled to take place. 2 - Contact bookstores in your area asking them to participate in your event by letting you sell tickets in their establishment. This not only brings customers into their store possibly generating more income for them, but also shows community involvement on your part. This is very important. 3 - Obtain promotional material from agency and prepare to have all material printed with the concert information stated clearly. Please make sure you include: Time, Place, Date, Price, and where tickets are available. This is very influential when trying to get a bookstore or other establishment to become a ticket outlet. 4 - Its time to print those tickets as well. Please make the tickets no smaller than a normal business card and include all the information on the ticket that is on the poster. (Sometimes a local printer or business will pay for the cost of printing the tickets in exchange for their business information or logo to be printed on the back of the ticket. Also, sometimes business will print the tickets if they can put a coupon on the back of the ticket. These are two highly effective ways for the tickets to be printed for free.) 5 - Contact your local Christian radio station and inquire about them becoming a co-sponsor of the event. Purpose? Two fold: One, they will air the commercial a lot because they have a reputation on the line and want a successful event just as you do. Two, it will free up monies that would have been used on radio commercials and will give you the opportunity to use it in another capacity. (In the event your Christian station does not want to co- sponsor the concert, ask for their discount packages and any special promotion policies they may have.) B. 14 weeks prior to the event…. 1 - Send out a personal invitation to youth pastors and any other youth organizations you want, inviting them to your morning breakfast or lunch- in. This is crucial! Don't spend a lot of money on this. The purpose is to give them a personal invitation to invite them to one exciting night of ministry that is coming to their area. 2 - Mail out all of your direct mail information. Also, send your top 50 - 75 churches a hotsheet, poster, and personal letter from you. This is very important in getting youth groups to your event. 2 - Call local restaurants and secure a meeting room. Most of your chains have a conference room that you will be able to utilize. (If they want to charge you for it, let them know what you are doing and possibly trade this service out for advertisement. If not see if they can donate the use of the room.) C. 13 Weeks prior to the event….. 1 - Place a phone call to all the individuals you invited, encouraging them to come hear of this great ministry outreach event coming to your area. 2 - Pick up all printed posters and/or flyers that you have had made for the event. The posters will be shown and distributed to the individuals that show up at the meeting. 3 - Ask individual churches if they are willing to support your event by providing counselors at the decision time. D. 12 Weeks prior to the event..... 1 - Distribute all promotional material to local businesses and all of the ticket outlets. Also, keep an accurate log of tickets left with outlet. This is very important in giving accurate ticket sale numbers to the agency as well as being a key tool in "settling up" with the store. 2 - Please make sure to emphasis the importance of the word "SOLD OUT" to the ticket outlet. This word should not be used at all by the ticket outlet. This will cause great harm to your event. So keep tabs on the progress of sales to make sure no one runs out of tickets. 3 - Let the bookstore know the date that they can hang the promotional material and begin to sell tickets. ** Make sure that it is made clear, that they are not to start selling tickets, nor hang the posters up until you tell them too. E. 11 Weeks prior to the event..... 1 - Contact your local Christian radio station and have them assemble the commercial that you will be running. Our experience has shown that the following set of radio commercials is very effective: (2) :60 second commercials = 1 for midday's and easy listening times(this commercial should be on the lighter side, but clear and concise with its purpose to attract the parents in order to get them to bring their kids), and 1 for all drive times and evenings(a little more aggressive, attracting the younger crowd). Also, (2) :30 second commercials used in the same fashion as above. Also ask the station if you can do commercials announcing times until the event. For example, ..... 1 week from today, in 5 days, 4, 3, 2, 1 day from now, tonight. So a total of 11 different commercials would run. REASON? If it sounds different, people are more bound to listen. When things get repetitive, listeners tune a very important commercial out. 2 - Write up the Public Service Announcement for the Christian radio station. Prepare for this to be stripped down to bare essentials. This is very important for the Jocks. Radio jocks have a repore with their faithful listeners. So if they say go to this great outreach event, the listener just might. F. 10 Weeks prior to the Event….. 1 - Contact the ticket outlets and see if they are interested in bag stuffers - (a concert advertisement that is put in the bags when a customer makes a purchase. Click here for example: Bag Stuffer) This is also a good way to keep in touch with the outlet, even if they are not interested. But they should be willing to help. 2 - If stores are interested, contact local printers, business, etc. and see if someone is interested in sponsoring the bag stuffers. You can put their log and information on the back of the stuffer, if they agree to pay for it. Print enough for all your outlets. At least a thousand per ticket outlet. G. 8 Weeks prior to the Event….. 1 - Print up flyers with all the concert information on them and recruit volunteers that will be willing to pass them out. (Have a church donate their machine and paper to print these up.) 2 - Contact the agency and see if the artist(s) might be available to pass by the Christian Bookstore ticket outlet and perform their latest single "unplugged" as well as sign autographs and such. ** This is very good PR for the event!** 3 - If it is cleared through the agency, then contact the local Christian Bookstore ticket outlet and see if they are interested. If so, set up a time that is good for the artist, and then tell the outlet what time that is. Remember… You are in control of this, not the outlet. 4 - Get with the Christian radio station that is running the commercial…. Ask to listen to the spot, check it for accuracy, and make sure they understand and you understand how the commercial will run. 5 - Contact the agency and ask for CD's of the artist to give out on the local Christian radio station that is advertising for the event. You should get at least 15 CD's. This will give the jocks something to talk about. Give-a- ways should start on the 4th week. H. 6 Weeks prior to the Event….. 1 - Recruit or hire on a crew to help with the concert. These areas include: Load-in/out, ushers, ticket takers, security, and a runner. 2 - Send out all announcements to any free publication in your area. These include: Activity calendars, church bulletins, newspapers, radio, TV, any local cable show, schools, youth groups, etc. 3 - Your radio commercial should begin to run at this time. If the station is not sponsoring the event, and the budget does not permit this much advertising, then wait 4 weeks prior to the event, and then begin. If not, make sure they are reading a PSA until the 4 week mark. This is critical! Do not let anything happen. Something has to be said about the event to create interest. 4 - Tell the ticket outlets to hang all advertising material and begin to sell tickets to the event. Make sure they have no less than 2 posters displayed in their store. The more people see it, the more of a chance you have of them buying a ticket. 5 - All Christian Bookstore ticket outlets should have the bag stuffers at this time as well, and should be stuffing every customer's bag, as well as letting them know the concert is coming. Two-way communication between the customer and the store representative is essential. *** Make sure the manager lets the employees know about the event, and that they should talk to customers about it. 6 - Your first wave of flyers should happen right now too. Put them everywhere and anywhere. Don't let any stone go unturned. 7 - If the Christian Bookstore and the artists management has agreed to an appearance by the artist, then the bookstore should be advertising that as well. *** This is very important!! The artist will want a crowd and so will the bookstore. Make sure everyone is on the same sheet. This should be advertised on the bag stuffers as well. I. 4 Weeks prior to the Event…… 1 - If you have not already done so, your radio advertisement must start now. 2 - Radio jocks must also be talking up the event with ticket give-a-ways. Provide the station with at least 50 tickets, 25 pair to give out to listeners on their morning, midday, and afternoon drive times. See schedule on how to do ticket give-a-ways. 3 - Radio jocks must also start giving away the CD's provided to them. Tell them to be creative with how they do the give-a-way. Make sure this happens! This creates "BUZZ" 4 - Get up with the agency and schedule interviews with the artist and the station. This can be live or recorded and played later. 5 - Ask the station if they are interested in having the artist come to their studio for an interview and an unplugged performance (if this is possible). If they are interested, then contact the agency and have them see if this is possible, and schedule time for it. 6 - Contact local youth pastors and churches and make arrangements for counselors and materials to be available the night of the event. This has to happen during the event as well as some sort of follow-up with all the decisions must take place as well. J. 3 Weeks prior to the Event….. 1 - Have radio station start talking about the artist coming to their station and performing live with an interview. (only if this is happening) This will create more "BUZZ" about the event. 2 - Also, the station should continue to give away tickets as well as CD's and such. Jock talk is the KEY! 3 - Send press releases to the religion and entertainment editors of the local newspapers. ALL of them. See press release for an example. 4 - Begin to check the ticket sales, and supply more tickets as needed. This should be done every 4th day. No one should run out of tickets if there is still some in other outlets. 5 - Hire a caterer or some church members to prepare meals for the artist and road crew. Contact the artist agency and obtain a meal list from them, as well as their preferred time to eat. K. Week of the Event….. 1 - Be sure that you pick up all monies/remaining tickets from the outlets no later than 1 day prior to the event. Instruct the outlets to tell customers that the tickets are now only available at the door. Any group rates will not apply at the door, nor should any unpaid tickets be held at the door. It's not uncommon to be asked to hold 30 tickets at the door, and then not show up to pay for them. 2 - Call and confirm artist arrival time with the agency and the road manager is possible. 3 - Be sure the hotel rooms are reserved and pre-paid. THIS IS A MUST! Provide the artist with a confirmation number when they arrive at the venue. 4 - Have all meals arranged or food money (per diems). L. The day of the Event….. 1 - Have your crew there at the pre-determined time. The hall manager should have the building open and ready for set-up. 2 - Brief ushers and staff on their duties at least two-hours before concert time. 3 - Meet with the road manager and cover any details on set-up and load- out, as well as sound check and any problems they may have or see at that time. 4 - Have tables set up at the rear of the auditorium and several people available to help with sales of the artist merchandise. 5 - Mealtime should be established with the artist and road manager. 6 - Have your staff and the artist gather together and pray for a successful event and those decisions for the Lord would be made. M. After the Event …….. 1 - Settle up all monies with the road manager 2 - Send all volunteers and counselors thank you letters 3 - Be sure all the crew members are present to help the artist with load-out. |