Ideas for Planning a Fall Festival or Event

Fall is one of the busiest times of year. With school events, holidays and travel, it can be easy to lose touch with communities and audiences. But the season also provides many opportunities to connect through specially timed and themed festival or event. 

According to Bizzabo, most marketing professionals (95%) recognize the value events hold for creating in-person connections. And, an Eventtrack industry study found that 74% of attendees had a more positive opinion about a company, brand, or product after a great event. 

“Event marketing facilitates customer engagement with brands in a meaningful and multi-sensory way, building a strong, memorable emotional connection between brands and audiences,” says Gabrielle Mratinez, Managing Partner of the agencyEA. “Additionally, live experiences are invaluable opportunities for content generation and data collection to inform future campaigns.”

To help stay engaged with your audiences this autumn, consider the hosting a fall-inspired event like those outlined below:

Community Events

Tis the season for gathering. So consider hosting family-friendly events that bring together the community, such as a pumpkin carving contest or a movie night. 

A pumpkin carving contest could offer a range of prizes – think, “most creative,” “funniest,” “scariest” or “best overall.” Just be sure to come prepared with carving tools or paint, stencils, and trash cans for all the pumpkin guts. 

Similarly, a movie night offers a fun and relaxing way for families to get out of the house. To get into the fall spirit, consider hosting the event in a park with a projector screen. You can even sell popcorn or hot chocolate if it’s a little chilly outside. But have a back-up plan in case the weather doesn’t cooperate with your event. 

Start Planning Your Fall Event

Create a free event website with Ticketbud and upload your entire community contact list. Then, send invitations to your contacts directly from the site. 

School Events

With school back in session, fall is buzzing with dozens of exciting social and sporting events. So consider ways you can enhance regularly scheduled events with fall touches. 

For example, turn your homecoming game day into a fall festival, with a parade, games, booths, and more. Make it an event alumni and families will want to flock to by getting the entire school involved. Student organizations can fundraise by creating their own parade floats or game-day activities.

Start Planning Your Fall Event

With a day or a weekend full of events, it’s expected that some people may not be able to attend every activity. So use the breakdown of events as an opportunity to raise more money. With Ticketbud’s ticket editor, organizers can create multiple ticket types so people can purchase tickets to the activities that interest them most.

Fundraiser Events

The holidays always bring about a giving spirit. So, consider hosting a fundraising event to round out the year. How about a Thanksgiving Turkey trot? Or a pumpkin-spiced bake sale? 

When hosting a fundraising event, make sure your audience knows who the benefactors will be. Include any sponsoring or partnering organizations within the branding and descriptions of the event. Provide a brief background on any organizations receiving funds from the ticket sales. These details help influence people to buy. 

Start Planning Your Fall Event

Create a free event registration page using Ticketbud. In addition to allowing users to set up multiple ticket types, event organizer’s can create a donation button for the registration page. This lets those who want to give a little extra or donate in lieu of their participation a chance to do so. Ticketbud can also help organizers manage any race day needs with easy mobile check-in and race bib assignments. 

Pop-up Events

Pop-up events are an exciting way to draw in new audience members and bring attention to a brand. If you’re thinking about hosting a fall pop-up, why not stick to the fall theme?

For example, host a haunted house. These events are temporary in nature and always hosted in a unique location. To make it a success, recruit some helping hands. Hire theater actors from a local school or university to play the scary parts and get ideas from your contacts on their best haunted house experiences. 

Start Planning Your Fall Event

Set-up an account page for your organization using Ticketbud to keep track and showcase multiple events to the public. Customize each individual event page’s set-up so that other events in the series are promoted on each event’s page. 

Conferences and Trade Shows

Spruce up your conference or expo with fall-centric foods, activities, swag and recommendations. 

If people are traveling from out of town, provide a list of area recommendations of where they could find fun fall activities or good eats outside of conference times within your printed or online program. Hosting a day-long or multi-day event? Pick a fall harvest inspired menu to make your attendees feel at home during their visit. 

Start Planning Your Fall Event

Since conferences and trade shows draw in attendees from around the world, get ahead of event marketing. Create a cohesive brand for your event that is recognizable across all the platforms – website, social media, email. Use the design to develop your own custom banner for your event ticketing page. Here’s a template to help get started. 

Chamber of Commerce

As businesses wrap up and evaluate the activities of the entire year, their leaders must use that data to prospect for the year ahead. Give local businesses the resources they need to be successful in the year ahead by introducing them to others leaders in the area through a fall mixer. 

Networking events provide ample opportunities for people to make meaningful connections with others who can support their business pursuits. Plus, the event itself makes for a great opportunity for a chamber of commerce to get the word out about the organization and recruit new members. 

Start Planning Your Fall Event

Utilize the power and influence of your current audience to create buzz, excitement and ticket sales for your event. Set up special promotions for event registration. Offer discounts to members of your organizations or special discount codes they can pass on to their contacts who they’d like to join the networking event.

Virtual Events

Stay engaged with audiences throughout the busiest travel season by hosting virtual events, such as a series of mixology, baking or cooking events. 

Mix up the next online event with some audience participation and invite guests to recreate a drink or food recipe together from the comfort of their own home or travel destination. The recipes could be suited for fall, such as mulled wine or pumpkin pie. Just make sure the guests are prepared with the appropriate ingredients ahead of time. 

Start Planning Your Fall Event

Build the cost of the ingredients and shipping into your budget, and plan out how to get the recipe packages to the audience ahead of time. If using Ticketbud, utilize the custom questions tool to ask audiences for their shipping address. That way, everyone is ready to make the recipe as soon as they click “join meeting.”

Private Events

Get into the Halloween spirit at your next private event. 

Hosting a costume party? Special themes have a way of getting people excited and talking about an event as they plan out how they’re going to dress the part. Give guests ideas for how to dress the part or offer prizes for those who go above and beyond. 

Or, lean into the spooky season by planning a murder mystery party designed around the interests of your entire group, such as the Roaring 20s, the Wild West, or Harry Potter. Take extra time to plan out the details so the decor, food and even your guest’s characters are all on theme. 

Start Planning Your Fall Event

The devil is in the details when hosting themed events. To ensure your guests are in the know about what to expect and how to prepare, create an event website with a detailed description of contests or game play. Ticketbud makes creating and editing an event website easy with its intuitive page editor, which allows you to customize your event details and see how they appear to your guests in real time. 

Best Damn Tailgating Guide

tailgate Theme A theme for your tailgating party may seem unnecessary but it makes the rest of the planning easier. Your event appears cohesive and gives the impression that you spent weeks planning it. Most tailgates have pretty self explanatory themes. You want to go all out for your team and drench everything in the colors that matter. So if your’e a University of Texas fan then burnt orange and white would work here. To truly make your tailgate a masterpiece, go one step further and ask yourself what type of party you want to have. Are you more a “quick-grilling, hotdog-eating, beer-in-a-can out of the cooler” type of tailgater? Or are you a “crock-pot bringing, themed cocktail making” type of tailgater? Knowing this allows you to put together food, drinks and all the essentials. (But of course, don’t forget the team colors!) Food [caption id="" align="alignright" width="318"] Mmm, hot dogs.[/caption] Mmm, hot dogs. It should surprise no one that food is high on the list of important needs at a tailgate. Some might say it is the most important thing and they wouldn’t be wrong. Good food makes any social event and this is no exception. Keeping your theme in mind, put together a few sure-fire food options that will appeal to everyone. Know how much time and effort you’ll have to spend during the tailgate. Don’t feel like spending a lot of time cooking while you’re there? No problem! Crock-pots are a god send and its easy to put together some quick dishes before hand that will travel well. If you decide nothing beats the fresh, smokey taste of meats off the grill (and we can’t blame you!) make sure where you’re going allows for grilling. Also keep track of everything you need to not just start the grill, but also put it out safely. Still not sure what you should do? Too many options to choose from? No problem, we can help you out. Here are a couple sure-fire options for your tailgate:

        Drinks [caption id="" align="alignright" width="316"] For the truly transcendent tailgating refreshment.[/caption] Are you having an all ages event? Or is your tailgating party more a kick-off kegger? Either way, you need to have some kick-ass drinks available for your event. Whether you make your own beer punch (we really like like this one) or toss a couple local brews into the cooler, you should have enough to keep everyone properly hydrated. If you do have a kid-friendly kick-off going on, make sure to keep coolers or drink dispensers separated and easily marked. When the event gets underway, much easier to ensure that what the kids are drinking is actually Kool-Aid. And if you really want to kick it up a notch, you can always go for a sweet bar-in-truck set up.   Cooking/Cleaning supplies While it seems obvious, make sure you have all cooking and cleaning supplies handy as you’re cooking. Inventive tailgaters have come up with a variety of different methods for keeping everything handy and nearby. No one wants to grab a hot dog and some potato salad and not be able to find a napkin or a fork to eat! There are a bunch of ideas for keeping your utensils from being lost from the quick and easy to the elaborately pinterest-y (that counts as an adjective right?) depending on your theme and how much effort you want to put into it. Whichever way you go, make sure you have everything before you set out for the stadium! Music [caption id="attachment_22846" align="alignright" width="182" class=" "]tailgating Pre-made playlist and lacking the [insert your team here] fight song but handy when you need something quick.[/caption]Proper tune-age is essential. You can go the homemade mixtape route like your inner 90’s kid totally wants you to do (admit it) or you can check out iTunes Music or Spotify Playlists and check out the pre-made selection if you’re in need of some music quickly. Tent & Chairs While we don’t get too many rainy days here in Austin (gotta love that perpetual sunshine!), tents are an essential part of your tailgating gear no matter where you’re setting up (we’re sure many of our fans in the less sunny parts of the country would agree). Doesn’t matter if it is hot Texas sun, pouring rain or, god forbid, freezing snow, a tent will save your tailgate from ending before the kick off. Also, be sure you have more options for seating than people you expect to be there. Without a doubt, Jimmy is gonna show up and even though he said he was coming by himself, you know he’s going to end up bringing that girl he just started dating (or who knows, you may make friends while you’re there!) Either way, extra seating ensures that no one is going to have to have the sad seat in the dirt. TV [caption id="" align="alignright" width="273"] These bold fans are really stepping up their TV Tailgate Game.[/caption] There was a time when tailgating was mainly done just as a precursor to a football game. You would go early, wait with your friends and family for the stadium to open and then head on in to watch the game. Nowadays, the parking lot is the end destination for many people heading towards the football stadium. If you’re one of the many heading out to grill and drink and watch the game from the outsides of the stadium, well don’t forget to take your TV. If you’re really ambitious, throw in a second TV so you’ll be able to keep track of all the games going on. Good Friends Of course there is nothing more necessary to a tailgate than having good friends with you. Make sure To get as many people together as you can as tailgating really benefits from the more the merrier proviso. Provided they’re cheering for the right team of course.   So have fun! Go crazy! Make the most kick-ass tailgating event you’ve ever done! Check out our Pinterest board for more tips and tricks on food, drinks and everything in between. And remember when it comes to tailgating and your team, you can never go too far or do too much.]]]]> ]]>