Informal Festival Forum

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

Water Street Inn, Stillwater, Minnesota

10:00 am - 3:00 pm.  

Topics:

Current Sponsorship Trends (Cindy Fitzpatrick)

Vendor Outlook for 2008 (Jim Bach - Apres Tent & Party Rental; Wendy Famodu - Ziegler Generators; Stacy Prestegard - On Site Sanitation)

Applying Festival Research Results (Ingrid Schneider-U. of M. Tourism Center)

Marketing Community Festivals on the Explore Minnesota Tourism website (Colleen Tollefson-EMT)

Cost: $20.00 (payable at the door)

Includes: Morning Coffee & Rolls, Noon Lunch and handouts.

Please RSVP your intention to attend by calling or e-mailing Randy Gutzmann

651-261-0028 or rwgutz@aol.com

......................................................................................................................................................

Next MFEA Conference Coming in OCTOBER 2008

Highlights from MFEA's 15th Annual Conference

MFEA's Annual conference and trade show was held in St. Cloud, MN from October 27-29. If you didn't come, we missed you and you missed something special! We unveiled this new web site, held workshops and classes, provided networking opportunities, and much more! Here's a sampling of what happened on Day One:

• Harriet Island's own Angela Mens and Fanfare Attractions honcho Randy Dewitz covered "Tents vs Tantrums" which was really a discussion of two approaches to site management; a permanent venue vs. a "fluid" site that can change from year to year or event to event. As part of their workshop they shared two checklist versions of logistics plans that could be invaluable to any festival or event production - one on paper and an electronic version for the technologically inclined.

• Innova Marketing's Stacy Slygh showed conference attendees how the novel concept of mobile marketing can enhance the event experience for attendees via interactive elements that develop new communications points for an event and even take the event to places where members of a specific target market are already spending time and money. You can visit the Mobile Marketing Association's Web site for more information about the concept of mobile marketing and get some ideas about how it might work for you - http://www.mmaglobal.com

• Troy Domine, leader of the lively group that produces the Kolacky Days Celebration in Montgomery, MN, and member of the MFEA board of directors, shared some of the experience his organization gained when they implemented a new sponsorship program into a 70 year-old festival in need of  fresh financial resources. It took strategic planning to get the program going and requires ongoing attention to maintain and grow it (and those vital partnerships/relationships) for the community celebration's future. If you'd been at the conference, you'd know more about doing the same thing for your event and/or festival.

• In a follow-up session, Troy partnered with Shane Stenzel from the Minneapolis Park Board to discuss Building Relationships - One is Never Enough. Among the issues raised: why it's important to make the effort; types of relationships, and which ones are most critical to an event; understanding motives - yours and theirs; building and then maintaining them (which, according to Troy and Shane, is where the real work lies).

• An area that many event organizations are just beginning to learn about - handicap accessibility - was the focus of a workshop put together by Shannon Pierce, Stagetime Productions, and operations director for the 2004 Ice Palace for the St. Paul Winter Carnival and Mike Chevrette from the Metropolitan Center for Independent Living. This valuable presentation dealt with disability awareness issues and etiquette pointers for event producers, and the type of advanced planning necessary for accessibility at any event. Mike brought a very useful yet inexpensive publication with him called Accessible Temporary Events: A Planning Guide.  Cost for this well-illustrated book is $7.00 plus shipping and handling. Learn more about it at: http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/events_news/acc_temp_events.html

Here's what a few of the participants had to say about the last conference:

"I really enjoyed the conference. It was my first time attending. I enjoyed networking and learning new ideas. Your planning committee did a great job!"
Kim Wangler
City of Moorhead, Volunteer/Promotional Services Coordinator

"It was a wonderful conference. It's amazing to see what professional event planners PLAN! Fantastic! I can't wait for next year. I look forward to the newsletter. I wish there was a way for vendors to get more involved in MFEA so someone like me could feel more a part of the team, but I guess that might be a conflict of interest. I'm almost jealous of the camaraderie."
Diana Rohlfsen
Biffs Inc.

Thank you for an amazing conference. I hope that Ordway Center can be more involved with you. I will be submitting my application to serve on the board
David Shack
Community Engagement Coordinator , Ordway Center for the Performing Arts

We'll let you know about plans for the fall 2008 conference as details are confirmed. In the meantime, think about joining us for

one-day workshops to be scheduled at several locations

around Minnesota in 2008!