Carefree Truth
Issue #618, January 22, 2018
Director of Marketing Gina Kaegi presented a recap of the 2017 Enchanted Garden Pumpkin Festival, showing how the event offers immense added value to the Town, the businesses and the non-profit organizations by providing increased awareness. In 2017, there was an increase in revenue vs. the 2016 event revenue. The Town is continuing to find ways to offset costs and to create new activities for the Pumpkin Festival.
The Festival supports economic development by creating awareness, garnering not only local, but national and international media attention. It's the only one of its kind, unique to Carefree, attracting people who wouldn't normally come to Carefree. It promotes the Gardens, the boutique shops, the galleries and the restaurants, and provides business tie-in opportunities. Many Carefree residents volunteer and/or attend, taking great pride in the event. It reinforces Carefree's mission of being seen as an art community. Last but not least, it's fun!
Ray Villafane has become part of the fabric of Carefree. He has a studio in Spanish Village. He brings very talented carvers from around the country and around the world, and those attending the Pumpkin Festival are treated to lots of interaction with the carvers. Ray has artistic genius abilities and his events are world renowned. 3 years into the Pumpkin Festival, people approach Gina and say, "Oh, this is the pumpkin town!" October is very big for Carefree. Ray loves working in the Gardens and interacting with those who walk their dogs there each day. They get to know one another. He is also well known by the businesses, many of whom he patronizes. Ray has a special affection for Carefree and it shows in his work.
The Town is a co-producer of the Festival. Working with Ray, Gina provided some input and ideas which Ray translated into art. The 2017 highlights include the scarecrows. Typical of Ray, he was asked to do a couple of scarecrows and instead did several. "He really gets carried away." Gina asked Ray to do an even bigger pumpkin than the 417 pound pumpkin that was carved at the 2016 Festival, He found a 672 pound pumpkin. The artists carved several "celebrity" pumpkins and provided a continuous rotation of freshly carved pumpkins so there was always something new to see. There were new humorous vignettes, all of which Ray worked on personally. The media loved it. All 4 of the carvers had carving stations set up in the pavilion, giving people the opportunity to meet and interact with them up-close and personal, and to see the carving process.
In 2015, the first year of the Pumpkin Festival, the crowds exceeded the capacities of the local restaurants, so gourmet food trucks were added in 2016. The Craft Beer Garden and the food trucks generated over $75,000. Gina would like to involve the new Carefree Restaurant Association next year in order to put that $75,000 back into the community. The pumpkin pie eating contest was one of the bigger activities, with people screaming, "Eat, eat, eat!" She thanked Catherine, owner of Venues Cafe, who rose to the challenge by providing 24 pumpkin pies, all of which were eaten. It was an excellent event. Gina also thanked Vicki Zimmerman, who assisted her in organizing the event and who frequently handled the merchandise/information booth during the Festival, dubbing Vicki "The V.P. of First Impressions for the Town of Carefree".
Glass pumpkins by glass artist Greg Toombs have proven very popular. They are priced from $25 to $300 and he sells all of them. Gina thanked Vicki and Gene Orrico, who have participated since the Festival inception, for providing the arts & crafts component each year. Thousands of pumpkins have been painted at the "Adopt a Pumpkin" patch. The YMCA carving nights are extremely popular, and every dollar collected by the Y stays within the community. The new owners of the Carefree Resort, which is now the CIVANA Wellness Resort, were not only a paid sponsor, but also donated a 2 night stay at the Resort. There were 341 people, from New Jersey to Ontario, who entered to win. The winner lives in Scottsdale. The Cave Creek Unified School District (CCUSD) art class is invited each year. Deborah Whales, the art teacher, sent a nice note saying that Ray, a former school art teacher, spent 2-3 hours with the students. This is not something Ray is asked to do; he does it because he cares about the kids and likes working with them. Witch story reading for the young kids was another new feature in 2016.
Gina was asked to come up with some cost recovery ideas for the 2016 Pumpkin Festival. Carefree staff member Vicki Zimmerman organized a small Harvest Market with about 15 vendors, which brought in close to $9,000. The newly added corn maze brought in close to $6,000. A pumpkin headed stilt walker was on site. The witch hats, made and sold by Betsy Lynn from Russ Lyons/Sotheby and her team, were a big hit. The costume contests were lots of fun. Music entertainers were also added.
The Town, the businesses, the citizens and the non-profits worked together. The witch hats raised $7860 for the Caring Corps. Beautifully decorated hats were seen everywhere. The Beer Garden raised $8700 for the Desert Foothills Theater, up 20% from the previous year. The pumpkin patch was up 25% and, along with the 2 carving nights (up 30%), $11,470 was raised for the YMCA, after their expenses. The Easy Street Galleria (now the Carefree Consignment Shop), there for the 3rd year, was up 12% and donated $1455 to the Salt River Horse Rescue. It was also the 3rd year for the Carefree Coffee Roastery. With a nice smile, Uta provided coffee to everyone. Various Carefree businesses participated in the contests and helped with decorations. The 3rd year in, all the numbers are up.
The event ended with the new Trunk or Treat event on Halloween evening, initiated by Misty, owner of the Bella Donna and Cane pet boutique. Gina offered a special thanks to Misty and her family. They, some volunteers from the Chamber of Commerce, Carefree Council members, and some residents who wanted to have fun were there handing out candy. Gina felt this was an event that "had legs" and could build into a tradition.
189 witch hats were made by Betsy Lynn, Carol Chapin and other Russ Lyons/Sotheby volunteers. Caring Corps volunteers, Women Who Wine, church groups and others provided supplies and made additional hats. Gina gave a special thanks to Betsy for her amazing work.
The Pumpkin Festival garners a lot of media attention. The website traffic was up 20%. No money was spent on TV publicity, which was up 22%, from $40,000-$60,000. Facebook traffic was up 30% and there were 641 followers on the new Instagram page. There were 146,403 total digital impressions. There were 2817 Google SEM clicks in 2017 vs. 2534 in 2016. Digital works well for this event because it is so visual. People see a big pumpkin and they want to click on it. The Festival got over $190,000 in free advertising, and approximately $20,000 was spent on digital advertising. The Festival was mentioned in the Food Network Magazine, which has a readership of 13 million. It is the second largest magazine on the news stands in the U.S. and the Pumpkin Festival was the only October event in all of Arizona that was mentioned. Councilman Mike Farrar asked if the Arizona Office of Tourism had been contacted. Gina confirmed that it was on their calendar and that, in fact, they now call her to ask about the pumpkins and the sand carvings. "We know we're on the radar."
Some people prefer print. The Town buys print ads in AZ Images magazine, the Valley Guide, Arizona Key magazine, the CitySunTimes, North Valley magazine, Sonoran News, Green Living magazine, and the Fall Valley Guide Map, as well as producing 10,000 rack cards, street banners, and including inserts with the water bills. Gina places digital paid ads for about $2,000 in AzCentral.com, owned by Madden Media, because the investment yields a good return. AZCentral.com gets 60 million page views a month on it's website. The Pumpkin Festival holds the record for the highest engagement for a Facebook paid ad pushed out for a client.
The Festival received $61,607 in free TV media value, with 12 segments totaling 23 minutes, and a Nielson audience of 463,663. This is not a guess. The source of this information is a Third Party-Media Monitoring company called News Exposure LLC. The Travel Channel was here for a day and a half, filming in the Gardens, filming the YMCA carving nights and filming Rural/Metro putting the pumpkins to bed. The Travel Channel show will air in October of 2018.
Based on monitoring sites, the Festival got $20,000 worth of free digital coverage in the form of an article or a mention from Visit PHX,Raising AZ Kids, AZ Cities at Work, BestThingsAZ, Desert Dream Realty, Phoenix Magazine, AZ Foothills Magazine, KidsAndAbout.com, AZCentral/USA Today, Feature Prescott, Scottsdale.com, Fountain Hills.com, Meet up, Hulafrog and more. It got an estimated $110,000 in free print publicity from the Food Network Magazine, AZ Images Magazine, the Valley Guide, AZ Key Magazine, the CitySunTimes, N. Scottsdale Magazine, Phoenix Magazine, the Foothills Focus, Bashas' circulars, Carefree Water company bill inserts, numerous event calendars and more. Many of these were full page ads.
There have been a total number of 3,330 Facebook page followers since its inception in September of 2016. The new Instagram page had 82 posts @ 641 followers. The total digital reach was 123,100 from October 14th-31st. compared to 86,554 in 2016. 84% of that demographic were women, mostly from the East Valley. The Pumpkin Festival was recommended by Phoenix Magazine, with 261 shares.
www.CarefreePumpkinGarden.com was created in 2015. The website includes media, the daily schedules, photos, highlights, etc. Unique visitors increased from 20,681 in 2015 to 54,512 in 2016 to 67,208 in 2016. New visitors increased 61% and returning visitors increased 39%. Saturday, October 21st, was the most heavily trafficked day, with 7,472 visitors, up from 67,208 on the corresponding day in 2016. The duration of the average visit was 2 minutes and 23 seconds. 76% of the visitors were female and 75% of the visits were accessed using mobile devices.
Merchandise sales increased this year. T-shirts, pumpkin lanyards, postcards, the Pumpkin Book, vine arms and legs, carving tools and pumpkin pins were offered for sale at the Carefree Merchandise Booth. Gina thanked Vice Mayor John Crane, who was there every day, and Vicki Zimmerman, who works the booth and coordinates the merchandise and scheduling. $16,389 worth of merchandise was sold during the Festival. She also thanked the Rural/Metro firefighters for putting the pumpkins to bed every night, and Herbert and me for being there taking pictures every day.
Ray is world renowned. High profile clients of Villafane Studios include The Guiness Book of World Records, ABC, SyFy, DC Comics, Warner Bros., MSNBC, Friskies, Yahoo, Sony Pictures, CBS, the White House, Ripley's Believe It Or Not!, the Food Network, Disney, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Travel Channel, AMC, Time Magazine For Kids, BuzzFeed, BBC, Dos Equis and Blue Moon. Martha Stewart called Ray "the Michelangelo of Pumpkin Carving". There are many other things he could be doing, but he loves Carefree and loves the residents.
Paid sponsors contributed $9,000. Vendor fees (new in 2017), brought in $8,900. The Corn Maze (new in 2017) brought in $5,950, and merchandise sales brought in $16,389, providing a total cost off-set of $40,319. In-kind donations were valued at $10,000. Participating non-profit organizations made $28,985. The Festival cost $146,974. With the cost recovery efforts, the final cost to the Town was $106,655, down from $112,147 in 2016. Before Gina was hired, the Town had been paying an advertising agency $85,000 a year for a few press releases and articles, and a brochure.
Gina thanked the Festival's corporate sponsors, who donated a total of $9000. They were APS, Eastwood/Keystone Homes, Russ Lyon/Sotheby's, Kendrick Wealth Management, 4C Medical Group, and CIVANA. 4C, which was new this year, had a busy medical station at the Festival. The others have been sponsoring the Festival since the beginning. Gina is always looking for more sponsors. Due to the media interest it garners, she is getting increasing sponsor interest.
In-kind donations were valued at $10,000. Bashas' provided 500 pumpkins, a refrigerated truck in which to store the pumpkins for 2 weeks, and a free pumpkin treat at the Carefree store. Let There Be Light donated their labor for the display lighting in the Gardens. Venues Cafe baked 24 pumpkin pies for the pie eating competition. The Rural/Metro firefighters put the pumpkins to bed each night in the refrigerated truck. And there are about 80 individuals who volunteer to help out at the event.
Gina summarized, saying it was another successful event. There was a 16% increase in revenue and a 20% increase in website visitors, 39% of which were new visitors. Merchandise sales were up 7%. The new Harvest Market and corn maze features contributed $14,930. The TV publicity was up approximately 30% and the free print opportunities were estimated at a value of $110,000. The non-profit organizations made over $28,000, and there was an increase in participation by the businesses. The event continues to grow and it attracts new visitors every year.
For the 2018 Pumpkin Festival, Gina plans to again invite participation by local businesses and non-profit organizations, increase activities such as arts, crafts, and novelties, continue the Harvest Market, the quality "themed" food trucks and the Beer Garden, and will attempt to attract more sponsors. She plans to spend less on print advertising next year. She didn't advertise in the print version of the Arizona Republic this year, and the numbers were still up due to word-of-mouth publicity. Marketing planning must be strategic and change with the times.
Upon the completion of her presentation, everyone in the room applauded enthusiastically.
2017 Enchanted Pumpkin Garden: 1/9/18
https://vimeo.com/251417083
Lyn Hitchon
Prepared by Carefree Truth
Visit our website at www.carefreetruth2.com If you know anyone who would like to be added to the Carefree Truth email list, please have them contact me. Feel free to share Carefree Truth with others on your list.
Visit www.carefreeazbusinesses.com to see more info about businesses in Carefree. Please support our merchants.
https://vimeo.com/251417083
Lyn Hitchon
Prepared by Carefree Truth
Visit our website at www.carefreetruth2.com If you know anyone who would like to be added to the Carefree Truth email list, please have them contact me. Feel free to share Carefree Truth with others on your list.
Visit www.carefreeazbusinesses.com to see more info about businesses in Carefree. Please support our merchants.