Carefree Truth
Issue #720, January 28, 2019
Mayor Les Peterson called the 2018 Pumpkin Festival a roaring success by any standards, after which Marketing Director Beth Renfro presented the final recap. The Festival ran from October 19-28, and is now the largest event in the town. Villafane Studios decorates the Gardens.
This year, the Town brought in CenterPoint Events, an event management company, to assist the Town staff with logistics. This allowed the staff to focus on promotion and audience engagement. Easy Street remained open and the footprint was expanded to include part of Hum Rd, encouraging visitors to explore the businesses along Easy Street and in Spanish Village along the route of the event. Cost recovery streams included the Beer Garden, wristband and merchandise sales, and vendor space rentals. The Town partnered with the Sonoran Arts League for beer, wine and spirit sales. The Town controlled the wristband and merchandise sales.
There was an increased social media presence, using both MGR, the paid consultants, and organic reach. Social media advertising cost $2,015. Print advertising cost $18,090 and included publications and rack cards. Radio advertising cost $3,500. Email advertising cost $700. Online advertising cost $130. The advertising budget was $25,000, of which $24,435 was spent.
Radio ads on KJZZ and KBAQ, and an email blast in the Phoenix New Times were new this year. Small online banner ads were run in the Sonoran News and Arizona Key Magazine. The social media campaign was run mainly through MGR. Approximately $120 was spent on marketing on Carefree's FaceBook page, which was done by Ms. Renfro. Some of the event planning by the previous Marketing Director began before Ms. Renfro's arrival. Pre-contracted print ads were run in Images AZ Magazine, Arizona Key Magazine, Phoenix Magazine, Experience Arizona, and the CitySunTimes. Ms. Renfro placed an ad in the Sonoran News and a one-time insert in the Arizona Republic. The ads ran from October 13th-28th. Carefree marketing ran a couple of small boosted event campaign ads and a call for volunteers on the Town FaceBook page. 61,000 users interacted with the FaceBook page in some manner in September and October.
PR showed $1.74 million in Average Value Equivalent for the Town of Carefree and $852 thousand for the event. The potential reach was 59 million people. National PR was garnered from Reader's Digest and USA Today. There has been a 169% increase in traffic to the event over the last 4 years.
Carefree partnered with the Sonoran Arts League (SAL) for the Beer Garden, using SAL's special event liquor license. SAL provided all the volunteers for the Beer Garden. Per Arizona State Law, SAL received 25% of the profits from the liquor sales, plus tips, worth $14,915. The Desert Foothills YMCA sold pumpkins donated by Bashas', and had to buy additional pumpkins due to the success experienced the first weekend. They hosted the Family Carving Nights, but had to raise the price due to overall increases in cost, so attendance suffered. The Y got $8,888. They are exploring ways to get that number back to where it was in previous years.
The sponsors were: APS, Bashas', Bella Donna & Cane, the Carefree Pet Resort, Venues Cafe, Tech4Life, Eco Blue Pools, Historic Spanish Village, Civana, the National Bank of Arizona, Villafane Studios, SAL, the Y, the Carefree/Cave Creek Chamber of Commerce, oneMCSO, Rock the District, Tito's Handmade Vodka, Four Peaks Wine, and CenterPoint Events. They were a mix of in-kind and monetary sponsorships. Bella Donna & Cane organized and ran the Trunk or Treat Event, which was held on Halloween. While not formally a part of the Festival, the events are interrelated and are marketed together. The monetary donations totaled $7,950, the in-kind totaled $19,020, for a sponsorship total of $26,970.
Revenues included Harvest Market merchant fees-$27,916; Town of Carefree merchandise sales-$18,935; Haunted Happenings wristband sales-$42,179; and spirit sales in the Beer Garden-$60,056, for a total of $149,086.
Expenses included advertising-$24,435; signs/banners -$6,406; merchandise-$7,306; entertainment-$10,372; cleaning/maintenance-$4,209; decor/prizes/supplies-$3,457. The two contracted expenses are CenterPoint Events (logistics)-$100,738; and Villafane Studios-$100,000. This brings the total to $256,923. Due to the overwhelming crowds the first weekend, the original $70,000 in the contract with CenterPoint was used up that weekend. In order to maintain the event standards, CenterPoint was paid an additional $30,738 for the remaining 7 days. Because contract payments to Villafane Studios began in the 2017/18 fiscal year, only $50,000 was paid to them in the current fiscal year.
Total revenue came to $176,056. Total expenses came to $256,923, producing a net profit/loss of -$80,867. Due to the expansion of the Festival, revenues from the 2018 Festival were up 249% and expenses were up 71% from the 2017 Festival. Backing out Ray Villafane's contract for those years, the Town lost $11,583 in 2017 and made $19,133 in 2018.
Mayor Peterson remarked that the strategy was to maintain and build the event, and to see greater participation from the businesses and non profit organizations. He felt success was achieved in both areas. Their were an estimated 60,000 visitors to the 2017 Festival and 100,000 visitors to the 2018 Festival. The Town is on a trajectory to build the event, gain greater participation, and reduce the out of pocket expenditures, and is making good to excellent progress.
Ms. Renfro said areas that could use improvement were identified post-Festival by the key players and the local businesses. These included parking, attracting more sponsors, creating a better design aesthetic for the Harvest Market vendors, including more vendors with Fall themed products, locations and footprint, and hours of operation. Next year, the Friday and Saturday night hours might be extended and the Sunday night hours reduced.
Why does the Town hold the Pumpkin Festival? Economic development: in 2018 it introduced or reintroduced over 100,000 people to Carefree. Community engagement: it provided substantial revenue to 2 local non profit organizations. It engaged and promoted many local businesses. Economic stimulus: There was more traffic going into the businesses due to the expanded footprint. Quality of life: It provided a reason for residents to show pride in their town, and added a one-of-a-kind positive element to the area businesses.
Ms. Renfro thanked everyone, especially Councilwoman Cheryl Kroyer, the Mayor and the Council, Gary, Kandace and the staff for bearing with her during her first year of marketing the Festival. She called it a "trial by fire", but thinks that, with everyone's support, she did a good job.
Councilman Mike Krahe thanked Ms. Renfro for doing a tremendous job, and said it was a real credit to her. Carefree has increased the number of attendees and decreased the cost year over year over year. He thanked Councilwoman Kroyer too. Ms. Renfro said she had a lot of fun.
Councilman Stephen Hatcher noted that the cost of print advertising was significant and asked what its impact was, relative to other methods. Ms. Renfro said she inherited some of that as the print ads were pre-planned by the previous marketing director. She doesn't like to discount what was done by those who came before her because there are reasons for it, so she maintained it. She would not have chosen to go as heavily with print. This is an area for improvement next year. She tried to focus on bringing in additional elements like radio and email blasts. The new elements performed well. Councilman Hatcher asked about "gross impressions". Ms. Renfro explained that they are the total that could have been reached throughout the Valley by the radio spots when they played. The number was reported through NPR.
Mayor Peterson said he is enthusiastic about the event, which is creative and unique, garnering media attention throughout the Valley. He called it an eminently buildable event, constrained only by the space in the Gardens and by the availability of parking. He felt the Festival had an admirable execution, with some outstanding results. He thanked Ms. Renfro for jumping in the way she did.
Councilman Hatcher suggested that the contract with CenterPoint could be negotiated to be lower next year, now that everyone better knows what to expect. Ms. Renfro said the Town used CenterPoint solely for the logistics during the Christmas Festival, renting the other features separately, thereby better controlling the costs. CenterPoint based the numbers for the original Pumpkin Festival contract on the numbers give to them from the previous year. No one anticipated the increase in traffic to the 2018 Festival. She also noted that some of the prices for things like wristbands and alcohol could be raised next year, increasing cost recovery. There were many "firsts" in the last Pumpkin Festival. Mayor Peterson said they would be sitting down to brainstorm improvements for the 2019 Festival in the next few weeks.
https://vimeo.com/310457051
Lyn Hitchon
Prepared by Carefree Truth
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