Ideas for Fall Festivals and Events
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 events.
According to Bizzabo, most marketing professionals (95%) recognize the value events hold for creating in-person connections. An Eventtrack industry study also 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.
A movie night also offers a fun and relaxing way for families to get out of the house and meet each other. To really get into the fall spirit, consider hosting the event in a park with a projector screen and offering popcorn or even 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.
Get Started
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.
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 be in charge of creating their own parade floats or game-day activities to raise funds for their organizations.
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With a day or a weekend full of events, it’s expected that some people may not be able to attend every activity you put on. So use the breakdown of events as an opportunity to raise more money. With the Ticketbud ticket editor, create multiple ticket types so people can purchase festival, game or homecoming dance tickets all in one spot.
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 and offer a brief background on any organizations receiving funds from the ticket sales. These details help influence people to buy.
Get Started
Create a free event registration page using Ticketbud. In addition to allowing users to set up multiple ticket types, event organizer’s can also create a donation button for the registration page. This will allow 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 get a brand in front of new customers. If you’re thinking about hosting a fall pop-up, why not stick to the theme?
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. Consider hiring theater actors from a local high school or university to play the scary parts and get ideas from your contacts on their best haunted house experiences.
Get Started
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 to your conference, 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.
Get Started
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 your audience might learn about your event – 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.
Get Started
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, offering 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.
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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.
Get Started
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.