Before the three phases, the foundations
These are setup work, not running the edition: built once, and they stay with the organisation even if the supplier changes, even if the committee changes.
Edition website, pixel, Google profile, exhibitor portal, visual system
Tools we develop in house, configurable around the event’s needs rather than a vendor’s catalogue. It’s the same process-automation practice behind our AI Audit.
- Edition website or landing page with the programme written on the page, not inside an image or a PDF: readable on a phone, indexable, and editable in house when the programme changes.
- Pixel and conversion API on the actions that matter (opening the programme, requesting information, signing up), so the campaign is measurable beyond raw reach.
- Google profile for the event with dates, times, directions and photos: people searching the event name find you, not a third-party portal’s page.
- Exhibitor and volunteer portal with sign-up forms and downloadable materials, moving registrations off scattered emails and phone calls onto one channel.
- Visual system for the edition: poster, banners, on-site signage and social templates on one design, recognisable from a distance and days apart.
- Contact collection from the sign-up stage, so the database starts on day one rather than on the days of the event.
Before the edition
How do we reach people who live in the catchment area and don’t know about the event yet?
The audience for a local event is almost entirely territorial: a radius in kilometres, not a set of interests. It has to be reached both where it looks at a screen and where it drives past, because neither channel covers the area on its own.
Announcing the edition
Dates and programme published on the event’s channels, with the edition page as the single destination, instead of scattering the announcement across formats.
Meta Ads across the catchment area
Geographic reach around the site, on the age brackets the programme suits: it reaches people who live or pass through the area even if they don’t follow your channels.
TikTok Ads
Reach on a younger audience where the programme justifies it: concerts, shows, evening formats. It adds the bracket Meta alone covers only partly.
Printed flyers
Distribution through local businesses, fly-posting, letterboxes. For a local event this is still one of the strongest channels, because it covers the people who aren’t on social media.
Radio spots
Local stations in the fortnight before the event: a strong channel for an adult audience in the car, which is exactly the audience of a village festival.
Local press and event listings
Press release, programme sent to local outlets and event portals, publications followed up. Editorial coverage on top of the paid kind, at almost no direct cost.
Content for the announcement
Photos and video from previous editions cut for the launch, plus programme graphics: the announcement shows the event instead of only describing it.
During the edition
How do we handle communication on the days of the event?
Here the work changes in kind. Bringing in new audiences no longer helps, because anyone who hasn’t heard of the event won’t make it in time: the job is to look after the people already there, and to show the people who didn’t come what they’re missing. Which is the launch for tomorrow, and for next year’s edition.
Live content
Stories, reels and posts published from the site: they give people who aren’t there a reason to come the next day, and build the material that will open next year’s campaign.
Conversation management
Answering questions on WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and in comments. During the event the volume concentrates and timing matters: someone asking at 5pm whether it’s raining wants an answer before 6.
Programme changes
Weather postponements and time changes announced across every channel at once and on the edition page, so nobody turns up on old information.
Gathering material for afterwards
A photo and video shoot planned not for the night itself but for next year. The next edition opens with this material.
Measuring attendance on site
A method decided beforehand and applied the same way every day: counts at the gates at fixed intervals, till receipts from the food stands, covers served, aerial photos at peak times. Recorded day by day, not from memory once it’s over.
After the edition
How do we use what we gathered for the next edition?
This is the only phase that produces something lasting, and the one almost no event actually does. Once the edition is over there are two things worth saving: the numbers, which matter to whoever puts up the money, and the contacts, which matter to the next edition.
Attendance reports for sponsors and authorities
Attendance day by day, reach achieved, audience by age bracket and municipality, materials produced, press coverage. A committee uses this document to justify a council grant or renew a sponsor.
Database consolidation
Contacts gathered at sign-up and during the event brought into a single archive owned by the organisation, rather than scattered across forms, emails and paper lists.
Upkeep towards the next edition
A minimal presence on the channels in the months between editions, so this year’s audience doesn’t disperse and next year’s announcement doesn’t start from a cold audience.
Audience sync to Meta and TikTok
The database uploaded as a custom audience: the next edition reopens on people who already came, and lookalikes go looking for people like them across the area.
"After" feeds "before". This phase’s database is the targeting for the "before" phase of the next edition. It’s the reason a second edition with the same team behind it starts much further ahead than the first: starting over every year isn’t saving money, it’s buying the same audience again each time.
Outside the three phases
Organisation and production: building the programme, booking and managing artists and formats, coordinating the days themselves. A weak programme can’t be saved with advertising, you can only pay more to promote it. Over twenty years of events.
A meeting, not a price list
The proposal is built after looking at how the last edition went: turnout, dates, what is already in place and what needs building from scratch. A first contact ends by scheduling an intro meeting.
Benhanced — Borgo San Giovanni 19, Portogruaro (VE), Italy