Publicity & Marketing | Art Prize | Pride March Registrations
Hello from the Midsumma Festival team! This is the second in a series of Producer Updates
that you will receive in the lead-up to and during the Festival.
Questions? Contact the Midsumma office at admin@midsumma.org.au or call 03 9415 9819 during business hours.
This Producer Update is all about publicity and marketing. The responsibility of promoting your event lies with you, so read on for important information about marketing and publicity.
But first, a couple of announcements…
Midsumma Australia Post Art Prize: Apps close 27 Nov
The
2017 Midsumma Australia Post Art Prize closes soon. This award is a nation-wide non-acquisitive art prize open to early-career and established artists working in any medium. Submissions for the 2017 Australia Post Art Prize close on Sun 27 Nov.
Midsumma Pride March: Registrations close 1 Dec
Reminder: Registrations to participate in the Midsumma Pride March 2017 close 1 Dec for those wanting to march. Vehicle registrations are now closed.
Publicity & Marketing
Event Publicity & Marketing Guide 2017
To assist your event with cutting through the media and gaining the maximum amount of exposure possible, Midsumma has some tips and tricks for all registered events. The Event Publicity & Marketing Guide 2017 contains information on how to communicate, market and publicise your event.
Midsumma Festival Logo
Don’t forget that all registered events must carry the Midsumma Festival logo on all marketing and promotional collateral. Download our suite of logos here.
Program Launch
The Midsumma Festival program will launch on Wed 16 Nov, and tickets will be available as soon as it does. You should have received your e-invite to our Program Launch celebration at North Melbourne's Meat Market on the evening of Wed 16 Nov. It's not too late to RSVP - tell us you're coming.
See below for details of some promotional opportunities with Dean Arcuri around the launch and beyond too!
Program Guides and Festival Advertising
Your event is listed in the 30,000 printed program guides distributed to venues, cafés and cultural hotspots throughout Victoria and to major cities across Australia. You can grab your copy at the Program Launch.
Midsumma Festival will have a strong presence locally and nationally as we'll be running ad campaigns across social media, radio and press partner publications. Posters will be distributed around Melbourne and with some outdoor digital presence too.
Website
You will have received an email from our Ticketing guru Alexina Coad with a link to your event on the Midsumma Festival website. Be sure to review your event details on the website to ensure they are accurate.
We will have a little more time after launch to finesse some pages if you are still in the process of pulling together video content or other content for your event.
BentTV: Promotional Content
Once again, BentTV are creating content about shows and events happening during Midsumma Festival and are looking for expressions of interest.
Content will be filmed at the Midsumma Festival launch and at a prearranged date later in the month where someone involved in your event can be interviewed. With interviews going live before or during the Festival, it's a great way to engage with potential audiences. If you are interested in being involved please contact Dean Arcuri at dean@deanarcuri.com
Web Tiles
In the week after Launch (and the reveal of the 2017 Midsumma campaign artwork), Midsumma will supply producers with a small suite of web tiles in the 2017 Midsumma Festival campaign brand colours. These can be used to promote your event as part of the Festival. Unfortunately, with more than 100 shows and events we can’t create show specific ads for you.
Publicity
Publicity is promotion that you don't pay for. It usually involves contacting publications (newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc) and asking them to write about your event. Publicity is free BUT organising it is a very time-consuming task.
We strongly recommend hiring a publicist or dedicating a member of your team to the task. Need help finding a publicist? Contact Midsumma for advice. Need feedback on your media release? We can help out there too.
Media Releases
Wherever we can the Midsumma team will be seeking publicity opportunities across the Festival for events. We are creating a one-stop Media Release book for media enquiries and we'd like to include your media release and promotional images.
PLEASE SEND A COPY OF YOUR MEDIA RELEASE AND PROMOTIONAL IMAGES to publicity@midsumma.org.au
by Mon 28 Nov.
The Media Release template can be found
here. We will continue to accept media releases after this date, but you know what they say about early birds and worms.
We will contact you directly or forward enquiries to you if there are requests for interviews, images or other content. Please note that promotional tickets for giveaways or tickets for journalists tickets will need to come from your event ticket allocation.
While we will be doing everything we can, please remember that Editors get the last say on what may actually appear in print, online or in any other media channel.
Promotional Images
Promotional images need to be eye-catching in order to maximise publicity. The team at Midsumma Festival are available to provide feedback and guidance on your event image but here are our tips on what makes a great promotional image for media:
- Make sure your images are interesting, colourful but not too busy.
- Consider using a single image consistently so that people will associate the image with your event (although some media will want a unique image that no-one else is using so have some back-ups!).
- In many instances Editors prefer an image that isn’t necessarily your hero image (the one
used in the Guide).
- Don’t overlay images with text, logos or rainbow filters.
- Images of people always work better than cartoons or graphics.
- If in doubt, high res for print is generally set at 300dpi – and digital images can go as low as 72dpi usually.
Social Media
Social media is the most cost effective way to promote your event. There are some tips to maximise your success within the Event Publicity & Marketing Guide – but here’s some basics to connect with Midsumma:
- Facebook: Type @MidsummaFestival to tag the Midsumma Festival Facebook page in your post.
- Twitter: Use #midsumma instead of @midsumma. By using #midsumma, your tweet will not only reach your followers, but also everyone else interested in the Festival.
- Instagram: Midsumma can be found @midsummafestival
- #Hashtags: Always
use #midsumma as well as your own simple, unique hashtag
The Midsumma team are here to provide advice on your promoting your event, so don't hesitate to contact us with questions.
That's all from us - till next time!