What do you do when you’re tasked with organizing not one but two holiday events on back-to-back weekends in less than one month? You fasten your Santa hats and get to work! Brookline had the pleasure of helping our client, Western Securities, successfully plan and execute two holiday events in two properties they manage in Calgary – First Street Market Food Hall & Bar and Willow Park Village.
With a very tight timeline to bring these events together, during one of the busiest seasons of the year, our team brainstormed exciting activations that encouraged the community to come out and join in on the festivities. This included a free photo element, including hashtags to encourage social engagement, kid-friendly holiday crafts, live carollers to provide entertainment, a gift card raffle and email sign up and much more.
First up was A Very Merry First Street Market on December 3, which invited residents to attend the Food Hall that day to enjoy live carollers, partake in some holiday crafting, snap complimentary photos in Santa’s sleigh and enjoy free face painting. We also coordinated a charitable component within the event by collecting non-perishable food items and monetary donations for the Calgary Food Bank. With the venue centered around indoor food-based retailers, this was the perfect event to get patrons into the holiday spirit with activities for the whole family to enjoy.
Next was Willow Park Village’s Winter Wonderland on December 10, featuring live carollers, a petting zoo, a holiday scavenger, complimentary gift wrapping and photos with Santa. We incorporated the Calgary Food Bank again and collected physical and monetary donations. As this was an outdoor event, our team needed to be prepare activations suitable for the weather and be mindful that plans could change last-minute should the forecast worsen.
Another major component of our planning and executing was the creation of all key messaging and visual elements for both events. We developed media advisories, event listings and promotional imagery for digital and print use. We also engaged media and local influencers to generate event awareness, which led to our events being featured on CTV Calgary, Savvy Mom, Daily Hive and other local sites.
Through these efforts, our team successfully executed both events with a robust lineup of activations that were well-received by visitors and retailers. Though we only had a few short weeks to plan and run the events from start to finish, we were thrilled to work with exceptional local vendors to deliver fun-filled festive activations. And by working quickly to finalize details and keeping an open line of communication with our client, Brookline made the event planning process and overall execution stress-free so Western Securities could deliver fun-filled events for the community to celebrate the holiday season!
Jordyn Thomson is an Account Executive with Brookline Public Relations. Through her gift for creative storytelling, Jordyn strives to craft engaging content across all mediums.