Cutting and Stacking the Turf, Western Ireland, c.1900.
Photographer unknown – photo from Cultural Heritage Ireland
(Photo: http://bit.ly/1iFrsJh)
My colleague Mary recently attended the National Heritage Week Event Organiser Training Day in preparation for National Heritage Week which takes place 23rd – 31st August, 2014. During National Heritage Week you will have a chance to have a guided tour of the Russell Library. Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to visit this magnificent reading room, soaring to fifty feet, with its hammer-beam roof, its bibliographical frieze and its serried shelves of leather- and vellum-bound books, was designed by Augustus Welby Pugin, and completed in 1861. It is named after Charles William Russell, President of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth (1857–1880). In the meantime back to present day! I expect Mary’s account of the training day to be very beneficial to anyone organising events or festivities in their area. Enjoy.
***Posted on behalf of Mary Brien, The Library, NUI Maynooth***
This year NUI Maynooth will participate in National Heritage Week by offering guided tours of the Russell library. On April 28th I attended the National Heritage Week Event Organiser Training Day in Dublin Castle. The venue itself was quite a setting for a training day, with wonderful conference facilities and a tasty lunch on offer. We were given a brief overview of National Heritage Week’s statistics for the last few years. It has quite obviously grown in popularity with 20% of last year’s organisers being first-timers. 85% of visitors surveyed admitted gaining something from the week, whether for entertainment or educational purposes, it is becoming an important national festival. The new online registration form was demonstrated highlighting new features such as Google mapping, making your event easy to find. Each event venue will have its own url, making it easier to link your event to promotion material.
The training day offered three separate workshops; Communications, Research & Evaluation Tools, Social Media Marketing and Creative Programming. They all stressed the importance of planning and promoting your event and especially the role of social media. Local media including newspapers and radio are vital tools for getting the word out. The earlier these are approached the better and chasing up press releases with gentle reminders closer to your event date is encouraged. The more interesting you can make the event the better. A human interest, local angle or novelty theme will make your event newsworthy and get noticed. Sometimes a great picture is better than any article. Online media was singled out as the most important vehicle in reaching potential visitors. Facebook and Twitter are an absolute must for event promotion. Top tips on reaching your target audience include using tools such as the Social Media Examiner, which offers information on trending items and lets you focus on specific areas or communities. Setting up a Facebook business page for an event allows you to reach more people than a personal page. The business page offers Facebook Scheduling which automatically posts your pre-written content for you at designated times. Amplifying your page’s content by encouraging ‘likes’ or ‘retweets’ means you reach more people. Apps and sites to help measure and manage you social media accounts include the buffer app, tweet reach, Facebook edgerank and Hootsuite. Evaluating your event was also highly recommended. Try and garner statistics in relation to the economic impact it had. This will aid any applications for grants and budget concerns. Also, run a visitor survey as their feedback can only help to enhance your next event. An online survey can be easily created through surveymonkey.com.
Some examples of international festivals can be found at the links below:
Boston alcohol free New Years Eve event
International Festivals & Events Association
Prince Edward Island events
Tasmania Events
Library Staff Development 