Promoting Your Market

As we gear up for a new season, many of us are making plans to host events at our markets. But as I’ve been learning, there is a lot to consider when deciding to host an event. Read on for a posting on a list serve I belong to that talks about some of the considerations Darlene Wolnik thinks about when planning events for the Crescent City Farmers Market in New Orleans.

In New Orleans, we have done a fair amount of contests within the market. In years past, we have used August to do them, as it is too hot to have cooking demos. One of my favorites was our Orange Julius contest, where contestants vied for one of two prizes and had to use our local citrus, of course. The sound of blenders whirring was exciting!
Every year, we also have a King Cake (traditional Mardi Gras cake) contest and this year, used Survey Monkey to ask those receiving our email newsletter to pick the top 5 and then we brought the top five to the market before Fat Tuesday to let shoppers at market pick their favorite. Worked fine, but I think the “celebrity judges” in years past gave us more excitement and the peak that (I think) events at market need. Those winning bakers get a certificate framed that they hang on their wall in their establishment, which is more advertising for us!

As for events generally:
In our estimation, we feel events do one of three things for a market:
to interest shoppers (either existing or new) or
to get media attention or
to include and promote something vendors are doing.
One should decide which of these you are using this event for.
Some of our rules of thumb are:
Events should have start and stop times within the market, and someone to manage the details. (to assist our logistics manager if its a large event) I think this is why we have excellent volunteers, as they are asked to shoulder responsibility at these events.
We ring a bell to start the event (as we do to start and stop the market) and have a set place all events happen. (Under our chinaberry tree was a common spot for years, now we have the Office of Homeland Serenity tent.)

However, events are tiring and can sometimes distract managers, so we are careful that we decide why we are doing events, evaluate them (we have a simple wrap up form) and ask our vendors and shoppers what they thought of them afterwards.

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Darlene Wolnik
director-marketshare program | marketumbrella.org
200 Broadway, Suite 107 | New Orleans, LA �70118
email: darlene@marketumbrella.org
tel: 504-861-4485 | fax: 504-861-4489
mobile: 504-343-6365 | skype: darwolnik