Generating PR for Events

Public Relations and Publicity at the 2015 Perth Garden Festival

The Perth Garden Festival is owned by the Nursery & Garden Industry Western Australia (NGIWA) and Corporate Sports Australia have been contracted to organise and operate the event for the past two years. The budget for the advertising of the event was minimal so public relations played an important role in ensuring the public and target audience were aware of the event and were communicated adequate information. 

The event partnered with The Sunday Times/PerthNow as the major media sponsor and this played an integral role in advertising the event. A seven page lift-out was published in The Sunday Times the weekend prior to the event as well as an online article that was featured two weeks before the event on PerthNow. The Perth Garden Festival also secured coverage with The West Australian when Sabrina Hahn, one of the key presenters at the festival, published an article online (Yahoo). Please see below for media clippings.

The event relied heavily on social media to engage with the target audience, as well as second hand advertising through exhibitors. All the exhibitors were sent event posters in their exhibitor packs and were encouraged to engaged with their customers to promote people to come and visit their stalls during the festival.

Throughout the duration of the event, horticultural experts featured in seminars presented to patrons at the Bupa Main Stage. Gardening personalities such as Sabrina Hahn generated media coverage through her work with ABC 720 Perth and The West Australian.

Thanks to Singapore Airlines and Pan Pacific Singapore, Mix 94.5 came on board to run “Kymba’s Ultimate Garden Giveaway” competition where listeners could win a trip to Singapore while also giving out free passes to the Perth Garden Festival. People who had already purchased online tickets to the PGF could enter their ticket bar codes to get two entries into the draw. Mix 94.5 was also featured throughout the festival as their live radio broadcast was played through the festival speakers.

The Media Coordinator secured two TV segments with Channel 9 Perth’s Today Show as Lisa Fernandez came down on the Friday morning of the event to interview exhibitors and showcase the festival.. This was a great achievement for the event considering the limited formal advertising that was undertaken. One of the segments is added below and if interested the second segment can be viewed here.

Sponsorship and obtaining event partners were vital to the advertisement and communication of the event to the target audience. Public relations and event management are two professions that overlap and work closely together to achieve the set outcomes of the event. PR is an important aspect of any event, and can contribute to the overall success of the event itself. 

I'm now reaching the final days of my internship with Corporate Sports Australia and the final project I will be working on will be and event called The Big Campout which is on this weekend (16th-17th May) at the WACA in the CBD. I look forward to sharing more experience with you as I'm involved in a different style of event. For more information about The Big Campout please visit their website The Big Campout

Until next time,

Megan 

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