Behind the Scenes at Ocoee Founders’ Day Festival 2014
The 21st Annual Ocoee Founders’ Day Festival was held on Nov. 7th and 8th and whoa boy was it a massive success with about 5,000 attendees over the two day festival. The event was packed full of fun events, rides, local food vendors, homemade goods at the marketplace, and awesome concerts with some of the biggest names in country music. Every year the festival grows and this was definitely the biggest one yet!
We were honored to have Event Industry Marketing by BeatCreative handle the social media, website, full event branding, signage, advertising, sponsorship initiatives, the event app, on-site social media coverage and the social media wall at the festival. The goal was to increase the visibility of the festival and perform more outreach through social media, particularly on our Facebook page. Facebook and other networks grew tremendously by putting together a highly engaging and interactive content calendar as well as incorporating different tactics to activate social sharing. One of the tactics used to encourage users online pre-event and during event was to share event badges like this one:
Custom social badges were created similar to this for sponsors and vendors. This badge saw over 69 shares and reached over 3,000 people organically on Facebook. The badge was able to convey enthusiasm and excitement about the event by simply sharing with their friends. We all also pushed attendees at the event and online to share their photos via the hashtag with smart and witty graphics and signage:
In addition to Facebook efforts, BeatCreative helped grow our Instagram and Twitter pages and revamped our branding and presence online. BeatCreative designed a new website, logo, event app, event hashtag, advertisements and a full fledge interactive social media campaign. As well as advantageous discounts on medicines. Through social media, they were also able to attract a younger demographic while engaging with the older crowd. We all encouraged people to take photos during the festival and post them to social media using the hashtag #OCOEEFDF2014. BeatCreative utilized the hashtag to heavily track the conversations as well as showcase them on our at the event Social Media Wall.
Along with the event’s live social media – BeatCreative tracked the entire social media activity through the Storify page created for the event. The event hashtag tracked over 600 posts and tweets over the 2-day period. Great stats for a festival that never had a social media presence prior. Check out all the social media aggregation here or scroll through the slideshow below!
In the few months BeatCreative managed our Facebook page, the “likes” skyrocketed and increased by the thousands! The most successful part of the event was by far the country music stars. Chris Young our headlining act won the hearts and ears of festival goers. Especially one of our Meet and Greet winners – Melissa:
We even had the chance to meet Chris Young and present with Party Flavors Custom Cakes a customized buttercream Guitar cake to Chris Young designed by Tiffany Compton.
As he closed out the last night of the festival on Saturday night – he really rocked the crowd with an amazing stage set and an awesome musical presence. Chris Young gave an amazing performance!
Chris Young stage photos by Jan Pewsey
Friday was filled with excitement from American Idol – Country music superstar Kellie Pickler.
Josh Thompson was the opening act for Friday night and he was great! 
Another crowd favorite was the Bellamy Brothers!
Another great accomplishments was the creation and promotion of the official event app. With the app, users could receive exclusive updates, look at a festival schedule, read information about the music performers, rate their festival experience, and more! It proved to be a great tool at the event and helped guide attendees to the schedule and featured vendors. It also gained 600 downloads! A great statistic being the first year in existence for the festival!
While we all worked tirelessly during the months leading up to that fateful weekend in November, the two days of the actual festival were truly intense! The BeatCreative team continued updating their social media throughout the event, with updates and photos appearing on the big social media wall. BeatCreative also handled the on-site event displays, ran the scavenger hunt, managed the information booth, and handled the Bud Light meet and greet contest (phew!).
Using the Ocoee Lakeshore Center as our hub of operations. Utilizing the center’s A/V capabilities, we live streamed the big concerts on to televisions throughout the building.
The two days went by like a whirlwind but we loved every minute of it. From the early morning fishing tournament to the big fireworks show following country star Chris Young on closing night, there was a lot of ground to cover on social media. It was all really lot of fun. The success of our efforts goes to show that a smart approach to social media marketing can seriously boost awareness and engagement! We can’t wait until next festival!
A big thank you to our team, partners and sponsors for making this festival an amazing experience and success! Here is a sneak peek of the 2nd day and start of the Chic-Fil-A 5K run:
