I N T H E T RENCHE S
E R O T S ENT V E
HOW TO PLAN A
By Allen McBroom
The difference between a ho-hum, low-impact store event and a vibrant, customer-engaging store event is often something as simple as how well the event was planned. Store events don’t have to be expensive or complicated, and they are one thing a small store (even a one-man store) can often pull off better than large stores or chain stores, thanks to the flexibility of small stores. There are a ton of ideas you can use for a quality event, but for the sake of simplicity, I’m going to describe our Spring Cleaning Day that we have each April, and give you the nuts and bolts of putting it together. While the details will change depending on the event, the process is pretty much the same no matter the size or scope of your event. Spring Cleaning Day is like a big, music-related garage sale, where the public is invited to use our sidewalk, front overhang and parking lot to buy/sell/trade music-related stuff. We provide doughnuts and coffee, play music outside and open an hour early. Everything is free, and there are no fees to sell. We limit it to individuals only. The value of this event is that it brings all sorts of music folks to your store, and they all either have gear you might want to buy or cash they might want to spend. It also generates tons of goodwill for the store in the music community. To give credit where credit is due, I got this event idea many years ago from the IMSO forums. Gordy Wilcher of Owensboro Music in Kentucky had a similar event; we just took his idea and massaged it to work for us, so … thank you, Gordy! To do good event planning, you first need to make an annual event calendar. Even if you have only one event each year, you still need a calendar to make sure you don’t miss important deadlines. In real life, you may have to get permits, contact suppliers, line up talent, etc., and all those bits of the puzzle have deadlines you need to meet. The Spring Cleaning Day is a simple event, but it still has a few deadlines that need to be met. Listed below are the details that work for us. Be prepared to modify this idea to fit your store. Here’s how we plan the event. Three or four months out: Use online event calendars (city, school, etc.) to make sure your event date has no major conflicts. Write out on a legal pad every single detail of what you plan to do at the event and leave room for editing. Describe all the stuff you’ll need to do this, including the games you’ll play and the grand prize you’ll give away. Plan your budget and remember to include paid Facebook post promotions. Our event costs us about $100 each time we do it. Six weeks out: Use Photoshop to design an 11x17 poster image that you will print and put up in the store and around town. Save the .psd version of the file, so you can edit it and use it for next year. One month out: Send a poster image to the copy shop for printing. Get 10 color copies and put five up in the store. Carry some posters to friendly stores (i.e., our local record store) and ask them to display them. Create a Facebook event and post it on your Facebook page. Post the image on your Instagram page. Three weeks out: Start talking to customers, encouraging them to clean out their closets and turn their unused stuff into cash. One week out: Start scheduling Facebook posts to run twice a day, promoting the event. Use paid post promotions to promote the event. Post the poster image to every local buy/sell/trade Facebook page you can find. Four days out: Start gathering the used stuff you don’t want to sell in the store. Throughout the year, we collect used straps, used gig bags, broken instruments, etc. in a back room and mark them cheap, cheap on Spring Cleaning Day. That pile of unsellable stuff, when it sells, pays for the day’s budget. Three days out: Review your list of last-minute things that need to be done. That list is on the legal pad you started three months ago. You’ve been editing it or adding to it through that period, which reduces the chance you’ll forget anything important. Here’s the list we used this year, with side notes. 46
JUNE 2019