Easter Event Planning

Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate, Easter Bunnies, sunshine and the first big holiday since Christmas – it’s time to think ahead and plan your Easter promotions.

With Easter falling on 17 April this year, there is every likelihood of good weather encouraging people to get out and about, explore new places and try new activities. Announcements are already being made for a host of special events designed to attract large crowds throughout the Easter bank holiday.

Over at the NEC Birmingham, the Insomnia Gaming Festival will be attracting thousands of keen gamers, while in London the Mind Body Spirit Wellbeing Festival at Olympia is set to be extremely popular, pulling in people from miles around. In Market Harborough, the beautiful grounds of Kelmarsh Hall is set to be the venue for the Kelmarsh Country Show complete with a vast array of shopping facilities, stall holders, events and countryside activities. For something different there is a Tattoo Extravaganza being held at the Detling showground, Maidstone featuring countless tattoo artists and associated traders, entertainment, food & drink. Racing enthusiasts will be heading over to Chelmsford for a Good Friday race meeting.

That’s just a sample of the many events being planned throughout the country – and it doesn’t take into account the thousands of Easter egg hunts and Easter bunny activities being staged at venues large and small across the UK.

Demand for available trading space at such events and exhibitions generally outstrips supply, which means booking up early is recommended. With the pressures of Covid restrictions over the past couple of years, people increasingly want to escape even for a short time from all the problems and worries they have been facing, and enjoy a fun filled Easter holiday break.

Use Easter to engage with your customers

For businesses, it means an opportunity to directly engage with hundreds of thousands of potential customers, to boost sales and visibility, promoting brands and services to a massive potential market. Preparing for those sales opportunities is essential – leaving it to the last minute simply decreases the sales potential.

Research the shows, exhibitions and events. Decide well in advance which ones best match your marketing needs in terms of catchment, potential customer base and space availability. Think about pop up events, pop up stores, promotions activities, organising sampling, interactive events and of course PR stunts. This is a time when the media are searching out fun stories for visual outlets, podcasts, print and digital publications. Equally important are the opportunities for selfies, and PR stunts that can go viral across social media.

It is a time to think creatively, to plan eye catching stunts or incorporate themed costumed mascots. What about magicians, comedians, clowns, balloon artists? The possibilities are endless, as long as you recruit the appropriate event staff well in advance ensuring they are fully trained and ready to start work immediately on arrival.

Nor is it just exhibition and show participants who have to think ahead. The same is true of exhibition organisers – even if you are only planning a relatively small food market, sporting event or Easter Egg hunt you need to think well in advance about issues like parking, security, staffing as well as location and marketing. Making sure you have enough people at hand to organise car parking, entry and exit, provide security and deal with any unexpected problems that occur are equally important. Talking to event staffing companies like Envisage in advance is crucial, since there is guaranteed to be a massive demand for such temporary staff over the Easter period.