UZ Ltd, Visiting Friends and Family 2002
| Organisation |
UZ Ltd |
| Project |
Visiting Friends and Family, an audience development project for Big in Falkirk |
| Artform |
Cross artform |
| Location |
Falkirk |
| Application type |
Full project |
| Date |
2002 |
| Status |
Completed |
| Grant |
£12,520 |
| Total project cost |
£16,693 |
UZ Ltd is an event production company specialising in the creation and delivery of high impact strategic events delivering cultural and economic benefit to the city. The company produces Big in Falkirk (BIF) which was established as Scotland’s National Street Arts Festival in 2000. The event originally took place in Callender Park over one weekend at the start of the summer. It has grown to become an annual, multi-artform, outdoor festival, taking place in seven locations in 2002. It aims to provide a showcase for both the arts and for Falkirk.
Project designed to strengthen the brand of Big in Falkirk and to strategically develop the overnight visitor audience via new marketing initiatives. The project became known as Visiting Friends and Family.
- To increase the numbers attending the festival and attract new audiences through encouraging more people to travel outwith the local area and achieving greater penetration within Glasgow and Edinburgh
- To raise the profile of the event as Scotland’s National Street Arts Festival by changing/creating perceptions of street arts and effectively communicating the festival programme
- To increase the use of the Big in Falkirk website
- In 2002, Big in Falkirk took place at Callendar Park, The Falkirk Wheel and for the first time, in several neighbouring towns over 11 days (24 May to 3 June). The Festival attracted 90,000 people overall.
- To encourage greater attendance by visiting family and friends, UZ extended their advertising, print and distribution campaigns to target this group. Supermarkets and other local retailers were encouraged to offer special deals to stimulate local people into organising BIF family parties and to donate prizes for high profile competitions.
- City Media was appointed to undertake quantitative market research for the project and produced a research and evaluation report.
The market research provided valuable data that can be used to inform the development of Big in Falkirk in the future. Key findings included:
- Over 30% attending the event lived outside Falkirk. The Glasgow and Edinburgh targets were not met, but there was a greater percentage from elsewhere in Scotland (13%).
- 3% planned to stay overnight.
- The main mode of transport was by car (70%) followed by foot (21%)
- 16% said that family and friends had told them of the event, but the main source of information was ‘info in the papers’.
- 7% of those questioned said that they had heard of the Visiting Friends and Family campaign and had brought friends to it.
- Feedback clearly suggested that the biggest incentive to ensure local people invited family and friends was an exceptional artistic programme.
- The considerable input from the main Festival sponsorship partners (Falkirk Council, BP Grangemouth and British Waterways) contributed to the success of the marketing campaign and the speedy dissemination of information and print.
- A new marketing partnership with Scotrail has the potential to be very beneficial to both organisations in future years.
- The work of the dedicated Visiting Friends and Family Information Officer gave the Festival a higher profile than it would otherwise have had.
- The major weakness of the campaign was the short lead-in time which was due, in part, to delays in confirming the Lottery grant. This resulted in some of the initiatives not taking place.
- The time factor also effected the level of penetration of the local general public and the development of the local partnerships. In both cases, there was potential to achieve more.
UZ Ltd
40a High Street
Glasgow G1 1NL
Tel: 0141 552 6027
Fax: 0141 552 6048
E-mail: biginfalkirk@uzevents.com
Web: www.biginfalkirk.com
Web: www.uzevents.com
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