Why getting pre-event publicity is more important than journalists attending

In today’s video I’m going to talk about the natural desire to want journalists to attend the event that you’re holding particularly if it’s a one off event. But what I want to point out that this is slightly counter intuitive because it’s likely that the reason you want journalists to attend the event is to write about it so that the public can know about it and also attend the event. So if journos are only going to attend the event and write the article from there it’s usually too late to let the public know about it. I’ll put all this in context. We recently had the great fun of representing a six year old artist called Ginger. Ginger paints large artwork forms and is very much supported by her mum dad and her uncle who is her art mentor. Now they decided to give her an exhibition which opened on the Friday night and continued on Saturday and Sunday. And of course they wanted journalists to come to the opening night but we stress to them that it’s far more important that journalists write stories prior to the event and if they come to the event it’s really a bonus. Think about it, Friday night journos are on their own time. They’ve clocked off, you know they might not want to attend a work function and it doesn’t matter if they do or don’t come as long as the stories are written beforehand. Now the other thing I want to point out is that the fact that you’re holding an event isn’t newsworthy in itself. Like anything it’s about the story behind the event and the angle, what’s involved?

You know what’s the inspiration the challenges what’s the guts of the story? In this case little Ginger captivated journos with her unusual story and her gorgeous photography of her in the middle of doing her artwork and it was picked up by Sydney Morning Herald and syndicated in all metro papers nationally. Today Extra got the exclusive on the story, Central Sydney and a whole lot of other press that led people to come to the exhibition over the weekend. So if you’re doing an event don’t lose your focus by getting journos or focusing on journos attending the event. Think about the pre-event publicity because that is far more important. If you have any comments or want to ask questions. You know where to find me. Feel free to reach out at any time and look forward to seeing you in my next video.

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