Archive for Reno-Tahoe
Wow…What a Summer
Posted by: | CommentsThe summer of 2009 will go down in memory as the fastest summer on record, having passed in what seems like the blink of any eye. In just two months, July and August, I attended more events than I normally would in a year, all thanks to our wonderful clients and their phenomenal programming. I was working at a few events, but for the most part I was enjoying live music, theater, dance and even meteor showers at dawn.
My must-do events this summer included Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” at the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, “Broadway Night” at the Lake Tahoe Music Festival, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet at Artown and Tommy Castro at the Reno-Tahoe Blues Fest. But amongst the planned activities a few more crept in, like Salsa Celtica during Artown’s World Music Series. The performance was great, but the experience was unforgettable, picnicking in the park with a new friend, watching couples salsa dance on the sidewalk, seeing cultures merge together through music and audience interaction. I also witnessed a bit of the Perseids meteor shower before the sun bathed the sky in shades of pink and gold during an early morning news interview at Rancho San Rafael Park, something I would never have risen for if not for work.
It’s one thing to check items off of an activities “to-do list” and quite another to just get out and experience life. This summer art was my catalyst for the latter, and I couldn’t be more grateful to my career and clients for having provided that opportunity. I’ve always believed that life becomes more saturated when you surround yourself with art—the sun shines brighter, nature’s colors are more vibrant and crickets chirp louder. Now I’m convinced.
Old school tools – they’re still effective
Posted by: | CommentsWe often times talk (a lot) about the impact of social media on what we’re doing in public relations and how it’s leading the way for the future of communications. But there are still a lot of cool tools that have been around for a long time that are effective and provide results. Enter the Media Visit.
Media visits come in all shapes and sizes, from 5-day tours for 25 people to weekend trips for just one journalist. We work on media visits on an ongoing basis for tourism and festival clients bringing the media in to tour the entire region, or just to check out one festival performance. Seeing a location, enjoying its attractions and amenities and just feeling what it’s like to be there can speak volumes about a client’s product that no press release or YouTube video could ever convey.
This week we have a journalist coming in from New York City on a winter tour of Reno-Tahoe. Her 6-day trip (which includes two travel days) has her dining at two of Tahoe’s finest restaurants, skiing two days at premier Tahoe ski resorts, dog sledding, snowmobiling, touring Reno’s arts and culture scene and getting an exclusive spa treatment at the area’s newest spa. The trick to a media visit is this: plan it as if it’s your vacation. If you treat it strictly as a sales opportunity for your product (using site tours, meetings or demonstrations to fill your itinerary) then you’re doing yourself, your product and the media person a disservice.
It’s a whirlwind trip for sure, but the thing is if I could’ve planned a vacation to Reno-Tahoe this is the itinerary I would choose. And it’s an itinerary full of activities her readers and viewers might choose too. That means the potential for great coverage and a pleased journalist who’ll remember Reno-Tahoe the next time winter travel enters the discussion.
I Get Paid to do This?
Posted by: | CommentsMy husband always says there’s a reason why so many people want to be in public relations and marketing: because it’s fun. And that’s true if you wind up working on clients that you enjoy. Just today I got to research restaurants and summer activities at ski resorts – the former for planning a media visit and the latter for pitching a writer. I listen to music and surf YouTube so I can enrich blog posts and understand what I’m writing about in event releases. This week I’m even heading to Reno eNVy to film their t-shirt making process for a client so we can post it to the blog. How cool is that?
Don’t get me wrong there are days when it’s really tough. We can put in long hours nitpicking every last detail of a 25-person, 5-day tour of Reno-Tahoe. We wake up at the crack of dawn to drive artists to a TV station for interviews. We get back press releases that we’ve slaved over with so many edits a re-write is often the only option. And yes, the media do ignore us sometimes. But if you weigh all of these things against all of the fun things we also get to do, they’re really not that bad. Secretly, I even like those early morning TV interviews!
