Thread: the best time to start advertising events

Hiya,

Red Corset productions are putting on a buresque/cabaret night on the 4th May in Portsmouth and i'm just wondering what peoples opinion are on when we should start putting up our posters, handing out flyers etc?

We don't want to do it too early with the worry that people will forget about it but then obviously don't want to to leave it too late either!

x

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It's a fine line to walk - I would have thought something like advertise on websites ASAP, in the local press and putting up posters about a month before hand, leaving flyers in venues about 4-2 week beforehand and flyering in person 2-0 weeks beforehand? How does that sounds as a rough timetable?

That sounds great, thanks for your help x

In regards to any advertising or even just free listings in the local press you can call around and ask for their deadlines.

For daily and weekly press: no matter how early you send the listing, they will only put it in the relevant edition. However, if you have a press release and want to get some feature coverage, then send it no less than a month before the date and start calling them as time gets closer to see if it is something they want to cover and do they need more info/images etc.
For monthly publications: lots of cities have some high quality monthly glossies, for these you should call immediately and request their deadlines. Often for monthlies they around a month in advance. For example one mag I send info to has it's deadline for May's edition on April 5th - this includes listings and features and it is not a flexible date.

With posters and flyers, as mentioned above, it can be a fine line. Is it a new night? If it is, you could always do a sort of poster campaign... start off with one set of posters that don't give everything away, but grab people's attention and get them thinking. And then closer to the date, replace them with "revelation" posters telling them what you have in store for them, etc.
On the nights leading up to the event it would be good to flyer local venues like pubs and bars (where allowed - always get permission as you don't want to get off on the wrong foot - and it can sometimes result in favourable relationships). And if you can find volunteers, etc to do it, it's always worth flyering on the night just before and around opening. Set them up in a busy area to redirect people to you, incentive flyers are always good for this - like £1 off admission with that flyer, etc.

Online advertising is also great, and free! And can be pretty much ongoing in itself, so you could put things up right away. But be aware on some sites, for example forum sites as well as some event listings sites, you may have to go back and refresh/update/renew the ad from time to time to keep it in view. Again you can always do a lead in campaign with this, e.g. "viral marketing". Same sort of thing as the poster lead in, but it gives you much more room to be creative as you can do it for free.

I hope the night goes really well