Prioritizing our digital initiatives to increase event attendance
The Williamson County Fair (WCF) provides a family-friendly, nine-day event, promoting agriculture, bringing communities together, and celebrating the traditions of Williamson County, Tennessee. In 2019, we had a combined following of 14,000 people on all social platforms but understood we needed to prioritize our digital initiatives to continue the event’s growth. First, we adapted to selling advanced tickets online and offered ticket packages, which gave guests an easy way to book and plan their experience ahead of time – and increased our overall ticket sales. But with the pandemic moving the 2020 event completely virtual, we needed to continue to draw guests in for a dramatically modified event and provide a great user experience. Online ads and social media boosts were an important part of that process, but more importantly, provided momentum heading into 2021. We then focused on video content with Instagram Reels and TikTok, growing our social following by 22% during the pandemic, garnering thousands of views on each video posted and a higher response rate to ads. While there were real concerns about how many people would attend a large, in-person event in 2021, the larger and more engaged online audience resulted in reaching pre-pandemic attendance levels.
Rogers Anderson and Diane Giddens, Owners