The DuPage County Fair, had a record year as attendance grew 16.6% and introduced a new style of music for a local county fair. GR-PR’s public relations program generated more than 52 million impressions in Chicagoland through strong strategic planning and creative positioning.

Objectives:

·Generate awareness for the DuPage County Fair and reach new publics to drive higher attendance.
·Increase youth attendance, especially in the “Tween” market segment (ages 8 to 14)
·Plan and execute a first-time contest which involves the community.
·Garner local media attention.

Strategies/Tactics:

·To reach new publics and drive youth attendance in the “Tween” market segment, we added a third night of musical entertainment with a unique style of county fair music – pop! Teen heart-throb and pop music star Jesse McCartney signed on.
·Provided free admission tickets to students through DuPage library reading programs and student achievement program at DuPage schools.
·Press materials were distributed at planned intervals before, during and after the fair to publicize all aspects of the fair.
·We created an extensive electronic press kit for media use.
·For our first-time fair event, we tied in the fair title, “Have ‘Ewe’ Heard, It’s Fair Time,” to a “Build a Sheep contest” for local organizations, camps and schools.

Results:

·Attendance (222,648) increased 16.6% from 2004.
·Print impressions reached more 52,704,810, up from 46,624,683 in 2004
·TV Nielsen audience reached 227,865 with 11:50 of total airtime. Including segments on WGN morning and noon news, WLS-ABC and WBBM-CBS coverage.
·The “Build a Sheep Contest” got new organizations actively involved with the fair and created a new attraction.

###