EventCalendar

November 15, 2007

The Most Common Oversight in Local Event Planning

Groups Collide When They Neglect to Use Community Calendar

There was a time when without checking anything but the dates for Duke-Carolina games, a group in Durham could set a date for an event and just assume it wouldn’t conflict. Those days are gone, and the frequency of events colliding on the same date with the same audiences is accelerating.

Recently it happened when events planned by three important organizations overlapped and cannibalized attendance or at the very least taxed schedules. Sure it was mathematically possible to leave one early, get to one late, go home and let the dog out and get back to the third, before people are walking out the door.

It doesn’t have to be that complicated, and colliding events run the risk of taxing local officials and turning audiences off.

A going away celebration overlapping an important fund raiser targeting very similar audiences is the latest victim of community calendar neglect. But a solution is in place! In fact it was devised 15 years ago at the request of the then City and County managers, Orville Powell and the late Jack Bond.

Knowing DCVB would naturally have a calendar of events, they asked the Bureau to expand that effort into a full Community Calendar of events. Today, the Durham Event Calendar is online with close to 13,000 Durham events of interest to both residents and visitors.

Anyone can easily add a Durham event into the community calendar or check it to clear dates before putting them in stone. The events are easily sortable by location and type.

The event calendar portal is one to bookmark and consult both for things to do and so your organization is able to avoid collisions with other events. To have your event listed on the Durham Event Calendar, simply email your event information to eventcalendar@durham-cvb.com.

RELATED ARTICLES & INFORMATION: