Tips & Tricks of Scheduling and Advertising a Successful Balmung RP Event

[Accendie]

Ever since I started the Calendar I’ve noticed a few tips and tricks people can use to make sure the word get’s out about their event. I’d like to take a bit to share this with everyone. ~Nefzen

 

Tips and Tricks of scheduling & advertising a successful event.

 

So you have this great idea for an RP event! AWESOME! You get everything together, get your friends/fc members to staff it, then the time comes and.... maybe a handful of people show up. Bummer. For starters, how did you advertise your event? Told your friends? Told a linkshell or two? Tossed out a couple shouts and maybe advertised in party finder? Secondly, WHEN did you tell them? A couple days beforehand? THE DAY OF?!

 

When planning your event you need to give yourself TIME to let word spread. Anyone who's ever tried to schedule anything with more than 5 people can tell you that you need to schedule it at least ONE WEEK in advance or people might have other stuff going on. Works for real life, works ingame too. FC's  have their own internal RP events scheduled so if you want that FC to be able to attend they need to know ahead of time to reschedule/cancel their stuff.

 

So you want to schedule it, but when SHOULD you? First pull up the calendar and see what's already scheduled. Do NOT try to find a day that has nothing going on! It's very rare that there is a day that doesn't have SOMETHING going on. Doesn't matter though. The RP community on Balmung is so vast that it can support a couple major events not only on the same day but at the same time. That being said, trying NOT to schedule opposite another major event would be a good thing. Most events run anywhere from 2-4 hours so if one event starts at 8pm you can probably safely schedule yours anywhere from 4-6pm with plenty of time to go from one to the other. Also remember that earlier times are more EU friendly!

 

 

Looking at the calendar, my nifty color coding doesn't appear to come through so how does one tell a major event apart from a smaller one? First off, "Does it repeat"? If the answer is yes, then don't worry about conflicting with it. That doesn't mean it's a 'small' event, just that because it's a regularly occurring one that it's perfectly fine to schedule opposite of. 

 

Now, you have a date and time picked out! What's next?

 

CREATE A FLYER!

 

If you're handy with a graphics editing program you can make a fancy graphic but it's not necessary. A flyer is simply a post (blog, thread, website, whatever) that has all the information about the event. It can be simple text, fancy text, full on graphic, ANYTHING as long as it has the information on it. "But Nefzen, what info does it need?"

 

SO GLAD YOU ASKED!!

 

Your flyer should have the following information on it in an EASY TO READ font:

• Event Name
  
• Date (Gregorian! Eorzean dates are nice for RP flavor text but don't make it the only date!)
  
• Time (Suggest including both start and end times) & Timezone (EST, GMT, PST, UTC, daylight savings?)
  
• Does this event repeat? (Weekly, every two weeks, monthly)
  
• Location  [Example: Goblet Ward 15, Plot 99 or Central Shroud (x20, y19)]
  
• Is there a Fee?
  
• Is there a Theme?
  
• Specific Attire preferred?
  
• Short description of the event
  
• ((You can check the Event Submission Form for all the info you need, but don't fill it out till you have a URL))
  

It's alright to do fancy fonts in one area as long as all that text is clearly typed out somewhere else as well. Also don't make the font too small.... even young people have a hard time reading below a 12pt font.  

 

 In addition to your short description please feel free to go into a far more detailed description including any prizes that can be won, rules for the event, why you are charging a fee, and all that. Go into as much detail as you want as long as everything in that list above is listed clearly. If you wish to do a fully RP themed flyer, that's cool as long as you have an OOC section that includes all the relevant OOC information like the gregorian date and time. Remember that Eorzean dates are NOT a 1 to 1 translation! They have an 8 day week and 32 day months!! Every 7th gregorian day covers TWO Eorzean days as a fudge, but it's not perfect especially when leap year happens. 

 

Note: If you want a fancy graphic made but don't have the skills to make it you can commission cassyqq! Her commission info is HERE.

 

Let me say one thing about presentation of a flyer for a moment because there is how it should be and then there is reality. In a perfect world all events are treated the same and everyone attends things simply on the merits of if they want to attend or not. However, this is reality. Reality is that having a more 'polished' event flyer can turn a good event into a blockbuster. If you put the effort into making your event shine it WILL pay off. People see the difference and will respond to it, subconsciously more often than not. If it wasn't that way then the whole advertising industry wouldn't exist. So trust me when I say this: brush it up. Use different types of fonts, add some color, make the text bigger, add some images. It doesn't take MUCH. 

 

Look at this:

 

Then compare it to this:  

 

 

 It doesn't take much!! The only graphic in that second one is the map. It's all just text editing that most forums allow. For Tumblr you can edit your post in HTML or Markdown. 

 

 

Thankfully by this point your flyer is made.. people should be flocking to your event right?

 

WRONG!

 

Now you need to PUBLICIZE THE HELL out of your event. 

 

You need to take that flyer and post it EVERYWHERE.. repeatedly! 

 

For starters I always suggest making a forum post in the RPC's Event Forum. 

 

If you have a tumblr, you can then post it there, but you need to make sure you tag it properly so people can FIND it when they search. Here are the tags I use: balmung rp event, ffxiv rp event, balmung rp, balmung. This is VERY important! proper tagging means that if anyone has one of those tags 'followed' then your post might show up on their dash even if they are not following you. Not only do I "follow" those tags but I have the searches for those tags bookmarked. 

 

"But Nef! My Tumblr doesn't have many followers and it's not FFXIV focused!!" 

 

NOT a problem! You can do one of two things: 1) post on your personal tumblr and tag @balmungrpcalendar. This will notify me of your post and I can reblog it. 2) You can post DIRECTLY to the balmungrpcalendar tumblr! Simply go to the "Submit to blog" page and pick what kind of post you want to make: Text, Photo or Link. You can then make a post just like normal, then check the relevant tags that apply to your event. NOTE: With your tumblr post be sure to include a link to your Forum thread, where ever that may be, as well as a contact person/blog for people who might have questions.

 

Other places to consider posting your event: Official Balmung forums, doing "shout" in the major cities, making a "party finder" with the info of your event.

 

When all is said and done, go fill out the Event Submission Form for the Calendar and I'll get that information in the gCal!

 

"Alright Nef! It's on the calendar and we've posted it everywhere! Everything is done till the event... right?"

 

WRONG AGAIN!

 

Just because you posted it ONCE doesn't mean you just let it go. You need to check your threads, answer any questions, add any additional information, and just /bumb your thread if it threatens to fall off the first page. Your tumblr posts should be reblogged every 3 days or so. Then the day before and the day of your event you should /bumb or reblog AGAIN. Now, remember you don't want to overdo it or it get's spammy and annoying. The best way to go about it is whenever you have information to add or no less than every 3 days. 

 

"Thanks Nef! We've got a flyer, posted it, publicized it.. now how do we make sure this event is amazing?!"

 

Um.. yea.. that's a story for another time perhaps. 

 

In any case I hope this helps people get the word out about their awesome events!!

 

---

Update 2017-06-08: Fixed graphic links. Shouldn't break now. Yes I might not be running the calendar anymore but I'm still around a bit. ;-)

[Enla]

I love your posts Nefzen. Eagerly awaiting the day you might do one about hosting an event as well. After holding the first Bazaar, and still looking for people to help with the next one, I can definitely say that it's a trial by fire if you have never done it before. So having some advice would go a long way for any other newbies.

Thank you so much for doing this!

[Accendie]

I love your posts Nefzen. Eagerly awaiting the day you might do one about hosting an event as well. After holding the first Bazaar, and still looking for people to help with the next one, I can definitely say that it's a trial by fire if you have never done it before. So having some advice would go a long way for any other newbies.

Thank you so much for doing this!

 

Enh.. in some ways I'm still a newbie myself for hosting events. Fight Club is my only FFXIV one. But I observe and know folks who run events and hear from them. Before I write that up I think I'll have to deal with moving first so it won't be till late July at the soonest.

[Accendie]

/shamless bump since more and more folks are making events again.

[Accendie]

Erahsae was going to link this to someone and pointed out to me that the graphics were not working. Should be fixed now.