Festival Events as a Platform for Building Local Brands

Festival events are a unique thematic activity of humanity. Throughout history, in both ancient and modern times, days of commemorative significance have been designated as festivals to mark remembrance. In market economy activities, festivals have far exceeded their commemorative significance. Ironically, the more commemorative the day, the harder it is to remember; instead, themes that capture people's attention are more memorable. As a result, festivals have diversified, and in China, all kinds of festivals now exist. Local governments have discovered that festivals are an excellent pretext to attract attention, and they have begun to place increasing importance on them, making festivals lively and bustling. It is said that in the approximately 2,000 county-level localities, there may be thousands of festival events each year.

Today's society is one of attention. Due to changes in information dissemination, the efficiency of formal information transmission may be far less than that of informal transmission; the key issue is how to transmit. As the recent bestseller Here Comes Everybody suggests, we must value the power of organization without organizations. Festival events are a typical domain where this non-organizational power is utilized. It should be said that most local governments already have very high expectations for festival events, because in the attention economy, festivals are a good platform for attracting attention. This platform can enhance local visibility, expand local influence, and strengthen local competitiveness.

At the end of September, I visited Pinghu City in Zhejiang Province, where a Watermelon Lantern Festival was held, vigorously promoting local traditional handicrafts as local specialties, which played a significant role in attracting investment. Although Pinghu is already among the top counties in the national rankings, it continues to hold the Watermelon Lantern Festival with vigor and continuously expands its connotation, truly making it a local business card.

However, among the thousands of festival events organized by local governments, only a few operate as smoothly as the Pinghu city government. More often, festivals are held by governments to attract investment, but due to planning and operational issues, the result is often that the local government entertains itself, the local people are exhausted, and the media produce officialese, without creating real impact. Therefore, although festivals are not a core function of local governments, they have become a topic that governments must seriously study. If local development relies on attracting investment, then how to use festivals to build a local government's business card and influence is clearly an important topic for local governments, especially at the county level.

To make festival events truly serve as a platform for building a local business card, it is essential to deeply understand the communication characteristics of today's society, understand the psychological traits of people, and carefully plan based on local culture, humanities, natural and social resources, treating the festival as a marketing event. Combining basic marketing principles, festival planning should at least answer the following questions:

1. What is the selling point of the festival?
2. Who should the festival influence?
3. Who are the participants of the festival?
4. What is the best communication channel?
5. How can local characteristics be accepted by outsiders?
6. Who pays for the festival?
7. What activities can achieve the above goals?
8. How can the festival's connotation be sustainable?

In fact, with the continuous development of local festival events, not only is the number increasing, but the quality is also improving. Some local governments have accumulated very useful experience in organizing festivals, especially in market operations. Exchanging experiences among local governments can not only promote the continuous improvement of festival standards, but also allow resources from different places to further integrate, generating higher benefits on a larger platform. This is the basic role of the county-level festival forum. I believe such exchanges will bring about economic interconnection and cooperation among localities, and under the system of province-managed counties, will assist county-level governments in planning the revitalization of local economies to the greatest extent.