There are a number of reasons salestrends are down during the actual festival itself, some of them are obvious andsimple, some not so much. A lot of locals are in the festival be it workingwith a organization or just going to go, and some of them are at home avoidingtraffic. That’s why we have to focus on all factors involved, including asimple campaign to educated residences on heavy traffic times. Why not publishexpectations of traffic: when it will be heavy and for how long. It’s difficultto expect folks to come out in town when your stopped by the Highway Patrol atevery red light, but if local patrons knew a more detailed schedule provided bythe city of when to expect traffic and when not to I think that would go a longway.
MusicTree was a perfect example ofhow local and non-local traffic affects our city in various ways.Thursday-Monday in large part was supported by local and semi-regional crowdsand those days were super successful. Tuesday and Wednesday on the other handwas a unique mix of local and non-local folks. It is important that we recognizeour days of retail opportunity on Bonnaroo traffic is primarily the Tuesday andWednesday before Bonnaroo and the Sunday and Monday at the tail end ofBonnaroo. Obviously pre-Bonnaroo sales will be stronger, so the questionbecomes how do we market the Tuesday and Wednesday before? One example isMusicTree.
MusicTree focused on the lead up toBonnaroo Traffic (Thursday-Monday) just as much as the two days of primarysales opportunity (Tuesday and Wednesday). This goes back to my general feelingthat we need to evaluate our approach to Music Industry as a city. We embraceBonnaroo and that's great, but we can do more. Rather than just embracing Musicone weekend a year we should focus on the total musical experience our cityoffers year round.
As a local government we are alwaystalking about Manufacturing Industry and Retail Industry and while both areequally important more often than not we overlook what I feel could beManchester's long term strong point and that is in the Tourism Industry.Tourism is the second largest Industry in the United States, and only ONE cityhas the opportunity that we have and it’s us! We are not only home to thelargest Music Festival in North America, but we are sandwiched in between majormusic powers in Nashville and Atlanta and growing music powers in Murfreesboroand Chattanooga. Combine that with that fact we are on the Tennessee Jack Trailleading to Jack Daniels as well as having our very own Coffee County Whiskey inGeorge Dickel and a fantastic nature and history experiences with Old StoneFort and Civil War Trails, it positions us well to make an aggressive campaignfor market share in the Tourism Industry.
As a government I think we need to be past thepoint of embarrassing all that music brings and to move to the point ofpromoting all of what music can do for Manchester. As a city we need to takethe next step and become that next Austin, TX type city on a smaller scale. Ourcommunity is ready to take that step; MusicTree was just a small example ofthat. Our local folks supported the days leading up to Bonnaroo traffic just aswell as the Bonnaroo traffic supported it once they got here. Our citizens areready to become part of the music scene, now it’s time for our local governmentto support that transition.
As for the short term affect of Bonnaroo weneed to start with comprehensive traffic details to locals as well as focus on drivingtransient traffic to our local folks the days leading up to Bonnaroo,maximizing the opportunity to drive sales on those primary sales days. For example:why does the city of Manchester not have bill boards on all major entrancesinto town. We could even do a co-op campaign with local businesses that said “ExperienceManchester The home of Bonnaroo” or "Show your wrist band for exclusivediscounts in these great local shops" We need a marketing strategy as acity rather than depending on folks to just wonder around and stumble on asmall local business. We always hear of shop local campaigns, and that's allfine. But we need to understand that we are a transient city and we shouldfocus on driving transient dollars into our local businesses rather than justdepending on our local folks to support small businesses alone.
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