Charitable Events are great for any organisation.

My recent project was to host and organise a large handmade and vintage fair for the company 'Experience the country' in aid of Cancer Research. The reason for this event was because Experience the Country are a newly established organisation, and they need to create awareness, on their fantastic services. Although the company have been doing everything they can to gain publicity customer bookings have still remained at a minimum.

Lately the team have been concerned with the fact people can no longer afford luxuries, like experience days out, and with the trend in vintage fairs it was seen a great opportunity to utilise the 800 acres of countryside land and host the fair to ideally get the public in. By publicising the event on the company website, corporate blog, Facebook and Twitter, as well as printing posters and leaflets, and generating word of mouth the event was thought to have a high influx of people on the day.

Eventually 20 stalls were sold at £10.00 each, which is one of the cheapest rates on the market, so thats 20 people's friends/family all in the know of the Hounslow hall handmade & Vintage fair. The stalls varied from clothes, jewellery, accessories, cards, paintings, flowers and cupcakes. To cater for children a Vintage ice-cream van was also invited along with a face painter. 

The Vintage fair ended up being a great success which made my planning and preparation worthwhile! I was on a high all day! 

Hundreds of people entered the door, some of which would never have visited the location, had there not been a vintage fair on. It was great to see so many people wanting to support Cancer Research with £1 entry fee, but it was also great for Experience the Country to talk to individuals about the type of experience's on offer. As a result of this the operations manager did trial run's in the off road 4x4 military truck so guests could have a taster in the hope of a return on investment. They would then book up and pay to drive the truck themselves. 

***Experience the Country managed to raise £243.00 to Cancer Research***

I would definitely recommend a charitable event for any organisation because:

• It is a great way to get the public in.
• Attracts a wide target audience of all age ranges.
• Targets potential customers and creates recognition for the brand.
• Definitely makes the brand identity look good.
• Allows the audience to meet the team face to face.
• Gives team members the opportunity to talk about what they do.
• Enables FREE publicity.

• Encourages people to publicise by word of mouth because it is for charity.
• People are likely to give feedback on the company from the service they provided.
• Helps the company gain more contacts.

Experience the country thanked all stall holders personally through e-mail and received e-mails back stating their appreciation and gratitude for being invited to the event. The company also received lots of feedback on Facebook and Twitter that suggested hundreds of people had a great day.

This is excellent for the new business because they can now remember Experience the Country for the Cancer Research Vintage Fair.

I generated a Survey to gain more feedback which I have posted to Facebook and Twitter. The results will be taken into consideration for the next upcoming event. I am hoping to host a Christmas Fair in aid of a different charity to attract people interested in sponsoring that particular charity.

When people left the event I was issuing Christmas flyers!