Would you like to help us make this the biggest summer party in Muskoka?
We are looking for Sponsors who want the opportunity to get involved and have high visibility in a two day cultural explosion of music, dance, and fun on August 1st and 2nd 2008. Last years Civic Holiday long weekend in Gravenhurst drew over 5000 people out to watch the fireworks alone. This year we added a whole new spectrum of events and created a powerful two day line up of exciting interactive attractions for everyone, and have the capacity to double last years turnout.
The party starts on Friday night with over 50 Caribbean drummers and dancers decked out in full costume, Cirque and street performers including Stiltwalkers and Fire POI, contests and draws in the downtown core of Gravenhurst by the local businesses, along with 500 Mardi-Gras masks and costumes for audience participants and a Limbo competition with great prizes to close the night.
The celebrations continue the next morning at 10:00 am with the opening of The Muskoka Wharf Piratefest that runs all day featuring multiple inflatables, face painting and tattoos, and everyone dressed as pirates (arrgh!). The steamship Wenonah is decked out as a pirate ship along with Captain Hook, blasting cannons, constantly attacked and boarded by the numerous summer cottagers on Lake Muskoka that look forward to the melee, and lie in wait for the right moment.
Then we kick it up a notch or two by adding a thrilling watershow at 4:00 sponsored by Boston Pizza for an hour followed by the start of a stacked deck of evening shows at 5:00. The gated events area holds a capacity of 10,000 people and is located in the gorgeous 93 acres of the newly developed Muskoka Wharf. The Caribbean performers and Mardi-Gras costumed audience join us at the events area for the evening. Let’s take a further look at what else we’ve got for you.
At 5:00 we begin the evening with a local favourite that is always a big draw with Just4Kicks followed at 6:00 by Juno Award winning hot Progressive Jazz with The Richard Underhill Quintet. To make sure things roll along and heat up properly we have two 40 foot mainstages and a 40 foot big screen with high resolution projection, 10,000 watts of PA and a full intelligent light show to boot. At 7:30 we turn it up even more with the 9 piece Reggae/Fusion band TheFunkyUdu that also features an exhilarating Aerial Silks Performance by Femmes du Feu during the show. We follow up the Reggae at 9:00 with a one half hour traditional Caribbean drum and dance performance with The Twisted Hair Spirit Dancers joined in by the Caribbean dance participants.
Now we have the half hour fireworks show that pulled 5,000 people last year, remember? The big screen gets rolling at 9:00 and features the fireworks, audience, performers, and sponsors. We bring out the big guns at 10:00 with the cutting edge, multiple award winning, internationally acclaimed Brownman Electryc Trio to rev right through to midnight.
Sound interesting? Take a look at what we have put together for our sponsors on the next pages.
This is what we have for our valued sponsors
We have put considerable time and energy into providing a strong promotional package with a few new twists and fresh ideas to reach our target audiences. Our marketing plan puts forward a month long initiative that is designed to grow exponentially, and increase in intensity as we close in on the last week of promoting prior to the event date. In the final week we will have a constant buzz of advertising and activities that heats things up and ensures that everyone is fully aware of the upcoming events making this the place to be on The Civic Holiday in Muskoka.
Our advertising campaign consists of press releases, media parties, television advertising and interviews on A-Channel, high volume poster distribution, radio advertising and interviews, a minimum of 10,000 passport booklets (our own invention, see the sample, these are beauties!), public Cirque presentations, general public and student involvement through school performances and costume competitions designed to build community involvement and excitement, Mardi-Gras mask and shirt sales through local businesses to prime people for the event, a large collaborative effort which includes the BIA, local businesses, Wharf Association, Town participation, and more.
Sponsors supporting this event will have the benefit of being included in the general advertising campaign plus the additional advantages of:
- big screen sponsor support at the event
- stage advertising
- large on site exhibit areas with no other vendors so our sponsors enjoy very high visibility
- first offer opportunity to participate as a supporter of this annual event in the future
- solid verbal acknowledgement and participation from the mainstages
- a positive image from the viewpoint of a general audience perspective
- direct association with a professional high level event in Muskoka
Our Friday night event structure is designed with no street closures which allows us to interest the high volume of travelers to the Muskoka Lake area directly as they pass through the only two access intersections through Gravenhurst. We will be handing out Passports from Cirque and Caribbean performers as they go through our bottleneck intersections which will have adjoining visible performance zones. This allows us to reach a potentially unaware audience, to positively remind people of the Saturday events and interest passersby in the Friday night Mardi-Gras party.
The Saturday night event structure is designed to attract a wide range of audience. The line up of performances is different from many others simply because there isn’t only one anchor entertainer to draw with support from ancillary performances. We have planned very carefully to have all of the individual acts as anchor performances for different audiences while at the same time having a strong cross market attraction. This makes the entire event enticing to everyone allowing us the potential to draw the largest possible audience participation. The entire event is the anchor, not just a single headline act. Take a second look at the line up (I know you want to now). You’ll see it.
We encourage our sponsors to participate and interact to the fullest degree. We will do our utmost to provide support and to assist in presenting a positive image for the participating sponsors. Our goal is to develop a strong ongoing relationship with our sponsors through close interaction and collaboration. We believe this perspective will ensure success for everyone involved. Please feel free to suggest any ideas or request support in areas that pertain to your specific business that may not have been included in our marketing plan. You’ll find we’re easy to work with.