1. The Gulf Coast Jam is one of the biggest country music festivals in the country. Gulf Coast Jam is held on Labor Day weekend in Panama City Beach, Florida at the Frank Brown Park. This is where tens of thousands of tourist and country music fans come together for a three-day event to watch the top country music artist perform live. Every year that this event has been in existence it has continued to grow in size and in popularity. Joe Gomez is the Festival Direct for Gulf Coast Jam and he is also the guest speaker in the video. Joe does a great job of explaining everything that goes into planning, coordinating, and hosting this event. Joe also gives great insight into what it is like directing a major event as well as giving a few tips to anyone who may be directing or coordinating an event for the first time. When Joe talks how he planned this event I found it very interesting on why he picked Labor Day weekend as well as why he made it into a three-day event instead of just one. They picked Labor Day weekend because of the high traffic, most people have this weekend off, and the weather is usually nice that time of year. Then they wanted to make this event three days because it was more cost effective for them. They already have the stages rented and set up for a week and most people are staying in town the whole weekend. Joe also talks about the importance of sponsorships, ticket sales, and getting customers to buy food or drinks when they are at the festival. These factors are extremely important to Gulf Coast Jam because they use the profits and money from sponsorships to pay for their expenses and the artist for performing. Then they need to get customers to buy food and drinks because this is where a large majority of their profits come from. Marketing this event is another big part of Joe’s job. He markets this event year-round and within a 400-mile radius of the event. He has radio ads, TV commercials, and CMT even does a three-hour special of their event. Joe says that each year that the event goes on marketing the event becomes easier because they have learned from previous mistakes in the past and the event has increased in popularity, so more people are talking about this country music festival. I really enjoyed watching this video and hearing Joe talk about this amazing festival. Gulf Coast Jam has over a 45-million-dollar economic impact and over 200,000 people have been to this event since it has started. This event continues to grow and each year they are more successful than the year before. 2. The Gulf Coast Jam has grown tremendously since 2013. It continues to go through a 27% increase of attendees each year. Even though they reach out to a 400 mile radius, Panama City Beach alone has the perfect demographics for this event. They strategically picked a weekend they knew people would have an extra day to travel, rest, or whatever the case may be. The only problem with the timing is that it is in the middle of hurricane season. September always has sees the worst of storms. Gulf Coast Jam's use their resources and markets very well. The way they partner with other companies and provide tickets is a great deal for them. It's funny how the companies are know they're going to have to partner with them whether they want to or not. I think every company involved can benefit from this event, and it really helps out the GCJ budget. The lodging partners is a huge way to market. Since Gulf Coast Jams is fairly knew it helped them to reach out to people that already enjoy being in the Panama City Beach area. A concert event like this only happens in so many places, and PCB is very ideal especially to people that already visit often. Joe explains that when creating an event like this you have to start small. He gives advice to keep costs low and grow big. He knew year one was going to be the hardest and he learned from some of the things he did wrong the first time. It's important to try certain things out first in order to know if it'll work out or not. Even though there were some things that changed, he budgets the right way and makes use of his sponsorship partners. 3. The speaker is in charge of the entertainment department and is about to share on the sales of the company and the sponsorship issue. The company offers different packages of sales to their customers depending on everyone budget. The people are required to pay for their tickets for them to gain access to the area of the event. The company can go into partnership with other business some of the partnership which informs of sponsorship while others are informed businesses. The company identifies the potential sponsors, and they engage them in talks about the possible ways in which they can sponsor the events. The businesses that want to do their advertisement during the event are expected to acquire a space that ranges in the budget of 1000 dollars to 100,000 dollars depending on what they require. The packages are set depending on the area required by the customers. The companies can request for planning, a piece of furniture in the organizers of the event and they are issued with as per their requirements (Gulf Coast Jam Part II, 2015). The packages are can also be customized according to the customers’ demands and what they need from the company. The creativity of a company according to the speaker depends on the ability to utilize the potentials they have as a company since each has its ability. The speakers say that they help business in designing various things such as logos for businesses and menu for restaurants. The company aims to ensure the businesses that partner with them make use of little cash to initiate their programs. The sponsor is educated for the need of providing the money. The sponsor is also informed about the location of the business they are funding and the area they are located in the event place. The company looks for a sponsor for a long term relationship not only because of money but for other important issues in the future (Gulf Coast Jam Part II, 2015). The biggest concern in this video is that the speaker has not addressed the benefits that are accrued by the sponsors after sponsoring businesses for such big events. 4. Mr. Gomez directly picks back up on sponsorships which he touched on in the first video. By discussing the different types of sponsors that Gulf Coast Jam primarily uses. These sponsors are either cash sponsors or in-kind sponsors which are also called trade sponsors. The trade sponsors they use primarily receive either physical advertisement space at the concert, business promotion through the company’s logo being affiliated on their website, and supplying a certain number of tickets to each business as compensation for their equipment or services. Gulf Coast Jam in turn would then utilize equipment contributed by these sponsors. When Gulf Coast Jam is finding their sponsors they send out a detailed PowerPoint entailing what Gulf Coast Jam is so sponsors can have an idea of its impact. Following this is usually a phone call where Gulf Coast Jam stresses ability to work with a sponsors desires and needs by making a somewhat personal plan for the sponsors affiliation by asking questions about the company’s objectives and goals for the year. They constantly assist companies and create new unsuspecting sponsors with their ability to suggesting ideas like affiliating for tickets to raffle off as a way to motivate customers for stores on the consumer end, employees by incentivizing them to show up on time and meet weekly goals, and radio listeners to stay in tune with the radio station. The basis for the plans are very flexible; but they come with a general basis cost attached and Gulf Coast Jam designs a package off of these details that covers the sponsor’s needs. Another way Gulf Coast Jam helps their sponsors is by advising that if they are going to have a booth that they need to either enhance or satisfy the spectators needs in the concert environment with amenities such as having a charging station for phones. Finally Mr. Gomez states how important cobranding is from starting it months before all the way to the end of the event because sponsors can use social media to constantly reach a massive demographic of individuals.
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