Case Study: Event Production
Kerrville River Festival
1. Overview
The Parks and Recreation Department of Kerrville, Texas, a city of approximately 25,000 people, approached TSE Entertainment to create and produce an annual prominent festival in one of their parks on the banks of the Guadalupe River. TSE had been recommended to them for this project. The goal was to establish a free, community-centered festival that celebrated the city, attracted visitors, and became a staple on the Texas Hill Country events calendar. The first edition in 2019 also commemorated the city’s 130th anniversary.
2. Objectives
The goal was to establish a new festival that would become well known and compete with the many other festivals in the Texas Hill Country and draw people to the City of Kerrville.
Specific Objectives:
- Creating the framework and brand for such an event.
- Growing the reputation of the festival as one worth attending
- Achieving an attendance of at least 5,000 people.
- Making it an event that would attract families.
3. Challenges
There were many challenges to overcome if the event was to take place on the city’s timeline; They included:
- Lack of Experience: The city’s lack of Experience in hosting larger events. The city had never held a festival or larger concert. Their only experience was conducting summer concerts using local bands that drew 100 or so people.
- Limited Time to Plan: The city wanted to hold the event on a date that only allowed about 5 months from hiring TSE to executing the event.
- Limited Staffing: The Parks Department assigned their special events coordinator to work with TSE to produce the festival. She was responsible for many other events, so her ability to help plan and execute the festival was limited.
- Venue Limitations: The chosen festival site in the park had no water, power or on-site parking for attendees.
- Lack of Existing Connections: The city had no mailing lists for marketing and only had a few potential vendor connections from which to provide food and activities for attendees.
- Competing Events: The most impactful was the Kerrville Chalk Festival moving its dates to the same weekend as the River Festival after marketing had begun.
- City’s Decision to Handle Promotion: The city decided that it would handle promoting the event since it had experience promoting recreation activities within the city.
4. TSE Entertainment's Approach
Because of lack of time and experience, the Kerrville Parks and Recreation Department entrusted TSE with creating the event and growing the event and mostly confined its role to approving suggested activities and budget issues. TSE recognized that the full vision would not come together in the first year with less than five months from contract execution to the festival taking place. TSE put together the event team and prioritized the steps needed to create the festival. Those included:
- Creating a name, logo and theme
- Addressing the critical components of a festival including obtaining artists, power needs, local production, food and beverage, and parking
- Adding additional family friendly activities
5. Execution Highlights
2019 – Launch Year
- Theme: Get Outdoors (city selected which aligned with the city’s annual Get Outdoors events)
- Contacted and put into place enough food and beverage vendors to assure enough variety for the event and short lines.
- Booked enough artists, including headliners for main stage music from mid-afternoon until fireworks at 10:30 PM
- Contracted for mobile stage, sound and lighting, and generators (stage and artist buses).
- Provided shuttle buses to and from city’s parking garage to make parking easier for attendees.
- Added family friendly activities to the festival, including 5K fun run, exercise classes, volleyball tournament, and kids’ zone. City provided for fire works display at conclusion of music.
2021 – Expansion & New Theme
- At TSE’s suggestion, theme revised to Celebration of History and Culture of Kerrville and Kerr County
- Added circus stage and acts
- Created community involvement by incorporating performances by local performing arts organizations
- TSE assumed responsibility for marketing. TSE listed the festival on Hill Country event listing sites, created a festival website, wrote articles for publications, created social media content, distributed posters, placed paid advertising, and arranged for radio interviews, etc.
- TSE photographer and drone videographer added to supplement photographer from Schreiner University
- TSE produced an 8-minute video about an important part of Kerrville’s history as part of the festival’s program. It was about Jimmie Rodgers, the Father of Country music, who lived in Kerrville.
2022 – Continued Expansion
- Created video for marketing and sponsorship development.
- Added additional performance areas, including a community stage for local performing arts organizations’ sponsored performances and also a sponsored tent entertainment asset.
- Changed radio partner with greater outreach with five Hill Country stations
- Did outreach and added 30 paid exhibitors to the event
- Added a total of 10 food trucks and one event beer vendor
- Added family friendly grounds entertainers, including balloon artists, face painters, and juggler.
- TSE Sponsorship Sales Component added.
- Expanded level of talent and performances including circus thrill acts such as human cannon, and high wire acts.
6. Results & Outcomes
🎟 Attendance: Increased from less than 2,000 in year one to approximately 8,000 in year three.
🔷 Community Involvement: TSE got local dance studios, fitness organizations, performing arts organizations, the high school, and Schreiner University involved in classes, sponsored performances, and volunteering for the event.
💵 Revenue Goals: $45,000 in sponsorships, plus $3,500 from exhibitor and food truck paid registrations and more than $20,000 in royalties from beer sales.
👍 Client Satisfaction: The city and the parks department were exceedingly happy with TSE’s performance.
🤝 Repeat Engagement: The Parks Department wanted TSE to continue its role 2023. Unfortunately, the city’s legal department decided it needed to create an RFP which took many months, so TSE decided that it no longer had the time needed to grow the event. TSE informed our client that we would not be responding to the RFP and concluded our role.
7. Client Testimonial
8. Key Takeaways
TSE proved it could take an idea or concept for an event and create and grow that idea into a major event.
The city could not find another event management firm that was willing to do all the work that TSE performed. The result is that the Kerrville River Festival no longer takes place.
