PRESS VISITS
Organise events that your target audience and/or media will find interesting to attend.
In the planning phase, consider not only what you would like to communicate – your
message – but also what your target audience would like to learn from the event. Events
can range from a closing or launching event for your programme or project, conferences
or workshops, to a public or press visit to projects to see how they are working in practice.
Journalists love to see, visit and talk to people. A trip to a project to see what exactly is going on and to see
the people it is making an impact on will help tremendously in attracting press attention. Simply making
a story from one interview over the phone and a press release is quite hard (and boring to read!) but having
quotes from different people and lots of visual elements will help a lot. Think about what you could organise
for your project – what is the most interesting to see, visit and do and when? Who are the people it affects?
Make sure that participants at events you are hosting are made aware that your activities are supported by
the EEA Grants / Norway Grants. The relevant logo(s) should appear on all material.
PUBLIC EVENTS AND VISITS
When you organise your own event, make sure you invite people who are involved or important to your
project. A short and concise breakfast briefing, a debate or an open day at the location of your activity may
be a good way of briefing local authorities, civil society representatives or students (or whoever else you
are trying to reach).
If your project involves visual improvements to a building you may want to invite local residents to come on
a guided tour or host an event at your premises. If your project results are less tangible, such as research
findings or enhanced skills among public employees, you could opt for a workshop or a seminar to share
your new expertise or initiate a debate on the topic through an information campaign. Programmes should
consider ‘roadshows’ of presentations or information events to reach a wider audience.
If you organise a public event, you might also like to invite media. If you do, consider which media would be
most interested and make sure you provide the journalists with sufficient information and help them find
the relevant people they could interview.
Another method of engaging people in your activities is to arrange a competition, such as an essay competition for pupils or students, photo or drawing competition, or asking for short video clips depicting your
activities or the relevant issue. The winning contributions could be exhibited online via your website or one
of your social media channels or be displayed in your offices or any other appropriate place.
Before you call a press conference, make sure your topic is really news. Ideally, you organise a press conference when you have something very important to say and it is both positive and newsworthy. Make sure you
allow time for both a presentation and questions & answers (20 minutes for each is a good rule of thumb).
You may want to prepare a press kit (see ’Press releases’ section), but do not overload journalists with too
much information.
TIPS ON EVENTS
›› ou have to organise events as part of the EEA Grants / Norway Grants funding obligations,
Y
but attending other relevant events is also important for raising awareness of your project/
programme and networking
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›› Position your managers and key staff as experts available for speaking appointments at important
events (this is a good opportunity to communicate the project or programme’s mission and
achievements to an interested audience)
Remember to read the ‘Basics of good presentations’ in this manual.
EEA GRANTS • NORWAY GRANTS
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PRESS CONFERENCES
COMMUNICATION AND DESIGN MANUAL
EVENTS