The Official U.S. Maple Syrup Almanac 2015 | Page 38

O

rganizing a local maple festival
can be a boon to retail syrup
sales for all involved if it is publicized correctly and has the support of the
local maple producers and townsfolk.
There are about a dozen maple producers in our area of Warner, New Hampshire,
home of five museums and a thriving tourist destination. With many years’ experience in publicity, I offered to organize a
maple festival, which I began working on
in early 2014.
The Kearsarge Maple Festival kicked
off March 21-22, 2015. Folks came from
all around southern New Hampshire and
as far away as Boston. At least 500-800
people attended our two-day event. It
takes time to build a crowd and I expect
those numbers will increase significantly
each year.
If you’re planning a local maple festival,
here is the publicity schedule I recommend:
■ About eight weeks prior to the event,
submit articles to monthly publications
that cover the entire state, trying to make
each article convey the enthusiasm you
feel. Be sure to include the who, what,
why, when and where details. Nearly all
media prefer submissions in the body of
the email.
■ About this same time, send an
announcement to the media in your coverage area for their calendars of upcoming
events. These are free listings, and nearly all
media offer them.
■ Two to three weeks before the event,
send out a press release to area weekly publications. They love high-resolution action
photos, so if you have one or two, attach
them.
■ About eight days before the event, the
final press release and photo should be sent
to all the daily newspapers and broadcast
38

HOW TO
ORGANIZE
A LOCAL

MAPLE
FESTIVAL
By BARBARA MILLS LASSONDE
media in your coverage area.
■ As a notation at the bottom of these
last two press releases, you could include
an invitation to the media to come and
take photos, specifying which day would
have the best photo ops. I did that, and we
received wonderful coverage for the Indian
Museum.
■ If your venues are scattered around
like ours were, you will want to stock each
venue locations and maps of other participants to hand out to visitors.
Each venue in the Kearsarge Maple
Festival was responsible for recruiting the
necessary volunteers and designing their
own program such as sugar-on-snow and
breakfasts.
The final tally for the first Kearsarge
Maple Festival was: Pancake Breakfast
served 188 meals in two days. Sugar on
snow served 78 on Saturday, and the
Indian Museum saw about 100 visitors on
Saturday. Most of the seven participating
sugar houses had between 200-300 visitors
each. Two sugar houses located some distance off the beaten path saw only 30-50
visitors, but all had double the number or
greater over the previous year.

My main goal in organizing this maple
festival was to create a notable community
event, help the museums and non-profits
raise money and help the maple producers
sell their syrup. As a first-time event, it was
fairly successful for the non-profits, and
hugely successful for most of the participating maple producers.
There are other local maple festivals,
some of which have been flourishing for
many years, such as the Whithingham
Maple Festival in Jacksonville, Vt. Seven
of the 18 local sugar houses participated
this year, offering tours and samples. Other
activities included a pancake breakfast,
craft fair, horse-drawn sleigh rides, artisan
tours, maple cooking contest, lunch and
dinner. This event has been held for 17
years, with all activities free, but donations
are welcome.
The Hebron Maple Festival in Hebron,
Conn. has been operating for 25 years and
includes tours of three working sugar houses. Other activities include a fire apparatus exhibit, antique tractor parade, woodworking, blacksmithing and candle-making demonstrations, craft fair, breakfast,
lunch, dinner, etc. This festival now draws
thousands of maple lovers.
At the Western NY Maple Festival in
Franklinville, N.Y. maple sales are conducted from a sugar shack in front of the
school. Activities offered include a breakfast, king and queen contest, petting zoo,
maple parade, craft fair, horse plowing
demonstration, helicopter rides, live entertainment and dances.
When planning your local festival, I
believe ]8