Four years ago the Bailey Gardiner team gathered to brainstorm ideas to get locals back to Seaport Village.  It’s “tourist trap” reputation had seemed to deter the locals and the media had nearly forgotten it existed.  Tasked with creating something that would rock this world, BG landed on a Busker Festival.  It’s OK, no one here knew what a busker was either.

The good news is that BG knows media.  We know that along with puppies, disasters and politics, the media likes the unknown.  Even better news, once the media figured out what a busker was, they liked that too, and so did the locals.

Four years later, we’ve been contacted by the Disney Imaginarium, America’s Got Talent and Universal Studios about our Busker Festival.  We did something right.

So what did we do?  We’ve broken it down for you into five tips for an event that gets attention:

1. Give the media something they don’t already know. Everyday they are looking for stories that will grab the attention of their viewers and make them perk up and say “tell me more!”  Imagine, if you can get the media to do that themselves, you’ve got a shoe in.

2. Shock people. A juggler is neat, but a sword swallower is shocking.  Making balloon animals is neat but swallowing balloon animals is cooler.  Keep this in mind and remember that it doesn’t have to be dangerous, just shocking, like a hot dog on wheels or the world’s biggest beach ball.

3. Make it free. If you can’t make the whole thing free, make part of it free (like the parking, the first 200 visitors, the food, etc.).  Or, consider involving a charity. Not only does the media appreciate covering non self-serving events, but it also sometimes means that you’ll get the help of that non-profit from their volunteers and extensive database.

4. Build the platform for chatter. Establish yourself on social media, establish your network and then give them plenty to talk about: Videos, photos, previews, etc. In the end, you’ll spread the word, you’ll intrigue people and you’ll boost your event’s searchability.

5. Let the families flock and the young people be young. Give the young people beer, turn the music up and let the entertainment be something they wouldn’t take their mothers to.  It’s absolutely possible to separate your event for various age groups to please them all.  Just think of all the family events you’ve been to where you’ve strolled past a beer garden…

In the end, it’s important to remember that time is crucial in getting attention for your event. The Seaport Village Spring Busker Festival just completed its fourth year.  This year, the local TV came to us, thanks to our shocking and unique line-up of performers.  Taking our own advice, BG and Seaport Village spent months leading up to the festival establishing Seaport Village on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and promoting the festival on their blog.  By the time the festival rolled around the internet was littered with access to Busker Festival information, making the event extra searchable.  For the second year in a row, the festival included Buskers After Dark, an 18+ nighttime portion of the festival sponsored by San Diego CityBeat and Yelp to accommodate the younger crowd, and, of course, everything was free.

In case you are wondering if we walk our talk, here are some highlights from the 2010 Seaport Village Spring Busker Festival:

• Approximately 14,000 people attended the festival in 2010.

• During the month leading up to the festival, 22,648 unique visitors came to the Seaport Village website.   That’s more than 5,000 more than the month prior.   Those visitors viewed an average of four pages on the website.

• Bailey Gardiner secured a total of 92 print and online placements and 6 TV placements about the festival.  Highlights include a story on the front page of the San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego Magazine, Citysearch.com, About.com and AOLNews.com.

• During the month leading up to the festival, Seaport reached its 1,000th Facebook fan, gaining a total of almost 300 fans.   More people interacted with the page as well; 225 interactions vs. 144 the month before.

• Twitter followers reached 1,000 during the festival as well, growing by 75 during the month leading up to the event.

• The primary YouTube video that was used to promote the festival was viewed nearly 1,000 times over two months.