Case study: East Gippsland Shire Council’s targeted event development support

Tilma Group develops a lot of events strategies for Councils, and Council Event Teams are curious to learn what other Councils do, and what is best practice, across a range is areas – event approval, event funding, delivering events, and other event support.   

While we’ve learned that every Council is different in terms of their budget, number of staff, events and tourism landscape, community event management capacity, tourism and community objectives, and more, we do see examples of best practice across regional Australia in each area.   

This case study looks at a regional Council that strategically identified key homegrown events with the potential to be elevated into significant visitation events, and supported their development.   

In 2021, together with JJ Strategic Consulting, Tilma Group developed an Event Growth Action Plan for East Gippsland Shire Council in eastern Victoria. An action in the strategic plan was to invest in the development of four homegrown events by providing professional support over three years. Council would work with existing events that have potential for growth to curate unique events that would build the East Gippsland brand, and maximise economic and social outcomes for the community. 

Development support

East Gippsland Shire Council developed a Pathways to Growth program to help four select homegrown events achieve their visitation potential. The program is a three-year commitment by the Council which provides each event’s organisers with $20,000 per year for activities to support growth, as well as capacity building support.  

The program helps event organisers unlock their event’s potential, gain knowledge, and develop their thinking. Council’s Events Officer provides strategic planning mentoring, helps document the events’ operations manuals, and provides training, such as in event marketing, grant writing, and becoming accessible. The operations manuals are filed in online shared filing systems so the event organisers don’t have to reinvent the wheel every year which supports succession planning. The Regional Tourism Board provides input into the events’ marketing plans.     

The Pathways to Growth program went out for expressions of interest from organisers of local events who want to grow visitation to their event, and their applications were assessed with the criteria in the Council’s Events Strategy, which includes being off peak to achieve visitor dispersal, and being aligned with the destination’s tourism brand.    

Outcomes

Outcomes have been encouraging. One of the supported events was considering finishing up, and the Council was able to renew the committee’s motivation by providing support and helping them to understand the value of their event using visitation statistics. The team then doubled attendance from 400 to 800 overnight visitors within one year, with most staying two nights. With an average spend of $334 per trip, the return on investment of the Council’s $20,000 support for this event was 1:$6.68.  

Leveraging events

With the support of Tilma Group, Council also developed toolkits on how community groups and local businesses can maximise the benefits they receive from events, and how event organisers can maximise the benefits for their communities from their events. These are proactively used by Council throughout the year to engage the intended audiences with the tips to maximise outcomes from events.