Guidelines for Inviting a School or Class to Your Festival

Contact the school

When marketing your festival to schools, there are a variety of approaches depending on whether you are trying to reach only local schools or are reaching out beyond your local community.

For local schools, a personal visit or phone call is the very best route. If the school you are targeting has a family resource center (at elementary schools) or a youth service center (at middle and high schools), the director of the center is likely your best contact. Other contacts might be the principal or the arts and humanities teacher. In grades 4-12, you might also find out who teaches social studies and contact that person.

Be sure to do your “homework” before making that first contact.

Have a clear idea of the grades you are targeting,
The price per student,
The services and activities you are offering,
And the connections to the curriculum for the targeted grade levels.

You also need to know if you can accept purchase order numbers for payment. If you have pre and post festival activities, take an example with you or mail it as a follow up to the phone call.

It takes time for field trips to be approved, so start early and arrange to check back at a specified time to finalize the registrations.

If you want to appeal to schools from other communities, you need to prepare a short but engaging announcement including date, place, targeted grade levels, types of activities (demonstrations, hands-on, etc.), curriculum connections, and cost per student. Include a contact name, number and/or e-mail for more information or reservations. Emphasize that reservations are required. You don’t want to have to deal with unexpected busloads of students. Because you are reaching a large audience, be sure to pinpoint your location – they may not have heard of your community and need to know what part of the state you are in. You can:

Publicize your festival through regional arts newsletters and announcements. Your Kentucky Arts Council Circuit Rider is a good contact for publicizing festivals. Here is the link to the circuit rider page on the KAC website http://artscouncil.ky.gov/guide/kac1/staff.htm
Use e-mail to publicize your festival to listserves serving arts and humanities or social studies teachers.
Mail announcements to directors of family resource centers or youth service centers or to arts and humanities teachers. Principals receive so much mail that they are rarely the best target for this type of announcement. While the previous announcements should be plain text, your mailed announcements can include some graphics, especially if you have a photo of a festival activity, and testimonials from teachers who have attended previous festivals. Printing these announcements on colored paper makes them stand out from the stack of other announcements teachers and FRYSC directors receive.

Send a registration form

This can be sent with your preliminary contact letter or mailed to someone who responds to an announcement. It should include space for the date the class will come, number of students, number of adults, time of arrival and departure, contact person and contact information, and method of payment.

Send a confirmation packet

As soon as schools register, send the contact person a confirmation packet with the number of students registered, the purchase order number, directions and/or a map to the festival site, parking instructions, and any pre or post festival materials you have developed. The letter can begin as follows:

We are delighted that you plan to bring your class to our festival. You will find many ways to integrate our exhibits, demonstrations, and activities into your curriculum. To assist you in making the most of this educational experience, we are providing an overview of the festival and some ideas for activities.

Pre and post-festival activities

Give ideas for activities and provide written materials that would help students prepare for the visit. Emphasize this can be an educational experience and kids do better if given a specific assignment to do. Encourage teachers to let parents/chaperones know what the assignment is.

Suggest some rules for visiting the festival.

Samples of rules teachers might discuss with students: Students need to know that they should not touch anything unless they have permission and that they are expected to stay with their assigned group and chaperone. These rules can fit into your practical living curriculum.

Give information on what they should expect when they arrive. Where should they park? Will someone meet them? If not, they need a map and suggestions on where to start, where they should eat, etc.

Include a schedule of events and activities with locations marked.

Follow-up and evaluation

Contact the school/teachers after the festival and ask them to evaluate their experience and give ideas of how to improve. Were the materials useful, what did they use, what didn’t they use? Will the come again next year?