IRVINE TALKS
Vice President
450 Attendees, 20 Speakers, and Hundreds of Perspectives Told
Irvine Talks is an annual event exhibiting performances, art, and music by students across the Irvine Unified School District, in partnership with the Irvine Public Schools Foundation and sponsored by FLEX Prep. Created by a group of passionate students, in the first district-wide event of its kind, students took to visual art, musical pieces, poetry, films, interactive experiences, and immersive performances to express their stories
Theme Reveal
Social Media Countdown
In order to generate excitement about the continuation of "Irvine Talks" as an annual event and to engage more people in the participation of Irvine Talks, we created a social media countdown to the Theme Reveal on a new account in which every day an anonymous figure talked about their experience as part of Irvine Talks their previous year.
As a result of the countdown the account gained 600 followers in less than four days and a collective 4000 views on the four videos.
Commercial
The commercial reveal served an important purpose in not only releasing the "Perspectives" theme to the public but inviting performers to audition to share their stories.
As the producer of the commercial, I decided to involve a student from every high school in Irvine in the creation of the film and as actors to encourage all students to audition.
The commercial was aired on every Irvine high school's broadcast, published to social media, and sent out by the Irvine Public Schools Foundation simultaneously.
After the commercial aired, Irvine Talks received 54 auditions from all Irvine Unified School District High Schools and a viewership of more than a thousand views outside of the roughly 10k views during their school broadcast.
Event Advertising
Perspectives Box
It was important to advertise the event past the limitations of social media, however we did not want to just rely on flyers, which had proven fairly ineffective the previous year.
Instead, we built a "Perspectives Box" on every high school campus in Irvine that asked students to submit stories about the theme that would then be performed in small snippets at the event. The boxes served as a principal advertisement for our target audience, but also introduced a form of participation that later became crucial to how we engaged our audience during the show.
Advertisement: Performers
The final commercial aired for Irvine Talks was made with the purpose of revealing the performers and showcasing at least one will be coming from each high school. This way students would be more likely to attend to support their school and be reminded of the date of "Irvine Talks: Chapter 2".
The promo was posted on all Irvine student government accounts and the Irvine Talks Official Instagram.
Marketing During the Event
Branding
We created a variety of advertising opportunities at the outside event itself.
Centerpieces, photo stations, and art galleries all featured the logo and event name, which then appeared on social media for almost every attendee.
Merchandise
Merchandise also played a key role in marketing for "Irvine Talks: Chapter 2" and all future chapters of the events.
The shirts were a continuation of the previous year's lightbulb logo but included a new "Perspectives" logo on the back. Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 shirts were sold as a bundle at the end of the show as well.
12 different pin designs were also sold at the event, each one coordinating with a specific performer or facet of the perspectives theme.
All merchandise was given to performers and the Irvine Talks board a week in advance so they could wear it and advertise at each of their respective schools.
The Result
Merchandise
116 individual "Irvine Talks: Chapter 2" shirts were sold and almost all produced pins were sold out by the end of the evening.
Attendance
Over 450 people attended both the outside event and primary show. More than one hundred people from all Irvine high schools volunteered the day of to help up and take down the event at the end of the night and roughly twenty others participated in the planning and advertising process. We were extremely happy with this number and cannot wait to see the event grow even more in future years.
All Designs Done by Sydney Field and Anabelle Park
