Recreation Center Event Merchandise
Creating large community events, such as tournaments, fun runs, and cycling races, improves brand awareness and buzz. These events often lead to sports tourism if they gain enough recognition. Amateur athletes will travel hundreds of miles to compete in tournaments or race events. So getting your recreation center’s name out into the local and greater community is important. You can’t just host an event and assume that it will grow from year to year. Planning your event properly and creating the best merchandise will bring that awareness.
Choose a Theme
The participants of your recreation center event want structure. This applies to the layout of your fields and courts, to your forms and waivers, and to your schedule. Choosing a theme around which to base the event adds cohesion to the entire event. You can base this theme on the season, like a Thanksgiving 5k run, or around a prominent feature of your local community, like a bike race that changes themes from hills to flats to scenic depending on the year.
Design a Logo
An eye catching logo for your recreation center event will draw people in, but the logo must be associated with your event. For this reason, Sports Facilities Advisory suggested that you arrive at a theme before moving on to the logo. A beautiful logo must reflect the thematic elements of the event. Incorporate the seasonal, cultural, or competitive aspects of your theme into the logo. This way, people can readily associate the logo with your event. The closer your logo follows your theme, the more likely people are to associate the two. Logo and theme become interchangeable.
Creating Merchandise Suitable to Your Event
Some merchandise ideas never go wrong. The t-shirt, a staple of all recreation center and sports tourism events, should always be sold. Beyond t-shirts, it can get tricky when it comes to deciding the right merchandise. Think about the demographics of the people attending your event. You wouldn’t want to sell beer cozies at a youth tournament, but this same merchandise might sell really well in an over 40s bike race. If the event will be largely attended, then it might make sense to offer different designs and quality of merchandise. This way, you catch the eye of more than one type of person attending your event.
Get Your Recreation Center on Track with SFA
We, at Sports Facilities Advisory, have years of experience conducting feasibility studies for recreation centers and sports complexes. If you need help getting any of your sports facilities off the ground or want more tips to marketing your event, contact Sports Facilities Advisory.
