It was standing room only for those hoping to get marketing support funds from the City Advertising and Promotion Commission at its July 26 workshop. Commissioners heard five presentations and will vote on whether to fund them at the next regular meeting, August 9.
Batting leadoff was illusionist Sean-Paul of the Intrigue Theater who urged commissioners to get behind the concept of Eureka Springs becoming the Halloween destination. He pointed out Eureka Springs already has ghost tours, the Voices of the Silent city event at the cemetery, the popular Zombie Crawl downtown plus the Ghost Talker performances by his partner, Juliana Fay at the Intrigue Theater. The trick would be to combine those events and add a few others to create a month-long Halloween-themed festival.
His estimate for marketing and promoting the month-long event was $8000.
Commissioner David Mitchell commented some marketing efforts Sean-Paul was asking for seemed like a duplication of what the CAPC is already doing. Executive Director Mike Maloney said a month-long event like the May Festival of the Arts becomes an anchor event to latch onto, and promoted well would reach into the regional market.
Commissioner Carol Wright added there could be a weeklong haunted film festival or a series of Alfred Hitchcock movies at the Auditorium.
Sean-Paul pressed forward for a strong marketing approach with the focus this year mostly on the last two weeks of October and next year fill out the whole month. “Throw everything we can at this,” he said.
Commissioner Terry McClung noticed they have two months to promote the idea if they decide to, but the first thing would be for Sean-Paul to meet with Maloney and firm up the numbers on his request. McClung did acknowledge something new is always good.
Sean-Paul also noted another timely promotion for the Halloween festival would be an upcoming “Penn and Teller” television show in which Sean-Paul and Juliana performed, airing in mid-September. The episode will feature drone video footage of Eureka Springs shot by Edward Robison.
Maloney said the episodes will air on regional CW stations, and the ones in Fayetteville and Tulsa will air the show twice – Tuesday and Friday the same week – in prime time. He said there would also be advance visits by station crews to film interviews with Sean-Paul and Juliana in Eureka Springs for their local news. Maloney anticipated incalculable public relations value as a result.