Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Saturday, May 19, 2018

When planning outdoor special events, always plan for a rain date

The DC area has had rain for more than one week ("Washington slogs through storms as rain continues for a sixth day," Washington Post), and this will continue for a few more days. 

Mostly, those organizations that scheduled outdoor events during this time are screwed, such as the Garden Tour in the Shepherd Park neighborhood.

Always include a rain date when planning such events, if they are to be held mostly outside.

This does pose a challenge. Note that the Lynchburg Art Festival poster pictured at left had its rain date on its promotional poster (which is what should be standard practice).

But it raises other questions.

Do you merely schedule the day after as the rain date?  What if there is a weather front lasting for awhile?, such as is the case this week in DC.

In that case, the next day might be just as bad as the first.

On the other hand, if you postpone the event for a week, if there are vendors, many might not be able to participate if they have prior commitments.

OTOH, you'll have more participants and a better experience, if you postpone, but it will still pose challenges, making it harder to pull off the event as planned and anticipated.

Of course, some events, like big music festivals are scheduled as "rain or shine," because the performers are likely to have other commitments for other weekend dates.

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2 Comments:

At 11:07 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Outdoor events are a huge risk.My niece had an outdoor wedding last September,but was lucky and the weather was fine if a bit hot.

 
At 1:36 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

Megan Markle had great weather for her wedding today in London.

... I joke that I don't really know the Pacific Northwest because 2 of 3 trips to Seattle (the third was in March) had beautiful weather as did my 10 day trip to Portland (one rainy day).

 

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