Get Down E-Town!
Wednesday March 08, 2006
Carissa Reiniger
Party Edmonton Style!
Edmonton. Home of the biggest mall in the world. Home of the world’s biggest parking lot. Automatic car starters. The Edmonton Oilers. Still the city of champions. The Eskimos. Festivals. The Arts Community and bars (..on Whyte Ave). Something to celebrate? Absolutely!
You know the phrase, “you don’t know what you’ve got til’ its’ gone”? I think many Edmonton ex pats can relate.
I grew up in Edmonton and graduated from the University of Alberta. When I graduated, I thought that I should try something new, challenge myself, and move on to bigger and better things. Like many Edmontonians, I thought that what was out there must be better than what was here. So, I moved to Toronto, started my own business and started living the “big city” life.
I loved the social life, theater, constant concerts, business opportunities and the city skyline which I could see from the rooftop of my downtown condo. And although I do still love those things- I realized that Edmonton has an asset that is often overlooked. It’s people. I have never, in all of my traveling, business dealings and social activities, found people who are more down to earth, genuine and all around nice people.
Perhaps more shocking than how much I missed Edmonton, was how little Toronto knew about Edmonton. In their minds I had lived on a farm, couldn’t get to school most days because my dog sled was covered in snow and there were about 100,000 of us in Edmonton. Literally. I was shocked. I was asked daily if “I was going to be ok in the big city”!
After being in Toronto for about nine months a friend of mine and I were reminiscing about the times back home and commenting on the differences between living in Edmonton and Toronto. We thought it would be a lot of fun to get a group of Edmonton Ex-pats together for dinner. We sent out an email to a group of people, expecting a dinner party. What we got was an Edmonton celebration! With very minimal marketing and next to no funds, we threw an event at Wayne Gretzy’s restaurant and had over 350 people show up.
Throughout the night we played Edmonton trivia, watched a video of the Heritage Classic, had an Edmonton scrapbook that everyone was able to sign their favorite memory of Edmonton in and a map of Edmonton for people to identify where they lived in Edmonton.
The crowd had University students, Senior Citizens and everything in between. Everyone reminisced and ignored all demographic factors except the fact that we were all from Edmonton.
Almost a year since Get Down E-Town launched in Toronto, there is still a buzz. There are still people in other countries emailing me asking me when Get Down E-Town is coming to them.
SO- now is the time. If you live in Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, Montreal or Toronto, April is your month. If you live elsewhere and want Get Down E-Town in your city, here is how you can make it happen:
1- Find a casual venue (a pub atmosphere works best) that will donate space, hopefully a free drink for everyone who comes and some appetizers.
2- Get in touch with me and I will provide you with the GDET logo and promotional material templates- all you have to do is copy and paste your event details into it.
3- Ideally, find a sponsor to cover the costs of the event (about $1000 for one event including all marketing materials etc.)
4- Drop off the marketing materials wherever you can and email them to everyone you know.
5- Write a press release (you can get a template from me) and send it to all the local media to try to gain some media attention.
6- Purchase a map of Edmonton and some push pins and at the front door of the event have a host giving away a fact sheet on Edmonton (can be obtained from Edmonton Tourism) and give everyone a push pin to mark their spot on Edmonton.
7- Purchase some raffle tickets and sell them for $5 for an arm’s length and do a 50/50 draw with half of the proceeds going to a charity within your city. Make the donation from “Edmontonians living in your city”!
8- Find footage of a great Eskimos or Oilers game and get the venue to play it.
9- Get the Edmonton Trivia questions from me and run an Edmonton trivia game- the winner receives a donated prize!
And, for those of you in Canada, come out to the GDET Tour in the following cities on the following dates:
Edmonton – Get Down E-Town Kick Off! March 31, 2006.
Calgary- April 1, 2006
Vancouver- April 11, 2006
Montreal- April 14, 2006
Ottawa- April 15, 2006
Toronto- April 22, 2006
For event locations and times and to get on the Guest List please email getdownetown@silverlining.ws.
As I have learnt- we should be proud of what we have in Edmonton and proud of where we came from. We also need to help others understand what we are proud of. We have become a bit of an unknown to the rest of Canada, overshadowed by other cities that, in my opinion, just have louder voices than us. So, lets yell a little, have fun and show other cities in Canada and internationally what Edmonton is really all about.
Carissa Reiniger
Founder & President
Silver Lining Ltd.
Toronto: 416 850 4859
Edmonton: 780 239 3113
carissa@silverlining.ws
www.silverlining.ws
Column ID#: 3
**Opinions expressed by guest columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of Connect2Edmonton members, partners or sponsors.**
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