We do love a press event here at Silver Pear – we’ve hosted some exceptionally successful ones over the years for a variety of attractions, and the team has recently been organising Christmas press events to launch this year’s festive season.
But with so much noise around this busy time of year, how do we create an impactful Christmas press event, and do they work well alongside the rest of the festive PR work we do? Let’s take a look:
Timing
As with any event, timing is everything to make the most impact. Hitting that sweet spot between being early enough to give press and influencers exclusive access, but not too far away from the festive event or experience opening is imperative.
But we also need to think about the timing of the event itself too – depending on the offering, we often encourage a 6pm start time. It’s not too late after work but gives journalists enough time to head over from their office, and also gives influencers (many of whom have day jobs too) time to travel over as well.
Thinking about the best time to send out your invites is also vital – you need to give everyone enough notice so they can save the date in their busy schedules.
An extra little something
Whilst it’s important that press and influencers get to experience the event as the public would, adding a little something extra to the event itinerary is always a great idea. Whether that’s complimentary food and drink, a bespoke tour to provide further insight or interview access, these all help to make the event even more memorable.
Click here to watch some beautiful footage captured from Raby Castle’s Christmas preview
Coverage crescendo
If you’ve done all the hard work and managed to get an impressive guestlist of press and influencers scheduled to attend, the last thing you want to do is to restrict them with when their content can go out – don’t enforce an embargo on them.
If you encourage press and influencers to share their live social updates during the evening and to go out with their pieces straight after the event, you’re creating a coveted coverage crescendo, allowing your client’s attraction to dominate the news and social agenda in a peak moment.
A piece in the PR jigsaw puzzle
As great as press events are, it’s worth noting that they are a small cog in the busy press office function and shouldn’t stand alone – they need to work alongside a wider PR campaign in the build up to the festive season. Think about long lead outreach to your monthly magazines, followed by mid lead outreach, your announcement release, any interviews you can set up or long-lead features, separate broadcast pitches, competitions and more – not forgetting your first look follow up release after the event itself to plug any gaps to the media that couldn’t attend.
Flexibility
Of course, there is a downside to hosting a one-off event, and when it’s taking place on one single date it can limit attendees – journalists and influencers can all have prior commitments. So being flexible with follow up dates and alternative ways to get them to experience the event is vital – they might not be able to experience everything that was on offer at the press event, but getting them along separately to the opening weekend is a great way to continue the momentum for the attraction.
With consumers now seeking genuine and authentic recommendations from sources they can trust, despite appreciating the convenient nature of AI tools for an overview, journalists are now in the unique position of putting themselves at the forefront of their stories. In turn, this puts even greater emphasis on press events moving forward, giving press and influencers the opportunity to experience the event firsthand to influence their follow-up pieces.
We’re anticipating the role of press events to be even greater in 2026 and we can’t wait to see what our next one will be.
