Amelia Island Book Festival
The Amelia Island Book Festival needed to quickly promote its event both locally and nationally and increase attendance. The PR firm launched a campaign that earned national media coverage. As a result, the event’s ticket sales increased by 73%, while overnight stays and corresponding tourism tax increased by 57%.
The business challenge
Based on a referral from community influencers, Amelia Island Book Festival officials wanted help to quickly promote this event locally and nationally and increase attendance. For four days every year, Amelia Island, Florida, becomes “Book Island," where best-selling authors share their works with literary connoisseurs from around the country. After an incumbent public relations freelancer ghosted them, festival officials booked Axia to promote the event.
The solution
With a short timeline and a small budget, Axia went to work doing what it does best – pitching the festival to local and national media in pursuit of earned media coverage.
"Axia rightly deserves credit for the tremendous growth and success of Amelia 'Book Island' Festival. Our attendance doubled this year!”
- Donald K. Parker
Amelia “Book Island” Festival
The results
Within 90 days, ticket sales increased by 73% and bed-night stays increased by 57%.
The event earned media coverage nationally from:
- C-SPAN
- booktv.org
- The Miami Herald
- The Dallas Morning News
- The Charlotte Observer
- Southern Scribe
- Bradenton Herald
- American Profile, the fourth-largest weekly magazine in the U.S.
- and other outlets.
Locally, the event also earned coverage from:
- The Florida Times-Union
- The St. Augustine Record
- Jacksonville Business Journal
- and other outlets.
For its work, the Florida Public Relations Association presented Axia with the Dick Pope All-Florida Grand Golden Image Award, the top annual award for the best PR campaign in Florida.
Earned media coverage also included glowing endorsements, such as:
- “Worth a Trip” – The Miami Herald
- “Book festival brings A-list writers to Amelia” – The Florida Times-Union
- “A gallery of guest authors and a variety of special programs” – The St. Augustine Record
- “Amelia festival all booked up” – Jacksonville Business Journal
- “This festival is a page-turner” – The Dallas Morning News
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To learn how we can help your organization achieve similar results, contact us today at 888-PR-FIRM-8 (888-773-4768).
