Cultural festivals are a big part of the social fabric of Grand Rapids. Collectively, they bring more than a million residents and visitors together each year to learn about, celebrate and share different traditions and heritages in ways that foster empathy and understanding for our diverse community. Festivals are also a key driver of tourism to the area, according to third-party research and our own web traffic data. ArtPrize and World of Winter are the marquee draws for out-of-town visitors, but the diversity and frequency of other local festivals provides ample additional opportunities for effective destination marketing.
This is especially true during warmer-weather months, when festivals are held nearly every weekend in Grand Rapids. From June’s Homecoming of the Three Fires through October’s Pulaski Days, there are dozens of festivals and events that appeal to people of all ages and interests. Vistors may come specifically for a festival or make a festival part of their Grand Rapids itinerary – particularly if they’re coming to town to spend time with friends and family, which is the number one reason for visits. Experience Grand Rapids conducted a resident sentiment survey in 2023 and it’s clear that locals love our festivals and love sharing them with their guests.
Capturing the Excitement
We’ve always promoted festivals as part of our destination branding. But until recently, we haven’t had photos and videos to back up our words. That changed in 2024, as we captured visual assets from five community festivals: Grand Rapids Asian-Pacific Festival, Grand Rapids Pride Festival, A Glimpse of Africa Festival, Grand Rapids Hispanic Festival and Dozynki Polish Festival.
We engaged Aves Productions, a local minority-owned production company, to assist us as we informed community partners of the product, met with festival organizers, identified what and who to film at each event, and captured high-quality content – including still photography, short social media clips and longer highlight reels.
We integrated these marketing assets into our promotional channels and we gifted them to festival organizers to use for their own marketing purposes. In addition to bolstering our festival marketing strategies, this new content helped refresh and diversify our asset library so that we can more accurately reflect the breadth of the local community.
See for Yourself
Take a look at the videos we produced for A Glimpse of Africa, the Hispanic Festival, Pride Festival and Polish Festival. We think you’ll agree with their organizers that the words and images capture the spirit of each event!