Event Coverage: Turning Weather Woes into Media Wins

Event Coverage: Turning Weather Woes into Media Wins

Thanks to quick thinking and a strong backup plan, Account Executive Thom Casey helped his client get all 4 Harrisburg-area TV stations to cover their event.

You’ve put months into planning an event and securing media coverage. Then the weather interferes with your plans. What do you do?  

I faced this situation in early April for our client, the Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance (PFSA), the Commonwealth’s leader in providing education, support, and training to make Pennsylvania safe for kids. PFSA annually hosts a blue ribbon-flag planting event in Harrisburg to honor and remember those lives which were impacted by child abuse. This is traditionally followed by an awards ceremony to recognize four Pennsylvanians who have gone above and beyond the call of duty to protect children. 

Or so it was supposed to be. 

Unfortunately, a rainstorm forced the cancellation of the flag planting event. This event brings out local and state elected officials, which brings out the media. I feared coverage would suffer because of the flag planting cancellation. I told PFSA that we might have to temper expectations, as previous years had shown more media interest in the flag planting than in the awards ceremony.  

I have never been so happy to be wrong. This year’s coverage far exceeded last year’s when the planting and ceremony were held on a sunny spring day. 

Here are some lessons learned. 

Always have a backup plan 

To remember the lives affected — and taken — by child abuse, PFSA planned to plant nearly 5,000 blue flags and 60 black flags to represent substantiated cases of child abuse and substantiated fatalities, respectively.  

Then the rain showed up. So, we pivoted. 

PFSA staff and volunteers planted flags the day before the scheduled planting. That way, the media could still get photos of the flags even if there were no action shots. It was a simple, yet effective, backup plan. 

Even if your backup seems overwhelmingly obvious, still communicate it to others. Weather is increasingly unpredictable, and nothing should be assumed to go on as planned (more on that later). You’ve probably heard the adage that “Man plans, God laughs.” Well, God certainly had a chuckle on April 2, 2024. 

Overcommunication is critical

PFSA made the decision to cancel this year’s flag planting the day before it was supposed to happen. The Ceisler team quickly made sure that media outlets were aware of this change in plans, with ensuring no one could say they weren’t aware of the changes. We: 

• Updated advisories  

• Sent individualized emails

• Followed this up with phone calls to outlets to confirm that they had received the email used these phone calls to promote coverage of the award ceremony

Overcommunication is the name of the game when changes to events happen.It’s best to be a pest one time than have the media show up to something that is not happening; that will irk them far more than a few emails or phone calls. 

Never assume

When you assume, you make … well, you know the rest. As a journalist, I was taught never to assume, but I did just that when I thought coverage for the event would be scant. The flag planting in 2023 was the draw for the media because it allowed them to get action shots of local and state elected officials, and others, planting flags while the sun shined. Many reporters didn’t stick around for the award ceremony, and if they did, they left before the event ended.

But this year was very different. 

The coverage in 2023 reached a total audience of more than 382,000. By the day after the 2024 event, coverage had reached more than 870,000 people. Follow-up coverage exceeded that even more, and we reached an audience of more than 21 million.

When you assume, you limit yourself and your objectives. By trusting your skills and expertise, you’ll convince others to also believe in you and what you’re offering them.  

While it’s disappointing that the weather caused these changes, the coverage we were able to generate for PFSA more than made up for it. As I said last year, “Waking up at 4 a.m. is not fun but I’d do it every day to get results like these for a client.”