Blueberry Festival Magazine

Relationship building was key to the success of the program guide for the 10th anniversary Blueberry Festival in Wilmington, N.C.

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Debbie Summers, advertising manager of the StarNews in Wilmington, said the paper's publisher, Bob Gruber, proposed that the paper help the festival committee grow its largest event by creating its first official program guide – celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Blueberry Festival.

"In addition to working with the mayor," Summers said, "we coordinated efforts with other weekly newspapers in the area, that were not Halifax properties, to also distribute this publication in their papers."

She said a partnership was developed under which the Blueberry Festival would contribute a portion of the revenue to assist in printing and development of the program guide and our sellers would take care of contacting the numerous vendors that were participating, as well as other businesses that wanted to reach this huge audience! The newsroom provided editorial content.

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Summers said, "The price points of the ads and the distribution were key in securing so many businesses to participate in this keepsake publication. This was made possible through the contributions made by the festival to help offset the cost of printing the publication."

With revenue of $27,000, Summers said this project was a huge success for the 38,000-circulation StarNews.

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