CONCORD LIVE!

By Lisa Potvin, CFEE

A RESPONSE TO COVID-19

This past September, at the 64th Annual IFEA Conference Expo and Retreat, one of our amazing speakers stated, “Events are the fabric that ties our communities together.” This statement has stayed with me ever since, and I believe that now, more than ever, our community needs to come together. As the Shelter in Place orders restrict us physically, we must find ways through the virtual realm to make this possible. Furthermore, as many of our members are government agencies, chambers of commerce, and visitors’ bureaus, we have a greater duty to help our local businesses and homebound seniors.

The City of Concord is located just 29 miles east of San Francisco. The largest city in Contra Costa County, Concord took the lead early. On March 13th, our City Manager, with support of City Council declared a Local Emergency, initially lasting through May 1st. As an agency that produces events in-house as well as supporting city-sponsored and permitted events, we have already had to cancel or postpone 10 events in this initial period. Although disappointing (especially if you are like me, one month into a new management role overseeing said events…) the exciting part is that our city, within two weeks of this announcement, put three new initiatives into place to help the community and local businesses.

The City immediately teamed up with the Concord Chamber of Commerce and the local tourism bureau, Visit Concord, to make three initiatives happen as quickly as possible: Concord Eats, Concord Cares and Concord Live!

“Concord Live!” a virtual event series, was created to give our community’s adults something fun to do while they were at home. The series kicked off on April 2nd at 6 p.m. from the City of Concord’s Facebook page, and will be running weekly on Thursdays. The live, virtual events are designed to highlight local businesses and keep them engaged with the community, while boosting the overall morale for the City of Concord. The first week featured a local gym, who hosted an at-home full body weight workout. Future Thursdays will include a cooking demo with the Chef of Luna Ristorante, a mixologist lesson from Lima, our local Peruvian Restaurant, an at home concert by Daniel Morris, and a “Sip and Paint” class by the Concord Art Association. The community has been excited to take part in these live events and we are being approached by businesses weekly looking for ways to be involved.

ConcordEats is a marketing campaign to help offset the foreboding long-term impact that the Shelter in Place order will have on our local restaurants. We immediately wanted to help. Together, the three agencies compiled a list of all the restaurants that were staying open for take-away and delivery. Being one of the first to initiate, we spoke with Postmates and DoorDash, requesting that fees be waived for new businesses to join. This is something that is now common practice. Through cross promotions, we are building excitement and updating the list daily as restaurants continue to be added to the program.

Concord Cares, initiated by our Mayor and supported by the city, works with volunteers to deliver groceries and meals that are prepared at a local high school to homebound seniors.

Concord Live! will continue for as long as our community is Sheltering in Place. Although some of these initiatives are not entirely inventive, we wanted to utilize our platform to create a free one-stop-shop and take the opportunity to highlight local business. As a larger agency, we know that we have a greater reach on social media than an individual entity. The City and its Special Events program are constantly looking at ways to help our local businesses stay afloat and engaged during these uncertain times, while bringing our community together and pulling them away from Tiger King, for a least one hour a week.

About the Author:

Lisa Potvin, CFEE is currently the Downtown Program and Event Manager for the City of Concord, CA where she oversees citywide permitted and produced events. Prior to this she was the Event Coordinator for the City of Santa Clarita and the Special Events Coordinator for the City of Allen where she produced Market Street Allen USA Celebration a 90,000-person event held in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. Lisa has worked on many partner events including IMG’s Bear Grylls Survival Challenge, NCAAII LSC Basketball Championship and Amgen Tour of California.

www.kaliff.com