From Pivoting to Piloting:

New Product Development for Events in Uncertain Times

By Jessica Hodges

PIVOT– We’ve all heard this word way too much over the last year. Events around the world have taken their foot races from in person to virtual, turned their food festivals into drive through events, conventions have moved online, meetings via zoom, socially distanced fairs, rodeos and more. With an uncertain future, we pivoted from one platform to another and held on as tight as we could through one heck of a year. We have moved and shuffled and reorganized so much that the word pivot feels like it has a permanent place in our vocabulary.

Midway through the pandemic pivot process, the team at the National Cherry Festival (NCF) made the conscious decision to stop pivoting and start PILOTING new events, business lines and more. The adverseness of the situation created a new opportunity to PILOT new ideas for 2020 and make some significant changes to programs in 2021. The pandemic has propelled us all into a new way of thinking, leading us to develop ways to celebrate our areas’ culture using new methods without mass gatherings.

It’s that old adage, every problem is an opportunity. The difficulty that the pandemic caused truly tested how much people subscribed to this method. From the peanut gallery, we watched businesses do one of three things: they did nothing and died, they adapted and survived or they innovated and thrived. Using what we saw in other industries and knowing that the live event industry would be the hardest hit, the team at the National Cherry Festival decided to use the adverseness to create new event products.

Using the unfavorable situation to create new products had additional benefits. People were very excited to participate in new and different events. Whereas they might not have participated in a virtual event before, participants were more likely to try something new, because it was the only option. It not only opened up new events and experiences but, but also opened up new sponsorship opportunities, new ways for community involvement and a way to connect like never before.

Before we dive too deep into what festivals and events were PILOTED during the pandemic, let’s review an event friendly New Product Development (NPD) process. New Product Development for Events (NPDE), at least for this article, is truncated from the traditional eight step process (Idea Generation, Idea Screening, Concept Development & Testing, Market Strategy Development, Business Analysis, Product Development, Market Testing, Commercialization) to a manageable four step process. The four step process is intuitive, however, quantifying these steps can assist with putting this practice into motion in more times than just during adverseness. NPDE’s four easy steps are Idea Generation, Idea Screening, Idea Testing and Idea Evaluation.

Idea Generation

It sounds simple, coming up with amazing ideas, but sometimes we have idea block, not unlike what writers experience. And sometimes an idea can start a freight train that is difficult to stop. Depending on your situation and what your event needs to accomplish, here are few ways to generate ideas. Plus a few ways to keep the idea train on its tracks.

The traditional method of “brainstorming” allows people to say whatever comes to mind with no judgement. A suggested structure for this method is to have a scribe take notes on a white board as people shout out ideas. The benefits of this method include: everyone has a voice, no one’s idea is discounted, no one is judged for their ideas so that concepts might flow more freely. One of the downfalls of this method include runaway ideas. Ideas may become so far-fetched that they will never come close to hitting the mark. People may also spiral when not presented with a structure. That is why I suggest generating ideas with a goal in mind.

Idea Generation Session – Best Practices

The first step to a great idea generation session is scheduling time and ensuring that all the needed players are present. Sometimes idea generation is a one person show, a small group or the entire staff/board. Make sure that everyone that needs to be in the room (or on the zoom) is present.

Next, state the goal for the idea generation session. Maybe it’s to find a new way to have a parade or to announce your new queen or how to save a food competition. It may be more broad, like developing community engagement or making a certain dollar amount. Whatever your goal for the session may be, make the people in the room know what it is so that it can be a focused session.

Over the course of the last year, the National Cherry Festival staff had many memorable idea generation sessions that broached various topics. Our first one was the day our state put gathering restrictions on in person events. At 8:00 a.m. on that Thursday morning, our crew was doing media for our March 5k Race, the Leapin’ Leprechaun and by 10:00 a.m. we were sitting around the table in what we now affectionately call our “war room”, deciding what to do with this event. The goal of the session was deciding the fate of the 2020 Leapin’ Leprechaun 5k. It was a well-structured meeting, as we went around the table and discussed what we thought was the best. Under the guidance of our Executive Director, the staff came to the conclusion that we would cancel the in-person run and give people the option to defer, donate or run a virtual option. This wasn’t a planned session and it wasn’t on our calendars as “Idea Generation” but in the end it had all of the elements needed: time, key players, a goal and a structure.

When configuring your idea generation session as long as you have the time set, the people needed and a goal for the outcome of the session, your meeting structure can take on many different shapes. Maybe you want to have everyone shout out anything that comes to their mind or maybe it’s best to cycle around the room. However you decide to structure this segment, be sure to communicate the plan with the participants for a smooth and productive meeting.

Where Do Ideas Come From?

Ideas can come from anywhere, however, when you are stuck and need to get that idea train moving here are a few suggestions on where to look for ideas.

Ideas from Ideas

Building off already developed ideas is one of the best methods to create more ideas. For example, say an idea is a gala to help raise funds for your organization. The idea is great, but not feasible until 2022. But building off the gala idea, the team comes up with an outdoor dining experience, online silent auctions, a virtual party for stakeholders to attend, etc.

Ideas from Opportunity

To make the best use of happenstance, one must not just recognize the opportunity but also decide to use that opportunity to its best ability. Idea generation from opportunity is a great way to figure out how to utilize a situation for the best outcome. As a food festival that contracts with local vendors, National Cherry Festival saw an opportunity to not just sell cherry products but also work with various business to create cobranded items in which the organizations will financially benefit from. In 2020, we cobranded a Bubbly (Ball Drop Bubbly) that raised money for The Festival Foundation. In 2021 we will be introducing two new co-branded products. One product is a coffee, Super Cherry Fuel that will sport our mascot and raise money for The Festival Foundation. National Cherry Festival Preserves, a cherry jam, will be our second product release this year and proceeds will benefit our National Cherry Queen Scholarship program.

Ideas from Others

To put it simply, this is borrowing an idea from another organization and adapting it to your own organization. A great example of this seen around the country during the pandemic was the Porch Parade. Originally developed by Portland Rose Festival, many other festivals (large and small) took on this idea and adapted it to their own. For example, the National Cherry Festival created the Very Cherry Porch Parade from this event. With permission, the NCF molded the idea to fit our community while also making a small profit by finding local businesses and people to sponsor porch parade signs. The easiest way to generate ideas from others is to pay attention, study, read, and research what others in your industry are doing.

Idea Screening

Now the analytical part starts, Idea Screening. Each idea is screened and added to one of three categories: Drop It, Delay It and Do It. A two-part screening process is suggested and will help the organization focus on more feasible ideas. The first is a quick screen that asks two questions: Is it feasible enough to run a cost/benefit analysis on AND does it meet the goal mentioned in the idea screen process; this will weed out quite a few ideas.

After running the first screen test, come back to what’s left and run a feasibility that is based on your desired outcome. After holding an idea generation session where the goal was to develop ways to raise a certain amount of money by the end of the year, the staff of the NCF did a quick screen and dropped any ideas that were not feasible. Then we divided up with remaining ones with each idea having its own champion. The champions took the ideas back and ran some type of feasibility test on each idea. Sometimes it was a breakeven point, other times it didn’t fit our mission, and sometimes it was judged on timeline.

Then we came back to the table and presented our ideas where the group decided if the idea would work or not, as a team. Ideas were classified into the following.

Drop It:

Exactly what the title says, these are ideas that will not be pursued. A few reasons for dropping an idea might include: idea does not merge well with current event structure or mission, not enough time to complete the idea, or cost of venture is too high.

Delay It:

These were ideas that we loved but during a pandemic wasn’t the best time to launch them or we didn’t have enough time to do them right this year but could easily do them in a future year. Other reasons to delay an idea might include needing more research or additional funds. Delayed ideas are ideas that are still feasible, but need to be placed on backburner for a bit.

Do It:

Just like it says, these are the ideas to proceed with. These ideas match the needs, budget, and time frame of the organization and warrant more time and consideration to begin putting them into place. However, just because something is in the Do It category doesn’t mean it won’t be moved to the Delay It or Drop It category once the ideas are flushed out.

Items can easily shift one category to the other. An idea in the Do It category can be moved to the delayed category simply because of time frame, just as easily as a delayed item can jump up to the do it list. Sometimes an idea that starts out as a Do It item ends up being dropped.

Our team had a great idea to launch a virtual challenge over the winter months to keep people active and engaged. It passed both screening tests with flying colors, but as we began to flush out the idea, the pieces weren’t fitting together. It was at this time, we decided to drop the idea all together and move on to the next project on the list.

The NCF had planned to do a New Years’ Eve in a Bag to correlate with the CherryT Ball Drop (another Festival Foundation event), and once we started the detail work, it didn’t fit. So instead of trying to force the idea, an idea was formed to contact a local vineyard and work at co-branding Ball Drop Bubbly. This private labeled sparkling rose sold so well that it is on tap to return next year.

If the idea doesn’t pan out, or can’t make it to the next stage, it is time to move it to a different category. Keep the work put in to the development of the idea documented, because one never knows when happenstance will come around and that idea will flourish.

Idea Testing (Implementation):

As you’ll notice, this is the smallest section. Why? Because no one can put an idea in motion like the event industry can.

Idea Evaluation

Often when we think of evaluating a project, we think of it as the final step. Evaluation is always important to truly assess if goals were met and it should never be skipped. Many different forms of evaluation exist from debrief to surveys to community feedback and more. However, not only is evaluation the conclusion of an implemented idea, it can also be the launching point to the next idea generation session.

From this idea evaluation stage, determine if the project was fruitful or if it flopped. If your flopped project is worth trying again, then go back to the idea generation process and start with the goal to improve this idea and repeat the process. If it isn’t worth trying again, then drop the idea and move on to the next one.

Fruitful ideas are ones that hit all the marks. Maybe it made money or provided needed community engagement or gave a great sponsor deliverable. Maybe it did all three. If at the end of the day, you sit back and say, “That was awesome let’s do it again,” then do it again. BUT take it back through the process with the goal of making this project better. It never hurts to refine an idea, event or project to improve upon it. Remember the most dangerous words ever spoken were, “we’ve always done it this way”.

If your idea/project didn’t hit the bulls-i, but wasn’t a total flop either, we can call it a fizzle. Either you toss it and don’t repeat it or you take the idea back to the drawing board and repeat the session. NDPE for events is a fluid process.

Conclusion

Using NPDE supplies festivals and events a formula to use to open its doors to more avenues of business. Just as easily as it can be used for development of new ideas, it can also be used to revamp current events. In 2021, we have used this process to determine what events we can hold with little to no pandemic modifications, which events can happen with modification and lastly, which events can’t happen at all during a pandemic. Having this formula in place and putting festivals and events through the cycle can help streamline events and assist in making informed decisions.

In the end, pivoting will help us survive, but piloting will assist the live event industry in thriving this year and many more to come.

Jessica Hodges holds Bachelors of Science in Public Relations from Northern Michigan University in 1999 and a Masters of Business Administration in 2006 from Davenport University with a focus in Strategic Planning. After working in several different industries including commercial banking, career development and post-secondary education, she rerouted back to her first love of festivals and events and is celebrating her 5th year at the National Cherry Festival.

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