From John Jay Myers’ blog:
DALLAS LIBERTARIANS LET 100K PEOPLE KNOW… WE EXIST.
Parades have always been a really great way for us to reach out to people and let them know we exist.
The Key ingredient is having a guy like Richard Forsythe who owns a truck and a trailer. Then you need a few volunteers to decorate.
Richard has been a real trooper when it comes to supplying his property for our events.
We invited people via our meet up group to help decorate, and asked for more volunteers to “have fun” during the parade itself.
People at these St. Patty’s day events LOVE beads… so give them to them. But we also gave out trinkets at the Gay Pride parade, so just remember to bring something, if you can’t think of anything else, bring candy! mmmm candy.
Also, you need to set yourself apart. We have an excellent DJ who really appeals to the college kids. Remember the key is to have fun, you want to associate your brand with something positive. We had four volunteers walking beside the float handing out literature.
So the check list looked like this:
Truck and Trailer, free thanks to Richard,
Admission into the parade $100.
Generator and gas $70 (to power the mobile DJ)
Volunteers to pass out literature, and others to ride on the float and throw out beads… free.
DJ, with pumpin’ public address system, free (thanks Reid Robinson).
Propaganda (literature), it would be cooler to give out beads with our logo on them, but we have yet to think that far in advance ; )
So for around $200 we got our faces out in front of 100k plus people.
Can’t beat that!
When asked in the comments on a previous IPR post about other local LPs customizing this video:
John Jay Myers replied:
I can substitute whatever words you all like….you would also have to supply a couple of pictures relative to your area.
14 responses so far ↓
1 Zane, LP member // Mar 13, 2011 at 8:42 pm
Nice!
2 John Jay Myers // Mar 13, 2011 at 8:44 pm
Paulie you should put up a couple of the pictures from the parade.
There is a link to them on my blog.
3 paulie // Mar 13, 2011 at 8:46 pm
Where exactly? Not seeing them at http://johnjaymyers.com/blog/?p=56
4 paulie // Mar 13, 2011 at 8:53 pm
BTW, how are you getting facebook comments to display in wordpress?
5 John Jay Myers // Mar 13, 2011 at 9:12 pm
It’s a plugin that you can download, There are tons, it’s the same kind of thing as when Thomas Knapp hooked you up with all the “like” “share” buttons.
You just download the plugin and set it to active.
I need to change my link color, but a link to all the photos is on the very bottom of the post.
Also, I rewrote the text in the blog, because I sounded a little tipsy in the original, because…. I was a little tipsy when I wrote the original.
6 paulie // Mar 13, 2011 at 9:17 pm
Yeah, I know about plugins, do you know the name of it?
7 paulie // Mar 13, 2011 at 9:24 pm
Post updated, still need the photos though.
8 John Jay Myers // Mar 13, 2011 at 11:20 pm
It is called “Facebook comments for WordPress”
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=1267513433&aid=2082801
9 paulie // Mar 13, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Thanks. I installed it but it needs additional monkeying around with to activate, and I’m having some problems with that. Still need the pics you said you had from the parade.
10 paulie // Mar 13, 2011 at 11:30 pm
Oops…I see them now.
Do you have them anywhere other than facebook?
11 FKC // Mar 14, 2011 at 4:48 am
More parades please….and the video’s good as well.
12 paulie // Mar 14, 2011 at 1:23 pm
Got some photos emailed, I’ll work on adding them some time today.
I tried installing that plugin, but I couldn’t get it to what it’s doing on John’s blog, and it was slowing down load times, so I’ve uninstalled it for now.
13 Dallas Libertarians: Photos from St. Patrick’s Day Parade | Independent Political Report // Mar 14, 2011 at 10:23 pm
[...] more about the parade, see Dallas Libertarians participate in parade with 100,000 attendees, offer customizable video to other … [...]
14 John Jay Myers // Mar 15, 2011 at 12:02 am
Here is also a video link:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150128039006866&comments¬if_t=video_comment_tagged
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