Consumers worldwide are prioritizing experiences over physical products and showing increased interest in travel. Ninety-two percent of Americans plan to travel in 2025, bringing much-needed tourism spending to towns and cities. Tourism is often concentrated in popular areas, leaving many vibrant communities completely overlooked. But cities can use fun community event ideas to increase foot traffic, boost tourist spending, and improve local engagement.
Unfortunately, many communities feel as though they don’t have the power to compete with big cities and glitzy vacation destinations. But nothing could be further from the truth. As vacationers seek ways to stretch their vacation dollars and participate in unique experiences, they’re more likely to turn to lesser-known vacation destinations.
So, how can you put your small city on the map? Local events and festivals have the power to showcase everything unique about your community, creating memorable experiences for visitors and locals alike. By learning about the power of local events, exploring some fun community event ideas for inspiration, and learning how to plan community events and spread the word, you can develop an event schedule to show the world what your small town is all about.
Why Community Events Matter for Tourism
When you’re part of your city’s marketing team or destination marketing organization (DMO), you know all about community pride and everything that makes your city great. Unfortunately, getting the word out isn’t always easy. Fun community event ideas bring people together to share common interests and have a good time. They also enhance the experience for tourists seeking an enjoyable vacation experience.
Tourism centered around community events gives your local community an opportunity to develop and manage initiatives that will provide economic benefits that go back to local individuals, businesses, and the community. Scheduled events that attract visitors provide various businesses and vendors with an opportunity to make extra income and recognition. When these events are properly coordinated and advertised, gatherings can grow over time, helping communities grow and thrive.
Fun Community Event Ideas to Inspire Your Calendar
The best community events showcase everything unique about your city and encourage participation from individuals of all ages and walks of life. When community events regularly appear on your digital event calendar, you can increase participation rates and inspire repeat attendance. Getting those creative juices flowing can be half the battle when developing a spectacular event schedule. We’re here to get the ball rolling with a list of fun community event ideas that will spruce up your town’s social calendar.
Hidden History Walking Tours
Every town and city has a storied history that helped shape the current communities and the wider environment and society around it. A hidden history walking tour is exactly what it sounds like. Participants travel on foot through town to learn about the various (often unknown) historical attractions in the area. When advertising, provide an accurate timeline so visitors will know what to expect. Also, remind all participants to wear comfortable walking shoes and carry water.
Food Truck Rodeos and Local Bites Night
Nearly half of travelers prioritize authentic local cuisine as their top food and beverage experience. Local cuisine is a great way to share your community’s unique vibe and bring interest to local culinary delights.
A foodie night is about tempting the taste buds, but it’s also about companionship and community. Make the event a festival with music, entertainment, and even themes. Encourage participation from vendors, food trucks, and local restaurants to create an epic gathering that will bring the community together for delicious food, shopping, and celebration.
Porchfest and Neighborhood Music Crawls
Porchfest–the name alone brings images of warm summer evenings and unique festivities. A porchfest, or a neighborhood music crawl, presents an opportunity for residents to open their porches, yards, and driveways to bands, singers, and instrumentalists playing a range of musical genres. Participants can stroll through the neighborhood, enjoying various shows. When you link a digital map to your calendar listing, you can indicate the location of each band to guide attendees to their favorites.
Pop-Up Markets Featuring Local Artisans
Pop-up markets are a fun way to turn your town into a shopper’s paradise for a single day. Schedule this day well in advance of its position on your calendar. This will allow local artisans to craft their wares and prepare for the event. Markets offer crafty individuals and small businesses an opportunity to share their passion for what they do. They can also earn recognition and extra income.
Pet Parades, Pup Crawls, and Pet Costume Contests
Approximately 70% of U.S. households own a pet. The global pet travel services market is expected to reach $3.73 billion by 2030. With their natural popularity and increased participation in travel, centering fun community event ideas around furry family members just makes sense.
Embrace your town’s pet friendliness by inviting everyone to bring their pet to various events. Pet parades allow attendees to show off all types of pets. Costume contests make things interesting and provide an opportunity to throw prizes into the mix.
Cinema in the Park or Rooftop
Outdoor movie nights promote relaxation and community bonding in a casual, open-air setting. All you need is a large outdoor space, a projector and screen, and a hit film that all ages can enjoy. To add to the fun, you can encourage vendors to sign up for handling various concession booths. When adding the event to your social calendar, remind attendees to bring blankets or chairs.
Culture Nights or “Passport to City” Events
Celebrating your community’s unique culture and heritage allows you to create a completely unique event that showcases your city’s past and attracts visitors interested in history and tradition. You can organize special events like performances and cultural exhibits to involve community members and attract visitors. Creating a digital passport to the city is the perfect tool to promote the event and guide visitors to different sites and activities.
How to Promote and Manage These Events
Fun community event ideas are only as good as their visibility. Promoting your events is central to attracting attendees and developing the community atmosphere that makes such festivities memorable. To boost attendance, you need to share your events on multiple platforms and get the word out well in advance of event dates.
Use a Centralized Event Calendar
A modern centralized event calendar can help DMOs and city marketers keep everything organized, accessible, and searchable. Modern digital event calendars provide the perfect way for you to create a branded social calendar with complete information about all your community events in one place.
A favorite among colleges and universities for its ease of use and responsive design, Localist Events from Concept3D is a powerful solution with multiple features that make it ideal for city event promotion. Its features include:
- Master Calendar: Your centralized event calendar is an interactive hub where all visitors can see all your scheduled events. Fully customizable event channels allow visitors to easily search the calendar for events classified by date, interest, geography, and more.
- Custom Permissions: The intuitive interface makes it easy for individuals or teams to schedule and market all types and sizes of events. The functionality allows for multiple users. Also, the platform’s simplicity makes it easy enough for a single administrator to handle.
- Registration and Ticketing: Skip third-party sites. Take care of ticketing for both free and paid events directly from the calendar. Registration tools allow you to centralize financial elements, vendor payouts, and various ticketing types on a single site.
- Social Connectivity: Connectivity features encourage communication across platforms, allowing you to promote events on social media. Schedule social media posts and reach entire communities through email to generate buzz about an upcoming event.
Promote Across Multiple Channels
Sharing events through newsletters, digital signage, social media, and partner organizations will allow you to reach a wider audience to boost attendance. When promoting across digital channels, consider how you can optimize integrations with your event calendar to quickly post across multiple platforms.
Create Event Landing Pages
When it comes to promotion, details are the secret sauce for grabbing attention. Create full event landing pages for each event on your calendar. Add rich descriptions and vibrant images that help bring your events to life and drive attendance. Make sure you include all essential details on your landing pages, including
- Ticketing information
- CTAs
- What attendees should expect
Involve the Community in Planning and Sharing
There’s no reason advertising committees and DMOs have to come up with fun community event ideas on their own. Involve the community in brainstorming ideas, planning events, and voting on themes. Crowdsource content through social media, polls, or contests to come up with the freshest ideas and make community events a true representation of your entire community.
Implementing a Better Event Strategy With Concept3D
Smart event planning paired with the right tools for dynamic promotion gives you the power to develop an engaging community event calendar that attracts locals and tourists to enjoy and participate in memorable events year after year. Your digital event calendar provides a great way to centralize and share your events, providing participants with all the information they need.
Choosing Localist Events for your community events calendar streamlines the entire process with an easy-to-use interface with a no-code setup, ticketing options, and a mobile-first design that is consistent across all devices. When you’re ready to take your community event planning to the next level, Concept3D is here to help. Contact us today to request a demo and learn how to bring your events to life with Concept3D’s centralized calendar.