Blogger Preview – Heritage Hill Seasonal Event

About the Program

Category: Parks and Recreation (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

Heritage Hill Historical Park in Lake Forest, California, hosts holiday events in December each year. For the Victorian-style Christmas celebration, the park’s historic buildings are adorned in turn-of-the-century holiday decorations while costumed docents provide building tours and vendors sell holiday goods. Children are able to visit Santa Claus in the arbor and sit in a turn-of-the-century school desk while storytellers spin holiday tales in the historic one-room El Toro Grammar School. Orange County Parks utilized a no-cost marketing technique through the Blogger Preview at Heritage Hill to increase attendance at these annual holiday events. For 2011’s holiday events, OC Parks communications staff worked with OC Parks Heritage Hill staff to host an invitation-only preview opportunity to 20 local bloggers, providing them a sneak peek to these two holiday events. Although these holiday events have been around for decades, this was the first time a preview event was hosted using external, free social media sources to promote the event. Publicity for the holiday events, largely a result of the preview, totaled more than 10 million impressions valued at $26,000. Total event attendance increased 10% in 2011 totaling 4,500 visitors.