Publicity Toolkit

Welcome to the Fun Palaces Publicity Toolkit

The Publicity Toolkit is here to inspire and assist you with ideas about how to spread the word about your Fun Palace and how to get people to come along. It focuses on what can be achieved for free or at low cost. We have our own ideas, so please do use this toolkit, but above all, your Fun Palace is YOURS, you live in your community, you know your own people best, YOU are the expert – go for it!

It can be helpful to read this document alongside the Fun Palaces Style Guidelines, a guide about how we can all talk about Fun Palaces and use its visual identity (logo, font etc.). Here’s the Style Guidelines

Contact

If you want to talk to us about any aspects of publicity, locally or nationally, contact us hello@funpalaces.co.uk and we’ll be in touch as soon as we can.

Contents

  • Where and when should I advertise my Fun Palace?
  • Key information, copy, images & photography
  • Posters, leaflets & banners
  • Working with the media & press
  • Social media
  • Fun Palaces weekend
  • Working with Fun Palaces HQ
  • Getting Political

Quick Links:

WHERE AND WHEN SHOULD I ADVERTISE MY FUN PALACE?

Who do you want to come to your Fun Palace?

Fun Palaces are open to everybody. We believe that by giving everybody the opportunity to be involved in making and attending Fun Palaces we create better culture and communities for all of us.

Getting started: where to advertise your Fun Palace

Think about where you usually find out about local events e.g, a friend or neighbour told you about it, local newspaper listings, websites about the local area, social media, and leaflet posters and banners in your local community. These are a good place to begin.

When should I advertise my Fun Palace?

As soon as you’ve signed up to make your Fun Palace, the process has started. When you have a venue and date for your Fun Palace you can begin spreading the word. Don’t worry if you don’t know exactly what is going to happen at your Fun Palace – that’s part of the fun! From 6-8 weeks before your Fun Palace your main advertising should begin, the rest of this pack explains what that could be.

KEY INFORMATION, COPY, IMAGES & PHOTOGRAPHY

At the centre of a good publicity campaign is the consistent use of key information, copy and images/photography.

Key information

Whether you’re updating a website, creating posters, using social media or contacting press about your Fun Palace, it’s important to communicate the practical stuff regularly: who, what, when, where and how your Fun Palace will happen. To help with this we have prepared some advertising copy, which can be found here. It’s also helpful to identify three concise ideas that you want your potential Fun Palaces visitors to remember, these are things that might be interesting, unique or they will find appealing. Once you have prepared these, you can use them throughout your publicity, e.g.

  • Sharing skills, connecting communities, creating tiny revolutions
  • A free weekend of community-led events happening at Brockwell Lido
  • Discover the hidden stories of Leith at the Leith Fun Palace
  • Come and visit the world’s only Fun Palace in a forest
  • Learn a brilliant new skill from your neighbour

Images & photography

Find images and photography that might tell the story of what will happen at your Fun Palace or who is involved. Try and collect a small selection of photos (up to 8) that you can use to help explain your Fun Palace throughout its publicity.A great picture should be colourful and well lit. People are drawn to other humans, so faces in your pictures – especially with strong expressions – is always useful. If your Fun Palace is taking place in an iconic location, this could be a great setting for your photo-shoot. If you don’t have anything suitable. Are there photographs of the creators involved, and/or their work? Could you set up a photo-shoot with some of those involved, demonstrating what they’ll do on the weekend? Fun Palaces have a selection of photographs that you can use, these can be downloaded here. Alternatively, our illustrated logo is a good place to start.

Formats

Ensure your photos are of a suitable quality to print – around 300dpi/1MB is great.

POSTERS, LEAFLETS, BANNERS

Posters and leaflets displayed all around the area local to your Fun Palace are a great way to let people know about it. You can download our Fun Palaces A3 and A4 poster and an A5 flyer templates here and personalise them with your details. Every Fun Palace can request 50 free Fun Palaces posters in either A3 or A4, and 50 leaflets, please get in touch by the beginning of September at the latest. The details should include:

  • the date/s and time/s of your Fun Palace
  • where it’s taking place
  • contact information
  • your Fun Palace Maker Page on our website and/or your own website
  • social media details (facebook/twitter etc)
  • Your key messages and/or advertising copy/schedule (leaflet only)Leafleting is a great way to spread the word. Identify busy areas in your locality, perhaps a train station, a shopping area or a market, and spend some time in the week before your event handing out flyers and talking to people about your Fun Palace.We will have Fun Palaces outdoor banners which we can send you to help promote your Fun Palace. In order to minimise waste, these need to be posted back to us after Fun Palaces weekend.

    Leafleting is a great way to spread the word. Identify busy areas in your locality, perhaps a train station, a shopping area or a market, and spend some time in the week before your event handing out flyers and talking to people about your Fun Palace.We will have Fun Palaces outdoor banners which we can send you to help promote your Fun Palace. In order to minimise waste, these need to be posted back to us after Fun Palaces weekend.

WORKING WITH THE MEDIA AND PRESS

To publicise your Fun Palace and share your story more widely, it is worth contacting local newspapers, radio stations, TV stations and local blogs. Find out which journalist is most likely to be interested in your Fun Palace and will want to talk about your event; they might have covered similar events in the past, or have a job title like Arts & Entertainment Editor or Culture Editor. In the first instance, email a copy of your press release and a cover note explaining your Fun Palace, and then follow this up in a few days with a telephone call if you haven’t heard back from them.

Advice for contacting journalists

  • Prepare the three key things you want to say about your event: keep it concise. What is the unique thing about your Fun Palace?
  • Know what you’re asking for: is there a specific column you’d like your Fun Palace to be featured in, would you like to be interviewed on a specific show, or would you like a journalist/photographer there on the day to cover it?
  • Know what you can offer then: do you have some pictures to illustrate your Fun Palace? Who is available to do interviews? Can a newspaper send a photographer along on the day?

    Lead times

    Remember the time it takes a journalist to plan to attend and cover your Fun Palace.
  • Weekly newspapers: four to six weeks in advance
  • Daily newspapers: one to two weeks in advance
  • TV news: two to three weeks in advance
  • Radio stations: one to two weeks in advance
  • Blogs: two to three weeks in advanceMany titles offer a listings service, where you can upload the details of your Fun Palace through their website to be shared with their readership. To ensure the best chance of inclusion, it is worth doing so four weeks in advance.

    Sample press release
    Use the template press release to let journalists know about your Fun Palace.

SOCIAL MEDIA

There are many networks available to help you promote and celebrate your Fun Palace publicly. Previously, some Fun Palaces have chosen to setup their own social media accounts, others use those owned by their host venue or organisation to help spread the word. Fun Palaces HQ has three social media channels and these are fantastic platforms for us to showcase what is happening at the different Fun Palaces sites across the country, as well as for all of you to stay in touch.

Setting up and using social media accounts

Twitter is the simplest way to engage quickly and directly with individuals and organisations of relevance to your Fun Palace. Aim for 4-6 tweets a day, as well as responding to comments and questions.

Facebook is more personalised, with users lingering longer over content. It is good for sharing longer pieces of information and images/videos. Aim to post once a day, as well as responding to comments and questions.

Instagram is a great way of taking, editing and sharing photographs of your Fun Palace. Aim to post once a day on your feed, and use the Instagram Stories function whenever there’s something interesting to show.

Blogs Fun Palaces has a Maker blog, if you would like to write about the experience of making or attending a Fun Palace, we are happy to host this on our website and provide you with a link for sharing it elsewhere.

Other networks you could consider include: Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn

Social media images

Fun Palaces provide a range of images for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which can be downloaded here

#FunPalaces Hashtag

The Fun Palaces hashtag is #FunPalaces. We’d be grateful if you could display this on all your publicity and use it whenever you are posting on social media, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. By using the hashtag we can share and celebrate what’s happening at your Fun Palace. The hashtag also gives us a collective voice, particularly during the weekend.

Fun Palaces HQ on Social Media – follow us! 

• Facebook: www.facebook.com/FunPalaces.

Please Like the national Fun Palaces Facebook page as well as share things we post.

 • Twitter: www.twitter.com/FunPalaces.

Follow us on Twitter and tell to us what is happening at your Fun Palace. 

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/funpalaces/

FUN PALACES WEEKEND

Fun Palaces unite!

We want everybody to know about Fun Palaces – about your community’s hard work and the importance of culture made by, for and with everybody. To help spread the word about Fun Palaces we ask that you all help us by doing three important things.

1) Decorate your Fun Palace – can everybody see a logo?

Display our banner and Weekend poster. Make sure that everybody at your Fun Palace has seen our logo. A good place to display these is close to at the entrance/s and exit/s.

2) Social media #FunPalaces

Let us know what’s happening at your Fun Palace on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram by tagging us and using the #FunPalaces hashtag. Encourage others to do the same by displaying the hashtag prominently at your Fun Palaces. Each year we’ve built enough momentum causing #FunPalaces to ‘trend’ on Twitter – let’s do it again!

3) What about next year?

Everybody who attends your Fun Palace is a potential Fun Palace Maker of the future. Please help others understand how they can get involved by displaying Fun Palaces ‘Skill Share’ postcards which will be posted to you.

Follow us on Instagram and tag us in your pictures.

WORKING WITH FUN PALACES HQ

Email updates

Fun Palaces will send you regular emails with information and updates. In these emails we may ask you to be involved with interviews, social media or to provide us with bits and pieces of information. We don’t want to take up much of your time, but providing us with this information will hugely support the national Fun Palaces project, helping us to communicate what is happening at individual Fun Palaces, as well as inspiring others to make their own Fun Palaces in future.

GETTING POLITICAL

Fun Palaces is a fantastic reflection of the creativity and vibrancy of local communities, and there has rarely been a better opportunity to highlight this to the decision makers that define our cultural landscapes.

Invite your local MP

We would like to encourage all Fun Palaces Makers to invite their local politicians and local Councillors to attend their local Fun Palaces.

Rather than simply sending an email, we’d love, if possible, for Makers to create a more ‘artistic’ invitation – whatever that means to you – and share a photo of it with us through social media. You could even deliver it by hand to your MP and Councillors; this is a great photo opportunity for a local newspaper, and of course great content for your social media streams!

The best time to deliver the invitation to your MP will be in early September, when MPs will have returned from Summer break, and before they enter Party Conference season (late September to early October) – so they enter their Conference with the vibrancy of British arts and culture well and truly at the forefront of their minds.

Here’s a template letter to your MP or Local Councillor with suggested wording for the invitation, but feel free to be more creative!