WEDU PBS Block Party & Open House
To celebrate WEDU PBS’s 60th Anniversary, WEDU hosted a community event, free to the public and fun for all ages! The event was both inside the [TV] station and outside in the sunshine, and included WEDU Station tours, a talk by guest speaker/chef Kevin Belton, some of your favorite PBS Kids characters, the WEDU PBS Kids Fun Zone with activities and character Meet & Greets, bounce houses, inflatables and game booths, a chance to take photos with the station’s green screen, a food truck rally, and more.
Style guide
Before all of that, though, I was tasked with designing the “look” for the event. Knowing a national PBS rebrand was coming, I incorporated the tertiary brand colors from said rebrand so that this event would match the national brand in coming years. Part of the event included an affiliation with the Fred Rogers Company’s “Be My Neighbor Day” initiative, so I used popular PBS children’s character Daniel Tiger (based on the puppet in the original Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood TV show). My design elements were waves: yellow and orange waves allude to the beautiful Tampa sunshine, and the blue waves make one think of the sparkling Gulf Coast waters we enjoy here.
Print assets
Oversized postcard invitations
As part of preparing for the event, WEDU sent out tens of thousands of this oversized postcard to residents of 16 counties across West Central Florida. This 8.5″x5.5″ postcard let people know the event details and what they could expect in the way of entertainment. This displays the front (left) and back (right). And these yellow “Save the Date” flyers were distributed by staff and sponsors to WEDU donors and other residents of the Greater Tampa area.
(As is common among the terms of sponsorship agreements, I was required to include all sponsor logos on any and all advertising for the event.)
VIP dinner and meet-and-greet invitation
To honor longtime major donors, WEDU also hosted a VIP event at New Orleans-inspired Tampa restaurant Roux the night before the Block Party event; here is the invitation card:
Posters
These 11″x17″ poster variations were displayed in sponsors’ businesses and around the community:
Letterhead and envelopes
In addition to sending Save-the-Dates, we needed some Block Party & Open House letterhead and envelopes for correspondence. The business card-sized cards are “photo cards” – they just say that professional event photos will be ready within three days of the event, and were handed out at the Green Screen Experience and outside around the Block Party. The flyer was included with correspondence.
Signage
I made plenty of outdoor vinyl banners for the event; here is a welcome banner which stood at the entrances to the event.
As part of the sponsorship packages, we included sponsor logos throughout our advertising, and displayed this banner at the event.
Throughout the event, we had A-frame signs I’d created with directions and information for donors and attendees. Here are just a few:
WEDU hired a shuttle to pick up and drop off Block Party attendees at several parking lots in the area. In keeping with the Mister Rogers vein of the event, we called it a Trolley to allude to the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood trolley, shown on the sign being ridden by Daniel Tiger.
Retractable banners
I also designed three pop-up banners: the one on the left was displayed outside the station lobby. The other two were displayed next to each of the two stages, to advertise the day’s schedule on each stage.
WEDU PBS "Passport" Tour
Perhaps the most fun feature of the day was the Passport Station Tour! “Passport” is the name of PBS’ streaming service, so to tie in with our efforts to advertise the service, we created a guided tour throughout the station. I designed a real “Passport” for attendees to follow along with: at each Tour stop, attendees stamped their Passport in the corresponding numbered space. Once they visited all eight stops and filled their Passport with stamps, attendees could tear the perforated Passport in half and fill out their information, which they then left in a basket to be entered in a special prize drawing. (The other half of the Passport, which guests kept, included the event map so that they could still get around.)
A “Tour Stop” sign was hung at each stop along the Passport Station Tour to let guests know which number to stamp on their Passports. Here are a few:
Retro WEDU shirt
As a small side revenue stream, the VP of Membership and Development asked me to design a retro style shirt that WEDU could sell to members and fans at the Block Party event. I utilized the original diamond shape from back when the station started, and used vintage “atomic” elements to allude to the station’s founding in 1958.
Event shirts
I designed three different shirts: one for regular WEDU staff, one for designated first-aid certified staff, and one for community volunteers who came out to work the event. All the shirts had the same front design, just printeed on different colored shirt blanks and with different back designs, to denote the different types of event staff.
