Newport Harbor Corporation (NHC) is a poster-child for event driven marketing. With over seven large events and festivals each year they certainly know how to leverage their resources - in this case a parking lot in the center of Newport, RI. From an annual boat show to the Schweppes Great Chowder Cook Off they raise money for charities, make money for the company and of course enjoy a fantastic promotional vehicle for their group of restaurants.

"I remember in 1988 when we only had one event, the Great Chowder Cook Off," said Gail Lowney Alofsin, Director of Corporate Partnerships at NHC. "I realized that for events to be really successful we had to focus on our partners and sponsors," she continued. Gail has been involved in the department that runs events for the last two decades. She is an expert at both organization and the uncertain process of persuading sponsors to take part in their festivals. During her tenure they have added a stable of events, and a huge number of organizations partner with her company to create and take part in the events.


In response to the question, "Do you dream up an event and look for sponsors or look for sponsors and tailor an event for them?" Gail was very clear, "We decide what event we are going to do and then we look for the sponsors to support it." She went on to describe the sponsors' role as being the key to delivering a great experience for the event guests. The implication is that the events are close to self-sufficient and that the sponsors provide the cash for much of the glitz that attracts extra traffic.

"Sponsorship is becoming a more respected form of marketing," she asserted. "I have figures on the billions of dollars spent on sponsorship." Gail is aware of the "soft" nature of sponsorship dollars and recognizes that you have to work really hard to keep a sponsor happy and fully engaged in an event.

Gail's track record for retaining sponsors is outstanding. Whether it's the location and the overall sense of fun and enjoyment that her events create, or the efforts of her team to keep sponsors happy, is not clear. "You have to show the clients what they are getting," she said. "They need to know that they are getting you, they're getting your word that you will make their sponsorship and the event as effective as possible."

"One great element of the events is the money that we raise for charities and non-profits along the way," Gail said. "We don't make a big fuss about it, but it is a feel-good factor for my team, the company and the sponsors." NHC's events support many well-known organizations including the Autism Project of RI, the Alzheimer's Association and the Children's Miracle Network among many others. "I really believe that merging for-profit with non-profit has been one of the secrets of our success," she confided.

Gail and her team have taken a fairly meager asset - a parking lot by their yachting center - and developed it into a highly effective promotional tool and revenue-generating business unit. Many of their ideas came from visiting other events throughout the country and sitting down with other organizers and picking their brains. It seems that, provided it's not in the same market, event organizers run their own support group and are more than willing to share tips and techniques. "What's important is never to be 'same old, same old'. The landscape of the event needs to be ever-changing and evolving," she asserted. "You can't just do the same event every year and expect guests - and the sponsors - to keep on coming back year after year."

Her team heads off to other major events at least once a quarter. Everywhere from Busch Gardens to the Florida State Fair is on their hit list for ideas and trends. They also attend four event conferences a year including the International Festival and Events Conference, the International Events Group Conference, the Texas and Florida Events Groups' conferences and other conferences that hold promise for generating new ideas.

Not many companies can afford to have a department working just on events. However, what everyone can learn from NHC's example is the way in which they have focused part of their organization on this kind of marketing and how they take it seriously. Gail constantly surveys her event guests. Her team is there to refine and improve their established events and she makes sure that they recognize the dangers of getting stale or missing a significant opportunity to improve.

NHC is lucky indeed to have Gail and her team so enthusiastically pursuing the exploitation of their downtown parking lot asset. It took a shrewd business eye to see the opportunity and a shrewder one to put in place a team that can focus on making it a profitable venture for the company and the sponsors, as well as an enjoyable experience for guests. In addition to being a profit center NHC enjoys a secondary benefit of increasing awareness of the group's restaurants and other properties.


Can we learn something from this successful example? I think we can.Firstly it is apparent that keeping the event element of the business separate from the restaurant activities is a way of ensuring that you can both measure effectiveness and success and also carefully track costs and revenue.

It is clear that it's more important to decide on an event and then look for a way to fund it, rather than the other way around. Getting sponsors to provide support needs to be layered onto a basically sound financial model driven by ticket sales and other revenue generating activities.

It's also obvious that no matter the scale of the event, it needs to be kept fresh and interesting. For a modest event such as a wine dinner it might be as obvious as changing the wines on offer, but for more complex events it's sometimes not so obvious what needs to be refreshed. And that's where the informal support group of fellow event professionals can help.

All of the above misses a critical point - choosing the event or festival that suits your demographic. A wine tasting in a dry town or a boat show in the desert are somewhat less likely to be as successful as they would be given the right location!


Gail is a driven woman, dedicated to making her events and festivals as successful as she can. Her constituencies include her sponsors, her company, their properties and of course the guests who enjoy a taste of chowder or the fanciful notion of buying a gleaming yacht at the boat show. In a fickle market NHC has driven this business unit to become an example of excellence in strategic and tactical event management. One of the company's core philosophies is "...to be profitable while providing an unparalleled experience for our guests; a respectful, productive, and enjoyable work environment for our employee-owners; while at the same time giving back to our communities and to the environment."

It sounds obvious and a bit trite, but they seem to really live by their credo and are rewarded with ultra successful events that create significant revenue, satisfy sponsors and guests, and deliver an unexpected, but welcome bounty to very deserving non-profit organizations. You can't fault that!

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