Turning an inaugural festival into a destination marketing success
The Challenge
Tewkesbury Borough Council wanted to raise its profile as one of England’s leading heritage destinations while successfully launching its inaugural History Festival. The campaign needed to build awareness among local audiences, attract visitors from further afield, and establish credibility with history and archaeology enthusiasts, all within a fixed budget and an evolving project scope.
Our Approach
We developed an integrated PR campaign designed to generate widespread media coverage while creating long-term promotional opportunities for the destination.
Our strategy combined media relations, influencer engagement, partnership development, and experiential marketing to reach both mainstream audiences and highly engaged heritage communities.
The campaign included:
- Developing and delivering national PR for the inaugural History Festival
- Securing editorial features, interviews, competitions, and podcast opportunities
- Organising and hosting a familiarisation (FAM) trip for journalists and history creators to experience Tewkesbury first-hand
- Building relationships with key heritage media and influencers to support future campaigns
Rather than focusing solely on publicity around a single event, the campaign positioned Tewkesbury as a year-round heritage destination with a compelling story to tell no matter when you visited. The History Festival was the anchor event for all activity to build up to.
Results
The campaign exceeded its editorial coverage objectives while creating valuable long-term marketing assets.
Key outcomes included:
- Coverage across regional, national and specialist history and heritage media
- Editorial coverage in respected history publications, including British Archaeology, plus local, regional, and national media
- A partnership competition with Discover Britain magazine that attracted more than 800 entries in just two weeks
- Almost 200 new opted-in subscribers added to the Festival’s email marketing database through the competition
- Mad About History podcast episode with author and Festival speaker Annie Garthwaite to promote the History Festival
- 22 pieces of social media content created by visiting history influencers across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, helping introduce Historic Tewkesbury to new and younger audiences
- A hosted influencer programme that generated ongoing collaboration opportunities with respected creators in the history and archaeology sector
- New relationships established with leading heritage media, content creators, and local businesses and attractions creating opportunities for future destination marketing campaigns
The Impact
The campaign successfully launched Tewkesbury’s first History Festival while also significantly raising the profile of Tewkesbury as a visitor destination year-round. Across 35 pieces of strategic coverage, we earned an audience of 1.18 million people plus 106,000 views of influencer content. We also secured 5 backlinks to the new Tewkesbury History Festival website, including on key title Discover Britain, which, while not a KPI for this brief, strengthens the brand discoverability online for future years.
By combining strategic media relations with authentic influencer experiences and creative partnership opportunities, we delivered more than short-term publicity. We expanded the Festival’s owned audience, strengthened its reputation within the heritage sector, and created a network of advocates who will continue to champion the destination.
Most importantly, the campaign helped organisers hit ticket sales target for year one and laid the foundations for future festivals and tourism initiatives, demonstrating how strategic PR can drive awareness, visitor interest, and long-term destination growth.
Want to learn how strategic PR and influencer outreach can amplify your impact? Let’s talk.
