Event Marketing: When Attendance Becomes Tradition
Events as brand builders
In today’s competitive tourism landscape, destinations are constantly looking for ways to stand out. Signature events provide a unique opportunity to own a specific experience in travelers’ minds.
Think about destinations that have become synonymous with annual festivals, sporting events or cultural celebrations. New Orleans is known for Mardi Gras, Rio de Janeiro is known for Carnival, and Munich, Germany has become almost indistinguishable from its infamous Oktoberfest. In these examples, the event itself may serve as the primary motivator for travel. Visitors who may never have otherwise considered the destination suddenly have a compelling reason to visit.
Perhaps equally as valuable is the media exposure these events inherently generate. Public relations opportunities, social media engagement and user-generated content all work together to extend an event’s reach far beyond its destination’s footprint. The result? Increased visibility from prospective visitors.
The exponential effect of repeat events
While one successful event can create a short-term boost for a destination, recurring events come with compounding rewards.
Annual and bi-annual events provide something increasingly valuable to visitors, business partners and marketers alike: predictability. Local businesses and community stakeholders can confidently plan around known visitation surges, while those visiting know what to expect.
For marketers, this creates efficiencies. Established audiences require less education and guidance, which allows us to shift our energy from awareness building to audience expansion and retention. Over time, this drives stronger ROI across paid, earned and owned channels and establishes the event as an economic anchor in a destination’s calendar.
Creating traditions that drive loyalty
Perhaps the most powerful trait of recurring events is their natural tendency to create tradition.
When visitors build annual travel plans around an event, their attendance becomes a ritual. Families schedule vacations around it. Friends use it as an excuse to reconnect. People make it a bucket-list experience and then return year after year. These traditions create memories and emotional connections that are difficult for competing destinations to replicate – putting your destination at an advantage.
Rather than competing each year for first-time visitation, recurring events cultivate a loyal audience that repeatedly visits and, in many cases, even plans extended stays to explore other destination attractions. These loyal visitors become brand advocates who influence others through word-of-mouth and social sharing.
Example: EAA AirVenture Oshkosh
Each year, the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) hosts AirVenture, its popular fly-in aviation convention, which was recently voted best airshow by USA Today.
In 1953, approximately 150 people attended the first AirVenture. Since then, it has grown to become the world’s premier aviation event. While AirVenture was originally hosted at Curtiss-Wright Field in Milwaukee, growing attendance numbers quickly required a larger space for the event. The Greater Rockford Airport became the host location for several years before event popularity demanded a larger space yet again. Spurred partly by a small incentive offered by Winnebago County, Wisconsin, EAA decided to host 1969’s AirVenture at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, where EAA’s museum and headquarters now operate.
Outgrowing the event’s host location is not the only measurement of AirVenture’s continued success, however. In 2025, over 700,000 people attended from 94 different countries. The event generated $257 million in total economic impact for the Oshkosh region – a number that only continues to grow.
Aviation enthusiasts such as Louis Seno soon became brand advocates for EAA. Seno has found tradition in attending AirVenture for 70 consecutive years (and counting) and has participated in media interviews, press events, and has even joined EAA’s Board of Directors along the way. Destination and event loyalists, like Seno are how Oshkosh’s reputation transformed from a rural town in Wisconsin’s Fox Valley to a popular aviation hotspot known worldwide.
Looking beyond economic impact
While economic impact studies remain important measures of success, they only tell part of the story for marketers.
The broader value of a large-scale event includes destination awareness and reputation, community engagement, and ultimately, visitor loyalty. These outcomes contribute to a destination’s long-term health in ways that aren’t always captured in immediate economic impact reports or attendance metrics.
When a destination invests in building, growing and sustaining signature events, it creates more than a successful weekend. It creates a tradition, brand asset, and dependable economic catalyst that can regenerate value for decades to come.
Want to explore how event marketing can benefit your business or destination? Let’s chat!
Photo courtesy of EAA