West Midlands Agricultural Society
Planning, management, presence...
Service: PR for events
Sector: Charity
The brief
The West Midlands Agricultural Society is responsible for the complete management of the society and charity, which includes the West Midlands Showground (100 Acre site) which hosts numerous national and international events.
More recently the organisation also spearheaded and implemented the opening of six charity shops to help support people in the rural community by providing grants and monies for various projects.
The trustees of the society were looking for a PR team to support them both in terms of events, but also in raising the profile of the society itself as was restored to its former glory following the lifting of a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA).
The solution
The J&PR team worked alongside trustees to create, and manage, a presence on social media in the forms of Facebook and Instagram pages for the society and individual event pages, the running of a Twitter account remained with the showground manager.
As well as assisting with ongoing event planning and management the J&PR team are present on the day, and evenings, of events to ensure the experience is shared via social media channels throughout.
An accompanying PR campaign also promotes the showground and its offerings throughout the year which sees coverage across the board in newspapers, on radio and on TV.
The impact
The West Mid Showground has more than 8,000 followers across its social media channels, but the great reach comes with their events - more than 100,000 people saw the Shropshire County Show 2019 event posts reach their Facebook feed and more than 10,000 followed it in the run up to May of that year.
CEO Ian Bebbington has regularly appeared in news articles, on radio and on TV with the most recent news story being the 2020 floods which engulfed the showground and destroyed many of the buildings. A funding campaign set up by J&PR raised more than 2,000 for the project and a public clean-up day, publicised by our team, attracted hundreds of people.
The J&PR team were also behind the newest event on the Society calendar - Frestival, a free-from event featuring speakers and chef demonstrations as well as a tech-free children’s area that attracted around 1,000 visitors at its first event in 2019.
*Please note that 2020 events at the showground were cancelled or postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
