Breaking this out from the fall event discussion... The Southern Michigan Railroad Society had a very successful autumn, principally the Fall Color Tours. This event accounts for more than half annual ridership revenue, and when combined with two other events in late September and October, accounts for 75% of total annual revenue. This is a problem. Special events are nice, up to a point.

At Western Railway Museum, the Pumpkin Patch event creates perilously close to an overload. It is a stressor on crews and equipment. When equipment breaks down it's an even bigger stressor on crews. I was acting general manager when one of the gigantic "seats 120" Bridge Units broke down with a severe problem, with our most experienced people out, and a green general manager. On the upside, we learned running cars close behind each other isn't that big a deal, and having a "combine" was a major win, all the strollers went in the baggage compartment for faster loading. (sans baby, please!)

Another problem is surges. During the regular season, you absorb them easily and just call it a really good day. When you have an event that's already HUGE... and then you add onto it a major feature in a local newspaper or TV station... it can exceed the practical capacity of the event -- taking the fun out of it for everyone. At the Western, we had that happen during that same equipment problem, people were not even able to get their cars onto the premises. Those who got in had to wait 60 minutes for a train, watching the crowds ahead of them fill train after train. While the money was nice, the crew attitude was "let's not ever do that again."

People who run Thomas the Bank Engine hardly need to be informed of the other issues: the big events require an enormous effort organization-wide. Coordination with other groups, contractual commitments, government hassles etc. Volunteers don't get paid enough to deal with that stuff.

The opposite of surges is calamities. This is the folly of "all your eggs in one basket". How many have had their large, budget-balancing event get torpedoed all to hell, by weather, breakdowns, or other calamity? SMRS sometimes had equipment breakdowns that just ravage the Fall Color Tours revenue. The 2009 takeover attempt was a huge distraction from preparations for the event, that with badmouthing in the media dropped ridership 60%. The same effect happened to all of us in 2001 thanks to 9/11. At WRM, one year the first weekends were slow, and the last Saturday was a terrible windstorm that ravaged the facilities at the Pumpkin Patch, killing typically the biggest day. The event was extended but the word didn't get out really. Illinois Railway Museum, Thomas, flood. There are so many ways these events can go wrong and bleed your budget dry.

The other thing is, the major event puts a shadow on the rest of your year. How many times have you talked to a possible visitor, and pretty much pitched the major events, and barely mentioned the fact that you run all year? That sort of promotion has a deleterious effect on your regular season. And THAT has a disturbing way of becoming "normal". 20 years ago SMRS made a fateful decision to focus publicity efforts on the most successful weekends. Sounds perfectly reasonable, right? Those special events - already near capacity - gained about 15%. But the regular season, once the mainstay, wilted on the vine - dropping 75%. The net effect was a 50% ridership drop all-total.

But the most interesting lesson about SMRS is the prior situation. When the publicity focused on the regular season, it did fine -- but the autumn special events also did fine. This is because the regular-season publicity had the side-effect of also promoting the special events. The reverse is not true, especially when the special event is at the end of your year!

Is a special event always a success? What has the experience of others been?

Robert, I'd be amazed if the majority of smaller museums - and even a few tourist lines - actually market. Some think they do because the buy an occasional ad or put out a press release for whatever they do that is an event. This isn't marketing, people, it's just one bit of the puzzle.

Favorite mistake is to tailor operations to what you can do, rather than to figure out what your potential visitors want to do and figure out how to change your organization to produce that. We seem, based on recent threads, to be outgrowing that bit by bit.

Maybe all you need to do is special events. Does the rigor and wear of year long operation render the people and equipment unreliable for the moneymaking event programming? Would it make more sense to save your resources for only those pieces of programming that will produce the most favorable response? This is a valid topic for rational decision making, and few seem to have given it real thought.

Well, all else being equal, it wouldn't be my choice either. I like the idea of running the trains people want to ride when people want to ride them. If the times people want to ride is only when you do something special....well, you get the drift.

Partnerships with other groups can make special events less troublesome if there's a common theme. Who's developing strategic event partnerships?

Assuming you are a more traditional group, volunteer nonprofit, about 80% interested in playing with trains on Saturday and 20% interested in actual interpretation of history if it doesn't get in the way of playing with trains too much, you can smooth things out smewhat by devoting the majority of your advertising and publicity (note I didn't say marketing) budget to your entire operating season, and sell the event programming during the season to your visitors. If you have treated them well, they will come back. If you haven't, then you don't deserve their business. A bit of additional advertising based on the event programing then will help fill up what's really an easier sell - everybody wants something fun to do on holidays. Operationally, streamline the staffing and logistical needs for your operation, both daily and special. Do you need two hosts in every car? Can you make changes to eliminate one in each car? Are all those switching moves necessary, or would a couple spring switches remove one crew person? What can you most easily run and maintain during everyday operations, and give the shops and ops guys a break?

There are too many facets and possibilities to consider simply, and it will be different for each of us all.

dave

This could really be retitled the dilemma of the railway museum. While we want to educate the public, the public wants to be entertained. So, we spend almost all of our resources (time and money) running trains. Further, we usually run too many trains. If the public shows up for only special events, we run the other days at a loss, especially when considering the wear and tear on the equipment and rail, fuel, crews, etc when the public doesn't show up (a few riders). BUT, if we don't run trains, no public shows up. Can we justify ourselves and what we are doing if the public does not show up? I say no. Could we make the educational portion of what we do better, thereby attracting the public without the ride. I bet we could, but, very few of us non-government museums do - we don't have the skills, funds or volunteers to do these. You can get a few people out to paint and maintain Old number XX, BUT, how many want to build displays, sweep the floors, vacuum coaches, etc?

Jim

Many years ago (about 1986) we were running a steam powered train at a civic event.

Track was yard limits, no other trains, we owned the railroad, we could what we wanted.

We were scheduled to depart on the hour, run to the end of the line and shove back, no running around just back and forth.

1st trip fine, 2nd trip we were late as we got back to the loading area late, 3rd trip later, 4th trip etc. The crew was all hot under the collar, and just for fun it was 102 in the shade.

The discussion at the end of the day was nasty, why blood was not spilled I will never know. After things calmed down a bit, the suggestion was made since we were scheduled to depart on the hour, lets make sure the trips only last 45 minutes, at 22 minutes after the hour wherever the train is stop, and return to to loading area. After much grumbling it was decided to try this schedule.

It worked, after a couple of trips, the crews were smiling, the passengers were happy (turns out 45 minutes is just about right for a 6 year old).

-Hudson

Your 22-minute solution brings up another excellent point: who is the intended ridership for your train?
If you're running a trip for adult male railfan photographers, you can go out all day and do fifty run-bys and they'll be...well, as happy as they ever are.

If you're running a trip for teens and adults of mixed age and gender, fond of trains but not necessarily hardcore, you need fewer runbys and, um, better restroom facilities, because, not to be indelicate, some of us have difficulty watering the weeds, especially in cold weather. If there are a lot of runbys and the hardcores insist on having everyone leave the train whether or not they're taking pictures, you're going to have some disgruntled older/disabled people because getting up and down can turn into a problem, especially if the boarding area is difficult.

If you want to attract kids, and most of you DO want to because they're the future of your museum, trips of 45 minutes sound about right. They don't have to go fast or far. It's probably better for most kids to be in enclosed cars, but you can use your judgment on that (ours loved to ride in open cars at a relatively young age, but he was always taking pictures, so it made sense; he wasn't going to get bored and throw things or fall out.) If you want to run longer excursions pitched to families, good onboard restroom facilities are essential after the first hour or so. No one wants to watch diaper changes in the car or hear a toddler whining because she can't get to the john until the next stop. Also, on half-day runs or even on shorter trips where there may be waiting, a well-stocked canteen car is a lifesaver for parents, and a rolling gift shop isn't a bad idea either if you can swing it.

If you know you may get snowed under by passengers, it's always good to warn local shopkeepers and see about extra parking. If your event is on a weekend, some public-spirited businesses that aren't open may let you use their lots. We were able to get a good parking spot in Cresson last month during Heritage Days because a local bank and a doctor's office allowed parking. It's also good to check with local churches. Saturday afternoon may be a real problem if people use their lots when they have a big wedding on tap, and members trying to park for weekend services may be mad if they can't park in their own spots. However, if the church schedule permits and they're willing, they may allow people to park free, for a donation, or in conjunction with their own bake sale/spaghetti supper/what have you. When you can manage a double win like that, everybody goes away happy.

The weather and other catastrophes seem like the biggest challenge. Some bad ideas are predictable (having a large outdoor affair on the Gulf Coast during peak hurricane season, trying to have a January event on the Allegheny Ridge...) but sometimes bad luck intervenes in what should have been a perfectly sane and sensible time. If there's a way around it, I'd love to know what that is.

If at all possible, special events should always have a "rain date."

Stephen

Special event operations I view like a short line with one major commodity( granger road). When there is a good crop, the elevator is overloaded , yard tracks are full, and the crews are working 12 hour days to get the crop moved, occasionally hiring "boomers' to supplement the regular train crews. Once that is done, the railroad goes almost dormant, living on the money they made during the last season until next season. What should happen in both cases is to, in the case of the tourist railroad, find a way to fill your regular season trains and for the short line, beat the bushes to find additional customers. Some lines I am finding a disturbing trend to focus on special events and giving the regular season minimal life support Perhaps there is justification for this in their economic model, or a distinct management policy. I guess it all depends on what the manages/owners see as their route to profitability.

The problem with rain dates and railroad operations is that they are rarely possible.
If you have something in-house going on, it may be possible to reschedule, but if DOWT gets rained out, it's not likely he's free the next weekend. It's the difference between playing a rained-out regular season baseball game and trying to reschedule Game 7 of the World Series--possible, but expensive, annoying, and not likely to be a gigantic success. The bigger the event, the longer the lead time has to be in order to get traveling engines and crews scheduled and get publicity going. Late rescheduling means some people won't get the message and will show up anyway (and be angry, even though it isn't your fault), some people will demand refunds of presold tickets (and be angry, no matter what kind of refund they get) and most people, including many of your volunteers, will either forget there's a new date or be unable to take the new weekend off from their day jobs.
The only way to avert even part of the weather problem is to have events indoors, but when you're dealing with locomotives, it isn't possible. Also, it won't help if there's a real catastrophe. Wheeling hadn't had a lot of sternwheel festivals when Hurricane Ivan hit during festival week in 2004. At first, the organizers were going to have the festival up on the street behind the Heritage Port, sans steamboats, but when the water got over the street the vendors fled town as well. Fortunately, the event came back the next year. Not all can.

Speaking as an occasional assistant to Sir Topham Hatt (supervisor of the railway where Thomas runs), part of a Thomas event is giving his young friends a chance to be photographed with Sir Topham. My job is to make sure everyone is "queued up" in a orderly fashion and to advise them when it's time for his "tea break". The lineup gives me a chance to answer questions about the Museum and to encourage visitors to return on less-hectic weekends for a more leisurely look at our collection and a less-crowded train or streetcar ride.

In February, 1973, I helped organize and operate the Winter Spectacular at the East Broad Top RR in Pennsylvania. On the Friday night before the weekend-long event began, a snowstorm hit, and over the next 18 hours, deposited well over a foot of snow over the Aughwick Valley. Volunteers were up at the crack of dawn to shovel off the station platform, and the folks at the adjacent Railways to Yesterday trolley museum cleared their line using their ancient Washington, D.C. snow sweeper, but EBT officials decided they could not risk derailing a locomotive, so the entire event was postponed for a week.

That decision was of no consolation to folks already in the region. Many who attended the Winter Spectacular came from great distances, and since the event was scheduled over the three-day Presidents' Weekend, attendance at the postponed shindig was less than optimal. Just one of the vagaries of operating a railfan event in mid-winter in central Pennsylvania. We put up with extreme cold, rain, a thaw and just about everything else over the years, but that snowstorm really stopped us.

The original event, in 1966, had to be postponed for two weeks due to heavy snow and cold temperatures. That one-day gathering featured only M-1, a combine and a caboose, and since it was the first one, only limited, word-of mouth attendance.