ThisWeek CW 02/14/2013
Destination: Canal Winchester hopes to be a one-stop shop for visitors to the area who are looking for things to do.
Executive Director Bruce Jarvis said the organization is soliciting events to round out the community calendar, and has put in place an online submission form to make the process simple.
“We want to be the main place for everything there is to see and do, so we want to have a full calendar available to people,” Jarvis said. “We know there’s a level of activity we aren’t capturing right now, so we want to reach out and make sure we’re getting that.”
The website, destinationcw. org, provides guidelines for which events the group is looking for, he said. Primarily, according to Jarvis, these would be events that are open to the public that would likely draw more than 100 people.
“We’re hoping there are people doing things that are flying under our radar that we can help advertise, which will serve us both,” Jarvis said. “There’s a gentleman in Bloom Carroll, for example, who runs the cutting horse facility.
“Turns out, he hosts nine events a year and each one draws a few hundred people. So here’s an event mostly invisible to the broader community right now that brings over a thousand people or so a year here.”
Jarvis said that, like the cutting horse events, many things would benefit from having Destination: Canal Winchester’s pre-organized information about lodging and other attractions, as well as the free advertising that comes with being including on the community calendar.
“This isn’t just a Canal Winchester thing, either,” he said. “If an event is nearby that could generate overnight stays here and spillover business for our city, then we’re interested in that and want to promote it.”
Over the past year, several new events have started in Canal Winchester, linking with more established events, Jarvis said. He thinks this could be another good opportunity going forward and hopes the calendar system can help with that process.
“Before last year, we didn’t have a 5K race, but we had an extremely successful one that took place on the same day as the Barber Museum barbecue,” Jarvis said. “We’d love to see what other events are popping up around our other current festivals and celebrations.”