5 less-obvious events and themes to inspire your visitor attraction's autumn content planning
Autumn is packed with well-known events you can include in your visitor attraction’s content planning calendar. This is the season of Halloween, harvest, the end of BST, Guy Fawkes, autumn half term, Remembrance Sunday, Thanksgiving and BBC Children in Need.
Of course, not all of those events will be relevant to your visitor attraction. Plus, everyone else will be covering them! So to help you save time on your content forward planning, we’ve compiled a few ideas for events and themes that should go some way towards plugging the gaps. They’ll also help you stand out in the feed!
Theme: Food
Hand in hand with harvest-time comes a glut of food and drink festivals – and with them all sorts of inspiration for foodie-themed content ideas. Autumn is a great time of year to show your support for local food festivals. Check out what’s happening in your area and see how you can get involved. As well as being interesting content for your digital audiences, see it as an opportunity to strengthen your VA’s connections with other local attractions and local, regional and national events organisers.
You could also celebrate British and local produce (and if possible, serve them in your VA’s food outlets) by shining a spotlight on local food heroes such as local specialities, farmers and chefs.
National and international food awareness events you can support include: Scottish Food & Drink Fortnight (4-19 September); British Food Fortnight (18 September-3 October); UK Fungus Day (2 October; if fungi grows in your VA’s grounds, you could encourage younger visitors to take part in the photography competition, tagging your VA); National Curry Week (4-10 October); World Food Day (16 October); UK Coffee Week (18-24 October); and Apple Day (21 October), which celebrates and supports everything to do with apples and orchards. Make sure you tag the event organisers and use the official hashtags to maximise the benefit of taking part in a national campaign.
You could also check if your area celebrates a County Day. Your local tourist board should be able to tell you if/how you can show your support on social media. Lincolnshire Day (1 October), Oxfordshire Day (19 October), Lancashire Day (27 November) and Bedfordshire Day (28 November) are just some of the ones happening in autumn.
Make a Difference Day
Saturday 23 October
Here’s an excuse (as if you needed one) to shout about the volunteers who help keep your visitor attraction running. You could profile a few of the longest-running, or your newest volunteer, or put the word out that you’re looking for more people to join your visitor attraction. The more personal the approach, the better. Use #makeadifferenceday.
Theme: Hibernation
If your VA closes for the winter season, show your audience what goes on behind the scenes as you put the attraction to bed. It’s a personal way to say goodbye for the season – and lends itself neatly to a series of posts anticipating the attraction’s spring re-awakening.
And let’s not forget that a hibernation theme lends itself to plenty of adorable pics of hibernating dormice/hedgehogs/queen bumblebees, guaranteeing a flurry of likes!
World Smile Day
Saturday 2 October
Jump on board Worcester Historical Museum’s (in MA, USA) World Smile Day and do an act of kindness to help at least one person smile! Don’t forget to tag World Smile Day on Twitter and Facebook and use #WorldSmileDay.
Theme: Quirky
The quiet after the storm of the summer holidays allows more space to celebrate the wacky, wonderful and downright weird!
Schedule a post written completely in pirate for International Talk Like a Pirate Day (19 September; there’s no reason for it really, it’s just good fun!).
It may sounds strange, but World Porridge Day (10 October) is for a good cause – feeding hungry children across the globe. Share your favourite porridge toppings or post a photo of yourself smiling with your porridge bowl using #PorridgeSmiles. If you tag @marysmeals on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, they’ll reply with a story from one of the children they help feed.
This one’s especially relevant if any magnificent horse chestnut trees grow in your attraction’s grounds. Re-live your childhood for the World Conker Championships (10 October) by sharing your best conker hardening tips or favourite old-school playground games.
Other key dates in autumn:
- September: World Alzheimer's Month
- 22 September: Autumn Equinox
- 27 September: World Tourism Day
- October: Black History Month
- 7 October: World Poetry Day
- 27 October: World Day for Audiovisual Heritage
- November: World Vegan Month
- 13 November: World Kindness Day
- 26 November: Black Friday or Buy Nothing Day (which team are you on?)
Looking ahead:
- 2 December: International Day for the Abolition of Slavery
- 3 December International Day of Persons with Disabilities
- 4 December: Small Business Saturday
- 5 December: World Soil Day
