The Double FF — Ffabulous and Fflamboyant — Bus Tour

“When do grown ups … get the chance to be that free?”

“I am so glad it was such a buzz for everyone! I am really, truly grateful and very happy.”

The Ffabulous and Fflamboyant Bus Tour around Cardiff, on Saturday 19 May 2018, was the second consecutive event I produced for Get The Chance during the Gwanwyn Festival of Creativity for Older People in Wales.

Also for the second time, Suzanne Noble, whose Flamboyant Bus Tour in London was the highlight of Advantage of Age’s 2017 events calendar, inspired our Wales-based event.

AofA’s Arts Council of England-funded events drove impressive numbers to their now 3,000 plus members-strong Facebook group, Advantages of Age, Baby Boomers and Beyond and 6,500+ followers-strong Instagram account The London bus tour helped to consolidate the AofA community, and it was the primary driver of human traffic to the group.

Through the power of our partnership with Advantages of Age, Get The Chance’s events have the chance to reach many more people. I was keen to build on the success of my 2017 event, Creative Listening, and to continue to develop this relationship.

Creative Listening could have been perceived as ‘fluffy’ due to it being set in a hot tub. On the contrary, it was quite a cerebral event.

https://youtu.be/bAj7xgrRqYQ

Similarly, AofA’s inspired series of hot tub salons earlier in 2017 were by no means fluffy.

I was pleased to have received another grant and another chance to produce. For many reasons I wanted to mix it up this time, do something different, and I felt that it would be great to do something that was for just for fun for a change, particularly because of how intense the social and political climate in 2018 had been. People needed some levity and an opportunity for some escapism. I had no intention to make light of something that warranted a serious take — but without a doubt a creative event such as a bus tour was a platform to be able to offer such levity, and I loved being in the position to be able to offer people this opportunity.

The Double FF Bus Tour offered participants a chance to express themselves — however the mood took them. There were no dictates, no rules, only to be as flamboyant as they liked — whatever that meant to them, and feel as fabulous as they could — inside and out! A chance to hop on board and be themselves — to come out, enjoy and have as much fun as they possibly could on an open top bus around Cardiff!

So, how did it go?

From a marketing perspective, Facebook was my primary marketing tool. I started to promote the event via the Double F Facebook ‘public group’ in early March —

FFabulous and Fflamboyant Bus Tour

March 12

Gearing up for a great event. It’s greatness will be measured by levity and uncomplicated fun. It will make a nice change. Please come and join us.

The Double F Facebook group page got 75 members; Fabulous and Flamboyant Bus Tour @ Get the Chance page attracted 50 members and continues to get Likes; and the Event page, attracted another 19. Examining the analytics, there is room for improvement on these social media numbers. But before I shoulder any ‘blame’ for these less-than-ffabulous results, I would like to comment on how I felt whilst working on the social media campaign. I felt confused, and somewhat overwhelmed by what was on offer on FB, and I believe the confusion stems from the option to set up a ‘page,’ a ‘group,’ and an ‘event’.

I started by setting up the Double F group,

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1409058989223408/,

which somehow got linked to last year’s Creative Listening page, and then thought I’d better set up a separate page for the Bus Tour, and so I set up The Fabulous and Flamboyant Bus Tour @ Get The Chance

https://www.facebook.com/GetTheChanceCymruWales/,

and then supposed that we needed something to flag up the ‘event’, and set up an Event page:

https://www.facebook.com/events/200768290519952/.

I thought all of these would link up simply and seamlessly and that cross communication would flow, but this was not the case, and as a result, my efforts on FB were split between 3 different places. For the purposes of managing communications with existing ‘members’ and managing promotional efforts to attract more, it became somewhat confusing for me, and I have no doubt that it was not entirely clear to the public either. And so, while Facebook does provide an excellent way to reach the public, I have a feeling that they are now complicating their offer beyond what is practicable. Or, perhaps I need to up my game, and just figure it out! I would welcome comments from others on their experiences with promoting via Facebook.

That said, Facebook analytics have provided me with some reassuring and encouraging stats:- We ‘organically reached’ 2,344 people. Reach is defined as the number of people who had info about the event ‘enter’ their screen.

The majority of those reached were females between the ages of 45 and 64 years old. Iam satisfied with these results. Perhaps my next event will attempt to address the imbalance between men and women reached.

Oftentimes the event organizer is too busy to actually participate, but because most of the work had been done in advance, I was able to feel like a participant. I was able to really enjoy and feel part of the day, which was amazing.

Judging the mood on the day of the event — it was high spirited! The weather was ideal — it could not have been better! And the Royal Wedding on the morning of our 1pm scheduled event was quite likely a contributing factor to the sense of occasion that was in the air. The cumulative effect was wonderful.

“The Double FF Bus Tour… ‘…took a great event and made it better.”

As a producer, I am confident the event went very well, and that it achieved its objectives — we had a chance to do something different, be ourselves and have a fun day out with a group of older people. Measuring the degree of levity and volume of uncomplicated fun — our cups were full and spilling over.

The experience also offered me a learning curve — there were things that could have worked better. Logistics were the primary problem, having a starting point in one place — The National Museum of Wales — and an end point in another — Cardiff Bay. The problem this presented only became clear as it was occurring, by which time it was too late to change. And so, after the full loop through Cardiff City Centre, down to the Bay, and back up to the Castle, participants who had parked their cars in the City Centre near to the museum did not want to go back to the Bay for tea and cake. We were only a handful of people at Ffresh. Too bad we didn’t think to start and end in the Bay, that actually would have made much mores sense …..But that is part and parcel of doing something for the first time. You cannot possibly think of everything. The other was that, due to road closures for another big event going on, which we hadn’t been previously aware of, the bus driver had to improvise the route. For example, I don’t think an open top bus would have gone under the rail bridge in Riverside except under these circumstances — and in their feedback some participants said they’d found this scary. I’m very sorry about that, but it was something that was out of my control. I did check back with the bus company on this matter and I am relieved and reassured by their response:-

Dear Leslie,

Yes, we used the route through Riverside due to diversions on the day.

As you can appreciate we have been running the tours in Cardiff for over 22 years, the bridge although appears low, with a very tall person standing, they clear the bridge with a lot of room. 

We have route risk assessments done on all roads covered by our main tour,  and any roads covered due to diversions. We have used the Riverside bridge route many times over many years.

I am grateful to the bus driver, Maria, for her professionalism and for being such a great sport. She really entered into the spirit of the day. I am also grateful for Lynn Hoare’s contribution — she brought along an array of costumes — hats, feather boas, masks, capes, etc., from Marigold Costumes — which were there for the borrowing.

“The costumes were wonderful; you could see people change as they put them on.”

Another big thanks to Lucy Purrington who was our stills photographer and videographer on the day. Please enjoy her photos in the is article! Here is the short video Lucy produced.

I was thrilled to have connected with Bethan Frieze, the conductor of choir Only Menopause Aloud, and for the choir to have been part of the day. Their contribution added a huge surge of energy!

The event could not have happened without the extra sponsorship from Spice! I am especially grateful to Rachel Gegeshidze and her team for helping promote and attract participants to the event.

And, of course, to Guy O’Donnell, Director of Get The Chance, to Emma Robinson at Gwanwyn, and to Suzanne Noble of Advantages of Age.

There was a lot of positive and constructive feedback, amongst my favorites, pulled out and highlighted in this evaluation:-

Bethan Frieze, Conductor, Only Menopause Aloud, captures a special essence with hers:-

‘When do grown ups (who are not performers) get the chance to be that free?’

Suzanne Noble joined us on the day, and her comment makes me feel proud:-

‘The Double FF Bus Tour took a great event and made it better.’

“A really happy couple of hours…I suspect that it will stay a very happy memory for all.”

Leslie R. Herman

July 2018