A special event designed to draw Baby Boomers to Reno during the slow winter season is taking shape in record time.
Reno Sparks Convention and Visitor Authority launched the idea and will provide publicity support, but won't pay event producers, who must generate their own paychecks from ticket sales and sponsor fees.
Those tasks it outsourced to Liquid Blue, a marketing, promotion and events firm in Reno, and to Rich Gosse and Associates, a Bay Area firm that produces more than 150 events a year nationwide.
Liquid Blue Partner Neil Horning says similar festivals often require two years to organize, but the National Baby Boomers Festival kicks off in just four months: March 27 to 29 at the Silver Legacy Hotel and Casino.
Liquid Blue will contact 150 companies as possible supporters of the Baby Boomers Festival and maybe 25 will commit, he adds.
Meanwhile, Richard Gosse and Associates is charged with bringing in the bodies.
"I sent 10,500 email blasts to my singles list," says Gosse, who started that database 30 years ago when he founded Society for Single Professionals. While the Baby Boomers Festival will certainly feature a national flirting contest, it isn't just for singles. It will also include dance parties, dance contests, wine tasting, speed dating, food, entertainment and speakers.
Details are at babyboomersfestival.com.
Meanwhile, advertisers will be courted to angle for boomer interests such as health and fitness, beauty and fashion, wine and cuisine.
The visitors authority targets boomers because they are not only the wealthiest age group but also a key visitor segment.
"We want to brand Reno as the Boomer capital of the world," says Gosse. "We want to make it an annual event, but just a weekend to start. Next year, maybe two weekends. And ultimately a month long. We would
like it to be as big an event as Hot August Nights or Art Town."
But this first year, the fledgling festival faces a double-barreled challenge: weather and the economy.
"In today's economy, it's tough to get people away from stay-cations," says Gosse. "You have to build an event so exciting that people will come."
The second challenge is unsettled spring weather that makes driving over Donner Pass chancy. Gosse says, "A blizzard will kill it."
