Here’s hoping none of the 1,700-plus families living in The Pinehills master planned community in Plymouth, Mass., are suffering from a lack of things to do. There are 10 miles of paved trails, a village green with restaurants and shops, and a resident activity center.
But that’s Pinehills, which marked its first year of sales in 2011 with New England’s First Food Truck Festival, where food trucks of all kinds circled a main stage of rockers competing to be named the WBOS 92.9 Battle of the Bands champion.
Pinehills managing partner Tony Green says event programming has taken on a life of its own, creating community vibrancy that attracts buyers and engages homeowners as the final one-third of a 3,000-unit build-out completes construction. “Events have become a critical component for how people get to know us and get to know each other, providing a context that is much different from how we formed buyer relationships just a decade ago,” Green says.
Scenemaking is taking over where placemaking leaves off for master planned community marketers seeking audience with first-time home buyers, move-ups, and empty nesters alike. Often consuming up to 50% of an annual marketing budget, events deliver the holy grail of high-volume foot traffic while amenities, design, and neighborliness are on full display.
“You’ll get more echo chamber result from event-based marketing than any kind of traditional media advertising,” says Brock Smethills, chief technology officer at Highlands Ranch,
Colo.–based Sterling Ranch Development, which invites university professors and scientists from Siemens Technology to speak at events about Sterling Ranch’s smart infrastructure and energy-efficient technology.
Just west of downtown Fort Worth, Texas, Republic Property Group announced that its 15,000-home Walsh community would feature the Makerspace at Walsh, offering a woodshop, computer design software, 3D printers, laser cutters, robotics, and an electronics lab for both adults and kids to hone crafts and collaborate on ideas.
“People still tend to get ensconced within their immediate surroundings, and as developers we have to activate the communal space,” says RPG director of marketing and sales Travis Selcer, who adds that a typical RPG community program can hit 200-plus events annually. “You get people into your neighborhoods and they’ll get a perspective of what it’s like to live there in a way that’s almost magical from a marketer’s perspective.”
Pinehills’ Green advises marketers to be creative in planning events for both small and large groups alike. “We embrace events as simple as an open house or as complicated as our 14-year run of Art on the Green festival or our annual Reindog holiday parade that has 70 dogs dressed up as reindeer,” he says. “Whether it is a few people or thousands, we have shuttles to the model homes and staff on hand to answer questions.”
