Chicago’s Taste of Randolph Street Festival saw the return of Visit Denver this June. The Colorado CVB sponsored the festival’s West Stage, christening it the Denver Live on the Rocks Stage and decorating it with a full-size replica of the Red Rocks Amphitheatre and hosting a VIP client event.
The stage was framed with hand-carved and hand–painted foam rocks that were based on the Red Rocks Amphitheatre: the world’s only naturally occurring, acoustically perfect outdoor amphitheatre. The structure, combined with the VIP client event, were conceived to inspire both leisure visitation and convention business growth for Denver.
“We chose to return to Taste of Randolph Street for the second year because it was an incredibly successful experience the first year,” says Richard Scharf, president and CEO of Visit Denver. “Any time we can both inspire leisure visitors and increase potential convention business is an excellent opportunity for us. Chicago is home to a large concentration of corporate and association meeting business; and it is one of Denver’s top feeder markets for leisure travel. So, the tens of thousands of people that come through the festival and the more than 100 clients and guests who were able to attend the VIP event presented the ideal marketing opportunity.”
The client event inspired 71 percent of attendants to visit Denver after partaking in a photo both and interacting with a street team and plenty of visual branding.
“The clients we hosted in our VIP area represented more than $400 million in business for our city,” says Rachel Benedick, vice president of sales and services. “Last year our guests were impressed by the creative and innovative event; and this year, we saw nearly double the response because of the buzz it generated among industry professionals.”
