Chene Film Festival
The Chene Film Festival in Memphis, TN is the largest kickoff to duck season in the Southern U.S. This will be our second year to attend. This event has a large turnout of waterfowl hunters in the most popular flyway of the U.S. As a brand Chene Gear has incredible momentum in the Hunt community as it solidifies its hold on the South and Southeastern hunting market and is working to expand North. Known for its quality apparel and hunting gear, Chene parallels YETI in that fashion, creating a product that is effective, durable, and practical for the waterfowl hunter. This event provides a great opportunity for YETI to continue its longtime commitment to the hunt community and immerse our brand and attitude even deeper in this area.
Chene Film Festival from an Event Marketing perspective will be a layered activation. We will have a 20x10 tier two build, accompanied by an epilog laser. We will be responsible for cutting cups for the attendees at the event and displaying a small selection of our product. Even though our hunting community may be the most familiar with the brand and our products, with our new innovations, we will have ample opportunity for product education and quality interactions with the festival patrons. Let’s get the people excited about some great cuts on drinkware and as we always do, cement people’s love for YETI by our intentional conversations and find some new fans as we go.
To save images: Right click and "Save image As..."
Although we as a crew handled this flawlessly, this event is having some growing pains. With us only engraving cups from the VIP tables it excludes the average attendee. SO our interactions at the booth with general attendees seems disingenuous. Also with the bar opening at 2pm when doors opens-seems to cause some very intoxicated individuals to be apparent around 10pm. This year there was a lot of complaints of theft from the VIP tables and with the raffle being the only thing keeping attendees at the venue through the tumultuous weather most people were not super happy. Also the weather made it touch and go with the laser. At the peak of the night we had a river of water running under our feet and under the laser causing us to call off any more custom engraving so we could save the machine.
What a whirlwind of duck calls and raffles! This year's Chene Film Festival went off with a very wet and stormy bang. We activated a 10'x20' Tier 2 kit with a laser. Wilson, Brady and I were on site to facilitate custom engraving of drinkware items that were supplied by Yeti and Chene to the VIP tables. From the opening of the doors to the moment we had a river of water running below our feet we were cutting cups.
This year we ran a single Chene graphic, the duck graphic or names. Our workflow went smooth and efficient through the time we were able to engrave the drinkware. Although the weather did not participate, we stoked out as many patrons as we could with engravings.
Set up of the booth went smooth. The Memphis Botanical Gardens are a beautiful venue albeit a little dusty this year and then muddy. Working with the Chene folks was easy and they also were able to assist us with parking the T2 trailer in a safe and secure parking lot for the duration of the event.
This event has been growing in size and presence the past couple of years and I think will continue to do so.