The Bay of Lights’ is a 1.5-mile trail adorned with 18 breath-taking light installations, inviting visitors to delight in interactive activities, stunning visuals, and festive music that will captivate all ages.
The event runs annually from the 28th of November to the 2nd of January and is organised by Torbay Council using funding secured through its successful Towns Deal Funding bid and supported by SWISCo and the English Riviera BID Company (ERBID).
The ERBID Company unites over 1,000 local businesses, authorities, and stakeholders with a shared mission to enhance tourism and drive sustainable economic growth throughout the region.
pieces of media coverage in top-tier outlets including national, regional and broadcast placements driving increased traffic to the event website
opportunities to see (OTS) through media exposure driving direct ticket sales and increasing top of funnel sales pipeline for conversion via digital and social media
The 2024 Bay of Lights was the most successful edition to date with an average increased footfall of 6,800 per day, and a total of 1.2 million visitors.
The ERBID Company approached Four Marketing Agency with the objective of increasing brand awareness, improving press visibility, and ultimately to highlight the incredible events, activities, and locations across the English Riviera, whilst telling the stories of its local businesses.
On the run up to the festive season, the ERBID Company were particularly keen to promote their annual ‘Bay of Lights’ event, as the activity creates a great opportunity to drive footfall and business into the area.
Our team developed a comprehensive communications strategy to the ERBID Company to achieve these goals. We worked closely with them to gain a clear understanding of their challenges and developed a clear plan to support them towards overcoming these and achieving their full potential for the event.
A careful combination of strategic media relations, stakeholder engagement, influencer management and digital consultation with their in-house team enabled us to engage with key audiences on the run up to this event. We also hosted meetings with regional and national publications to strengthen journalist relationships, resulting in standout editorial coverage.
Securing press coverage in the lead-up to Christmas was notoriously challenging due to the highly competitive media landscape, however we were able to leverage strong journalist relationships to ensure impactful media placements.
Four Marketing Agency also engaged with local business owners to raise their profiles and successfully coordinated interviews with broadcast media to further amplify reach throughout the duration of the event. Further to this, we were also on hand to provide additional crisis communications should any potential challenges arise.
“We attended a Bay of Lights ‘wash up’ meeting with the Council’s Events team and others including Jackie Thomas, the council’s Cabinet Member for Tourism, Culture & Events. The results of your media coverage had been shared, and the Events team made a point of praising the excellent job that Four did in supporting the event. Patch Jobson has worked with many PR teams via events, theatre etc, and he said, ‘it is rare to get that level of delivery’ and particularly wanted us to pass on their thanks and congratulations. So, a huge thank you to you and your team!”