Liquid Blue is the Events Coordinator that the VCTC has retained to run most of the major events in Virginia City. While they have been doing this for V.C for the last 5 years few of the merchants really knew or understood what they actually did and why it was decided to contract with this external vendor to run the events when V.C. had been having them for decades without external help.
This meeting was held in order to provide all of the merchants as well as the residents with a full briefing of some of the history of the events since Liquid Blue took them over, what Liquid Blue was responsible for, their rationale for how some of the events were being promoted and managed and to get inputs from the audience on the events that are scheduled for this year.
In addition to a packed house at the B of A Conference Center, the entire Board of the VCTC was there and so were all three Commissioners. That is how important this meeting was for the entire community in V.C. Towards the beginning of the meeting, VCTC Board member Angelo Petrini said that Virginia City has been holding events for decades but that they were always put on by volunteers and that came with many problems. He said that since Liquid Blue has taken over, the events are professionally run and have grown over time. More people equal more sales for the town and that’s good.
Both residents and merchants were in attendance and had questions ranging from garbage and security to how to get more advance notice of event logistics, how to get their establishments to be able to participate and how to promote their smaller events.
I have been going to VCTC meetings for the last 6 years…all of them…and I have to say that I have always been impressed with Liquid Blue’s approach to designing and running these events. They have brought a level of professionalism, transparency and accountability to our town events. They always do a “post-mortem” after each event to see what worked and didn’t work, and always look at how to improve the event so that more people come to town and hopefully spend money in the establishments. They are open to suggestions and have been responsive to requests. They may not always be able to accommodate those requests but they will listen and then explain how it can be done or why it can’t be done.
Below is the link to the presentation that they gave and I suggest that you go thru it if you missed that meeting…it is very complete. If you have any questions please reach out to Liquid Blue for answers……they are very responsive.