Last week during the NFL Draft (which took place in downtown Detroit, in case you hadn’t heard), SEMCOG kicked-off our 2024 Member Meetup series. We couldn’t resist taking advantage of our ideal location to invite members and partners to come downtown and be a part of the Draft Experience. From our office we had incredible views of the Draft Theater and the sea of honolulu blue as people gathered in and around Campus Martius.
We used the opportunity to highlight the positive impact that special events can have for your community. While the NFL Draft is a once in a lifetime type of special event, we know that many of our members host community events big and small across the region every single year. We will be exploring these events in more depth on Thursday, May 16 at a SEMCOG University workshop about how communities are leveraging events to bolster economic development. This workshop will focus on topics such as coordination, planning, marketing, and measuring impacts. Additionally, we’ll hear from experienced event managers and marketing pros about pitfalls to avoid and lessons learned along the way. Visit semcog.org to register.
Post-Draft reports are nothing but positive for Detroit and the region. Attendance records were shattered, including breaking the single-day draft attendance record on Thursday, the first day of the draft. We are proud that we played a small role in bringing 275,000 people together to celebrate Detroit and Southeast Michigan. We even “tracked” what communities our guests represented.
We look forward to the rest of our Member Meetup series this year and hope you can join us at one or more locations as we continue to celebrate special places throughout Southeast Michigan!
Friday, May 17 – Oak Park, Nine Mile redesign: Creating place, parks, and trails along a corridor
Wednesday, July 10 – Howell, Placemaking in action: Summit Gardens, North State St., and Peanut Row Alley
Wednesday, September 18 – Trenton, Detroit International Wildlife Refuge
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