New Partnership Creates One Community Events Calendar
By Todd Shimkus, President of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce

If we counted, I’m reasonably certain that there are hundreds of organizations that organize thousands of events in Saratoga Springs and across Saratoga County every year.

It’s possible - - as Bill Dake from Stewart’s Shops has suggested to me - - that we have more “live” performances, for instance, in Saratoga Springs per capita than anywhere else in the US.

We’re fortunate in that there is ALWAYS something going on that is fun and interesting to do.

But we’re also cursed in that there are often times - - like on Thursdays - - when the number of “things to do in Saratoga” can be overwhelming.

Because of the competition for dates and venues for many of these events, local event organizers have long asked for ONE community calendar. A one-stop shop of sorts that they could consult with to plan events on “slow” days.

Those on the other side of the event equation who are looking for “fun things to do in Saratoga” have also asked for ONE community calendar. In this case however, they wanted such a resource so they can more easily find out what is going on in Saratoga.

Drum roll please….

We now have ONE community calendar.

Thanks to a new partnership with the Saratoga County Chamber, Mannix Marketing, Discover Saratoga, the Saratoga Springs City Center and the Saratoga Springs Downtown Business Association, you can visit any one of our five websites and have access to this one community calendar.

The one calendar now appears on saratoga.com, saratoga.org, discoversaratoga.org, saratogaspringsdowntown.com, and saratogacitycenter.org.
Event organizers can now go to any one of these five sites and enter their event information in one location and it will feed into all five separate sites.

Each site will therefore have the same information.

This is a real win for everyone. The five organizations. Event organizers. Event attendees. Sponsors. Visitors. Tourists. You. Me. Everyone.

Here’s what it took to make this happen.

Rather than our five organizations being interested in the number of visitors going to our individual websites, we all collectively decided that our job is to make it easier for event organizers to get their events found.

The goal is to make sure that local events attract more people. More people coming to events in Saratoga Springs and Saratoga County is good for everyone and for our economy.

It’s frankly getting harder and harder to organize successful events and festivals locally.

Food and facility costs are going up. Competition for sponsorships is fierce. With respect to events in the City, the red tape and costs for security are increasingly problematic.

So with just a little cooperation, we’ve at long last figured out how to make one aspect of hosting and organizing or finding an event easier for everyone.

So now that this is so easy, I think we should host an event to celebrate this achievement.

Everyone will be invited and you can get information about this event on any one of five sites.