Whitney Arnell
WYSC Community Outreach
Public Relations
For my project, I worked with the Wilson Youth Symphony Chorus (WYSC), and they are a youth orchestra located in Rupert, Idaho. I was a member of this orchestra in high school, and I loved it so much. I wanted to use the skills I have learned at BYU-Idaho to help increase the awareness of them in the community and help them get more students involved.
To try and accomplish this goal, I planned two different events for the orchestra. The first event was a second annual youth music camp that was supposed to take place on June 14th. I worked on the advertising, organizing, and more for the camp. We posted on both Instagram and Facebook on two separate accounts, and we had lots of people sharing each post to help spread the word even more. We ordered posters that I put up in businesses around the community, and we also had sandwich boards posted at major stoplights as well. This is the graphic that was used for all forms of advertising. It was designed by Makyla Blacker, and it is the same graphics that the used for the music camp last year.
I also emailed every private lesson teacher in the area to have them share with their students. I put together the schedule for the camp and worked on the giveaway where we gave away a free tuition to the camp. One of my goals when I started was to increase the WYSC’s instagram followers. Through the giveaway, their followers grew by 11%.
I wrote a press release for the music camp that was put in the local newspaper, “The Voice”, for two weeks in a row. I’ve attached a link to the press release I wrote.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_pXspevdtc4KOhsyJ65yiLsycXMcl0hm/view?usp=share_link
Sadly, this music camp was cancelled two days before it was supposed to happen due to a lack of attendance. We only had 4 campers signed up, so our committee decided to cancel the camp all together. This was obviously a setback, but I switched gears and decided to create a full analysis with tips on how they can prevent this from happening next year. I gave ideas on how they could advertise sooner to students, pick a date with less conflicts, and possibly change their whole age demographic.
After the camp was cancelled, I was in need of more hours for my project, so the WYSC asked if I would help them plan a future fundraiser to raise money for the symphony. After lots of brainstorming, I came up with this idea to do a Battle of the Bands. The WYSC loved the idea, so I started planning nearly every detail of the event. This is the poster I designed for the event that will be printed and put up around the community.
This is the social media post I made, and I’ve already created it in the correct sizes for Instagram, Facebook, Stories, and a Facebook Cover photo. It will be posted on two separate accounts, and we possibly will create an Instagram account for the Battle of the Bands itself.
Since this fundraiser hasn’t happened yet, I created a full run down of how the event is going to work and everything they might need to know while setting up. It goes over the venue and date, how they’re going to advertise, the materials they’ll need, the awards they can choose to give out, how and when auditions are going to run, they budget they have, and the possible food vendors they can ask to come.
I wrote another press release for the Battle of the Bands that I’ve attached in a link, and it will be published on their website and in the newspaper once we get closer.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13aaM7Lc6MqVyXIVYaULgo4NJGVd3i3Sy/view?usp=share_link
Through this fundraiser, I’m really hoping it will increase the awareness of the Symphony in the community, and in return will help the symphony get more students involved.
I had a lot of fun doing this project. I was a member of this orchestra in high school, and it’s something I’m still really passionate about. This was a great way for me to use the skills that I’ve learned at BYU-Idaho to stay involved in something I love. There was obvioulsy a failure involved, but it was a great learning experience for me and helped me learn how to just keep going. I spent a total of 52 hours on this project.