December 9, 2023 • 54 mins
Get ready for fun as we take you on a remarkable journey with George Sharp, a pioneering figure in the PNW festivals and events industry. From his beginnings as a gorilla balloon-gram performer, to becoming the first mascot of the National Lentil Festival, and on to become a leader in rural economic development through special events, George's story is as intriguing as it is inspiring. His passion for promoting tourism and commerce is a highlight of our conversation, and his account of working with Washington State Tourism and the State Department of Commerce is something you can't afford to miss.
Discover what motivates George. His mission of transforming lives through community events will inspire you. This episode takes an in-depth look at how he used the "We Love Rainier" campaign to breathe new life into the Rainier community, and his honest discussion on the challenges and triumphs in managing community events in Thurston County, including battling the impact of COVID-19 on event attendance, is a testament to his dedication and resilience.
This isn't just a conversation about events; it's a masterclass in leadership, community engagement, and economic development. Drawing from his experiences managing multitudes of events and other businesses, George underscores the importance of strong leadership. He also offers invaluable advice to event planners and shares his personal formula for the success for communities and organizations. Don't miss out on this insightful, entertaining, and heartwarming episode.
Extra: Just days before the release of this podcast, a local paper published an article on George revealing important contextual information that George chose to not discuss at the time we were recoding this podcast episode. Please read.
https://www.chronline.com/stories/longtime-thurston-county-tourism-promoter-george-sharp-keeps-working-through-kidney-failure,330030
George Sharp photo credit Shanna Paxton Photography.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
George (00:00):
This is George Sharp and you're listening to One Hour to
Doors.
Jon (00:08):
This is One Hour to Doors, a podcast about the business and
soul of the festivals andevents industry.
I'm your host, Jon Stone.
Every episode of One Hour toDoors explores the people,
issues, insights and trendsimpacting the enterprise of
bringing people and communitiestogether in common cause.
My guest today is George Sharp.
(00:31):
I know George through theWashington Festivals and Events
Association, of which he hasbeen a fellow past- president,
and this year he was inductedinto the Association's Hall of
Fame, the highest eventsindustry honor in the state.
George works tirelessly topromote tourism and commerce in
Thurston County, which is hometo the Washington State Capitol,
(00:51):
and beyond.
He has served in impactfulroles with Washington State
Tourism and the State Departmentof Commerce.
His awards and credentials inhis field are too many to list.
The festivals and eventsindustry is George's native
language and, by my observation,his advocacy for our industry
is nothing short of relentless.
I want to learn more about whatfuels his extraordinary drive
(01:16):
and love for what we do.
We are recording today from theSharp residence in beautiful
Olympia, washington.
George, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, john.
My pleasure, I'm excited tocatch up with you.
I don't know your origin story.
How did you wind up in thefestivals and events biz?
George (01:34):
So in 1988, my wife and I opened up a balloon store in
Pullman, Washington, and we alsodid Gorillagrams.
So I was a gorilla, blackgorilla, pink gorilla.
I was a monster, a chicken, andjust did all these kind of fun
Gorillagram stories to peopleout of their houses.
Well, the festival went from aharvest festival in Pullman
where we said there's 3,000harvest festivals in America.
(01:56):
I was on a committee.
I said why don't we dosomething different?
And then Jim Crow from theColiseum said why don't we
celebrate something that's herein our own community, which is
lentils?
And they grow 98% of thelentils in the United States
right there in Pullman.
So the National Lentil Festivalwas born and they said, well,
let's create a mascot.
So they created a mascot.
He looks like a big cookie witheyes and lips and about six
(02:20):
feet tall.
And then they had a contest toname him and a sixth grade
teacher named him Tase T Lentiland they said we need somebody
to be Tase T Lentil.
And they said, George, well,you do all these mascot things,
how about you be our firstmascot?
And I said I'm gay and let's gofor it.
So we did that.
That first year.
(02:40):
We wrote a rap for it.
The only thing I can rememberfrom the lap rap now is it was
low in fat and high in protein,but it was like a minute and a
half rap.
And in Spokane Channel 4 calledand so Tase T Lentil got to go
up to Spokane, be on Channel 4News and do the rap for them.
And that was the birth of mebeing Tase T Lentil, the first
(03:01):
mascot of the National LentilFestival.
Jon (03:04):
Okay, that's first of all.
That's priceless.
But of all the folks who havebeen on this show so far
discussing origin stories,you're different.
You just jumped right in at thedeep end.
George (03:15):
Yeah well, I was on the visitor and convention bureau
committee that was kind of incharge of bringing visitors to
town, and one of the things wewanted to do is put Pullman on
the map by creating a foodie anda festival that people would go
oh wow, that's different, let'sgo check that out.
And so that really intrigued meas well 98% of lentils are
grown in Washington state.
In the United States are grownin Washington state.
(03:37):
Not enough.
That's still true today becausethat was back in 1989.
I think there's some otherstates like Montana have started
to grow lentils.
That didn't grow lentils backthen but I'm sure a lot probably
the highest amount produced inthe United States is still right
there on the Palouse.
Jon (03:54):
Is it?
It must be the particularclimate or soil, or something.
George (03:57):
It's the soil right, the Palouse Loam soil.
It's a good rotation crop toothat they put in, so they'll do
wheat, then they'll rotate tolentils, they'll do garbanzo
beans and then they'll go backto wheat.
I did not know that.
Jon (04:11):
Okay, so gorilla balloon, grams, lentil festival.
How long were you with thelentil festival?
George (04:18):
So then the next year they needed a visitor and
convention bureau director andmy wife and I ended up closing
our store because we lost$45,000 in 18 months and we put
the last six months of ourinventory on credit cards and
we're proud to say that we tookseven years to pay off that
inventory on those credit cards.
But we did.
We didn't file bankruptcy, andso when they opened up the next
(04:40):
year for the visitor andconvention bureau position, I
applied for that because I hadbeen Pullman's kind of biggest
cheerleader already anyway,because I had owned a restaurant
and a motel and understood theindustry, and so they hired me
to be the visitor and conventionbureau director and with that
you became immediately executivedirector of the national lentil
festival, and I may have fibbedand said that I liked lentils
(05:01):
during the interview.
I like lentils now, at thattime not so much.
Jon (05:06):
I just want to be clear.
I was laughing with you, not atyou in terms of your loss.
I've been there, done that, sodid you go from Pullman to
Olympia then?
Was that a direct no actually?
George (05:19):
Mike and Chicky Brennan recruited me to go to the ski to
sea festival in 1998.
Jon (05:25):
So you, didn't know anything about that.
George (05:26):
Yes, I went up there I worked with them for a year, but
I missed tourism so much that Icalled the Washington state
tourism director, then RobinPollard, and said, hey, I'm
going to be looking for atourism related job and would
you mind being a reference forme?
And she said, well, I justhappened to have a world tourism
development manager job, newjob opening up, and I encourage
(05:46):
you to apply for that.
So I applied, and I think therewas two of us that were the
final cut when somebody was fromTri-Cities area than myself,
and I was lucky enough to getthat job.
And so then I went on with thatjob and worked for the
department of commerce for 11years before a governor cut me
out of the budget during thehard times there are 2009, 2010.
And so my position waseliminated.
(06:08):
Then I went to work for theVisitor and Convention Bureau in
Thurston County, and I ran thatfor five years as well.
Jon (06:14):
And so now you're with the Economic Development Council of
Thurston County.
That's correct.
Yeah, tell us about thatorganization.
George (06:22):
So the Thurston Economic Development Council's main job
is to retain jobs, recruit jobsinto our community and then grow
and expand the economy.
And we do that in severaldifferent ways.
We have one program called theWashington P-TAC, which is now
Washington Accelerator, and theyteach businesses how to get
government contracts with cities, counties, state and federal
(06:44):
agencies, tribes and then largecontractors who are required to
hire smaller contractors to dotheir job.
That's eight offices around thestate that we have, so that's a
big, impactful program.
We also have the WashingtonCenter for Women in Business.
That serves 34 of our countiesin Washington state and they're
teaching businesses how to startup, how to grow, how to expand,
(07:05):
how to double their income overa year's time, and so that's
two of our major programs there.
And we have what's called theCenter for Business and
Innovation as part of the EDCand that program takes people
all the way from start up, allthe way to expanding their
business.
And those are the three mainprograms we have at the EDC.
But we do a lot of other things.
So I'm the Rural ProgramManager and I run a program
(07:29):
called the South ThurstonEconomic Development Initiative,
and so we support six ruralcommunities.
We support Yelm that's 10,000population, Rainier, that has
about 2,200 population, Tenino,that has 1,800 population,
Bucoda, that has 580 population,and then Grand Mound is not an
incorporated city, so they'reoverseen by the county and they
(07:51):
have about 4,000 population.
And then Rochester, which isonly four miles away, also has
about 4,000 population.
So that's my job is to serveall those communities to do
community and economicdevelopment activities.
We meet on a monthly basis onthe third Friday we meet from 8
to 9.30.
And I have all three countycommissioners there.
I have an elected official fromeach one of the cities in town.
(08:13):
We have all three chambers.
So there's Yelm Chamber, TeninoChamber, Grand Mound, Rochester
Chamber, we have the Visitorand Convention Bureau, we have
the Thurston Regional PlanningCouncil, we have Washington
State University Extension, theConservation District, and we
all get together and we talkabout what are best practices
and community and economicdevelopment, what are funding
(08:33):
sources that are comingavailable, and then how can we
all work together?
And more importantly is whatare the lessons learned and best
practices and some lessons thatsome of the communities learn?
We want the other ones to knowthat, hey, we never, ever want
to do that because how it turnedout, or wow, that was a great
win for them.
How can we repeat that in othercommunities?
(08:53):
So that's what we work with indoing that from the rural
program.
Jon (08:58):
I follow you on Facebook and so I can see your work, your
travel to these communities andlocal festivals.
Local events is a constant,year round theme that I see
through all of your travels.
George (09:12):
I attend over 25 festivals every year, and most
of them are all in our ruralcommunities.
So, for example, Yelm puts afestival starting on that first
Saturday in June and they have afestival every single weekend
through almost the end of August, and so I attend a lot of those
festivals.
I'm an advisor to all thesecommunities about how to grow or
make their festival and eventsbetter too, so I'll attend and
(09:34):
I'll give them feedbackafterwards.
This went really well, and thisis some places where I think it
could create a better wowfactor for your audience.
Jon (09:42):
And are the festivals having a positive economic
impact on these communities?
George (09:46):
They are.
And one example is for Bukota,which is B-U-C-O-D-A 11 months
of the year and then byproclamation they changed their
name officially to B-O-O-C-O-D-Afor the whole month of October
and we just put on a whole monthlong festival.
The first weekend was a familyfun day.
The second weekend was a Hearstprocession, which is like a
(10:07):
parade, and viewing is, whichwas like a car show.
Then the third weekend waswhat's ours are casket races,
and last year we had six caskets.
This year we had 18 casketscompete and it was phenomenal.
In the bar there called Joe'sPlace, the 125 year old bar
fifth generation owns and saidwe had our biggest day in the
(10:28):
history of Joe's Place on theCasket Race Day, and so from an
economic development standpointthat was a big win for them.
But they've had a good weekendevery weekend in that.
So wow, I also coordinatedthrough the EDC.
We have contracts with the cityof Tanano for do economic
development, but also for me toserve as their creative district
manager.
(10:49):
And then we have contract withthe Tanano chamber for me to
serve as their staff, becausethey're only like a 50 member
chamber, so they don't haveenough money to generate to have
a full-time or even a part-timereal staff member, whereas they
can contract with us and Iserve it.
So this year I actuallycoordinated the Tanano Oregon
Trail Days the fourth weekendand they reports this year was
(11:10):
it was the best vessel they'veever had and that all the
businesses experienced a lot.
We have one retailer there.
She normally does about $250 to$500 on a Saturday.
On Oregon Trail Day weekend shedid $2,000 in revenue so she
was extremely excited.
And then the restaurant therein town.
The chamber president actuallyowns the restaurant and it's one
(11:30):
of her biggest days of the yearis the Oregon Trail Days.
And then we bring in about 40vendors there who are also
making money arts and craftsvendors that are selling their
product there at the festival.
We have also food vendors, likemost festivals.
So we had 10 food vendors thatcame in and they were making
some money off of that.
And then our museum gets moredonations during that time of
(11:52):
the year.
So it really is a trulyeconomic impact for these
communities to do thesefestivals.
Jon (11:58):
So, George, historically we only really see each other at
the WFEA events once, twice,three times a year or something
like that, but, as I saidearlier, I track you year-round
on your Facebook.
What made me reach out to sitdown today is the fact that,
over the years and years andyears, your enthusiasm for the
(12:20):
festivals and events industryappears to be stuck on level 10.
It's like your enthusiasm neverwanes through ups and downs in
the industry, through sunny dayor rainy day, it makes no
difference.
You seem to be almost immune tobeing slowed down, put down
about anything with the industry.
(12:41):
You're perhaps one of thegreatest advocates cheerleaders
out there that I know of whatdrives you.
George (12:48):
Well, it really comes down to my personal mission
statement that I've had since Iwas 17 years old and that was to
make a difference in the livesof other people.
And one of the easiest andfastest ways we can do that is
through festival and events,through threefold.
One is just for the consumerwho comes to the event, brings
them happiness and joy andexperience that they can have.
(13:08):
And then two to the community,who's putting it on, or the
organization allows them tobrand their community around, so
brand their organization toprove that they're credible
through their community andthey're important to our
community.
And then third is the impact ithas for the business community
which, having been a smallbusiness owner before and had a
festival in my town and didbenefit, didn't benefit
(13:31):
sometimes.
I think there's a way for us tohelp the community threefold
that way the consumer, theorganization, the community's
name.
And then also to impact forthose businesses.
And that's what drives me, itmakes me, that's my purpose, my
passion.
And then I think it's one ofthe fastest ways to do it
because you bring you know two,three, five, 10,000 people to
(13:52):
your community to have thisexperience and hopefully they
have a good experience and theywant to come back, maybe not
even at next festival, butanother time of that year.
So it's a great way to bringmore, bring more income into
your community from outside.
Jon (14:07):
In your EDC work with these various rural communities.
How do you define success?
What are some of your metrics?
So?
George (14:15):
One of the success I had was in 2018, there's a city
council member, george Johnson,with the city of Rainier, and he
came to our study meeting inJanuary that year and I had the
communities tell what were theirsuccess stories for the year
before and what are they workingon, and he got extremely fired
up, said I want to do that forRainier what Tenino did for
Tenino.
(14:35):
And so he came and he called me.
He says, hey, I really want todo something for my community.
He said you really want to dosomething for your community?
He said, yep.
I said, okay, I'll come out onSaturday.
You can show me everythingabout your community you want to
do and what your goals are andthat.
So I went out there on aSaturday.
We spent five and a half hoursin his truck driving around the
community, going, meeting witheverybody, and after we were
(14:57):
done with that, he said yeah, Ireally want to do.
I said, okay, let's brainstormthat out and what that looks
like.
Because they had apathy at thattime in their community, the
people weren't engaged, weren'thappening, etc.
So we ended up creating whatwas called we Love Rainier a
community organization, kind oflike a quasi chamber of commerce
for them and create a nonprofit organization.
The first meeting we did, webrought 15 people to kind of do
(15:18):
a pilot test of hey, are youinterested in this?
Would you participate in thisIf we build something out and do
that?
So there was interest.
So a month later, on May 18th2018, we held our first we Love
Rainier community meeting.
We had 30 people come to themeeting and we asked each one of
them what's your view, what'syour vision, how do you want
engaged with your community?
And that launched the We LoveRainier campaign.
(15:40):
And so then we set up a matrixwhere we created what are all
the projects that you want to dofor Rainier?
And then I asked themprioritize your top five
projects?
And they had 20 some projectsthey wanted to do.
So we picked the top five.
They will say how are we goingto accomplish them and who's
going to take role?
Well, george, really, he's citycouncil member, but then he
(16:02):
became chair of the we LoveRainier program and kicked it
off that year.
That group has stuck togetherall this time and now they're
phenomenal what they do.
They just put on a bigHalloween event yesterday.
Probably had 2000 kids come tothat and they have only 2000
people who live in that town, sopeople from other.
They do a big holiday Christmastime event.
(16:22):
They did Easter egg hunt for10,000 eggs for kids last year.
They just got done distributingdictionaries to all third
graders in Rainier.
So this community has been abig success for me to watch them
grow.
I helped them in the beginning,like I ran the meetings the
first year, because what happensthe first year?
Politics and personalities canstop things dead.
(16:44):
So I was a referee and Imanaged that and set
expectations.
And then, when difficultconversations had to happen, I
managed those conversations andthat kept them going, kept them
alive.
And then the next year Georgetook over and he was able to be
the chairperson of that and heran that for the next four years
and now they're getting otherleadership people to start and
(17:06):
step into that.
So that's one success for them.
And then, of course, Bucoda.
They got over 100,000 mediacoverage in 2018, just because I
had them buy a hearse.
I convinced the mayor to buy ahearse.
He calls me up the day we'rebuying a hearse.
He says, George, you sure weshould be buying a hearse
because we used a grant from thePort of Olympia for $1,000 and
(17:27):
then an anonymous donor foranother $1,000 if we would buy a
black hearse, she said.
And so we bought that.
They took that.
King 5 came down immediately thenext week, did the two and a
half minute story about Bacota,the haunted house and buying a
hearse.
And then the Olympian came andthey did a one and a half minute
story on it and that story gotpicked up in every single
(17:49):
newspaper website across Americathat Tegna at that time was
owner of, and so that was a bigdeal.
And then Q13 came down and theydid four stories on it about
the haunted house, about thecasket races and then about
Joe's place.
I convinced Joe's place tocreate, called the spirit of Joe
drink which Joe died behind thebar.
(18:11):
He was the owner of the bar in1938.
And so they believe he's stillthere as a ghost, and so he
created a drink with a localsandstone distillery bacon,
whiskey and then also thissipping vinegar from Wildheart
sipping vinegar.
So it was unique andcharacteristic, just that area.
Well, Ellen Taylor came down andshe wanted to do it, so she and
I went behind the bar.
(18:31):
The bar manager is supposed todo it, but she showed up late
and they said no, we got to gonow, so I stepped in and taught
her how to make this drink.
It was really fun.
So then that went on there.
So four different stories, butjust it was a phenomenal.
Of all the communities.
I've worked in probably over ahundred communities in 30 years
because I was with State TourismOffice and I go to all these
communities and teach them howto do community economic
(18:52):
development through publicrelations, product development
or marketing.
And this little town of Bucodahas gotten the more media
coverage than any of the othercommunities I work with, so I
call that success for them aswell.
Jon (19:03):
Now how many years for Bucoda?
George (19:06):
Festival now Started in 2018, and we only skipped 2020.
We did 2021.
Jon (19:12):
Okay, that's remarkable because I have seen media
coverage for that event that'snot just something in my
Facebook that's getting servedup because of my associations or
whatever, like I've seennatural in the wild media
coverage for that event in thelast, within the last couple of
years, yeah, every every year.
That's pretty remarkable forlisteners that are not local.
(19:33):
I mean, this is a very rural,small town.
George (19:37):
It just blows me away that in every year, I try to
create something unique,different.
That's going to be the mediaattention draw for that.
So, and it's worked every year,the casket races issue we huge,
with, you know, tripling thenumber.
But also I talked to theChronicle, which is out of
Centralia, to become actualsponsor of it, and so they're
promoting it through all theirmedia.
(19:58):
We had Evening Magazine comedown in 2021 and they did a
story.
Well, they replayed that storyagain this last week.
So every year they replay thestory and so it just keeps
growing as a those are actuallyremarkable statistics.
Actually for a little bitty townof 560 people.
Jon (20:17):
That's absolutely remarkable.
Congratulations, thank you.
Something else that you saidthat caught my attention was I
think you're talking about thecity of Rainier and how they
were having trouble internallycoming to agreement on this or
that, and you said that you wereable to go in and act as a
referee Right Now.
That raised an eyebrow with mebecause, at least in my limited
(20:40):
experience in going in cold toother communities, generally
speaking, the outsider isn'tlooked upon as the trusted
referee.
How did you, how does that work?
How did you manage to?
George (20:52):
I think the biggest thing, john, is people know that
I care and it comes across thatI care and that I have their
best interest in it, and thenalso that I have 30 years
experience working in all thesedifferent communities and I've
seen about every kind ofinteraction there is.
I stopped a fist fight betweena city council member and a
heritage commission member inCle Elum, who are fighting over
(21:16):
where the visitor informationcenter was going to be located.
Jon (21:19):
No, and when?
George (21:20):
I tell them that story, they go oh, wow, and so, and I'm
fair to everybody.
And then I also have a problem,a lot of probing questions when
there is disagreements, andsometimes I say we just have to
agree that we're going todisagree and we're going to
create a parking lot and stuffthat don't we don't agree on
right now.
We're going to stick over inthat parking lot and we'll come
(21:40):
back at another time and we'llask more questions of what kind
of questions do we need to getto and research to do to kind of
solve that.
But let's not stop all theprogress that we're making right
now for your community andfocus on those top five
priorities that you have thatyou want to accomplish and so
brilliant.
Jon (21:57):
You've shared a couple of success stories.
How about some challenges orthings that didn't quite pan out
the way that you?
George (22:05):
The biggest challenges that we've seen is one is time.
People have enough time toinvest in and be volunteers in
and be part of.
Second is financial.
That's always a challenge ofhow are we going to pay for that
, and I've told communities thatif you have a really quality
project, the money will come.
It will just take time, butwe'll identify all the funding
(22:27):
sources and we'll apply.
If you get told no, then we'llask why were we told no of the
funding source?
What do we need to do to tweakwhat we need to apply the next
time for a grant source and thenjust keep coming back until
we're successful?
And that's called perseverance.
Jon (22:44):
What's the good news in Thurston County
George (22:47):
Well, I think the biggest thing that's happening
in Thurston County is that we'reseeing people coming back out
to festival and events andcelebrating them, and we saw
record growth in a lot of ourfestivals this year.
Olympia Harbor Days was aphenomenal turnout that they had
and they did some creativethings.
They had a drone show this yearfor the first time ever.
First time ever in.
Jon (23:06):
Thurston County.
George (23:07):
First time ever in Thurston County, and so that was
on a Friday night and it was atnight time and just an amount
of people that came out to watchthat was crazy to me to have
that many like I don't know,probably 10,000 people came out
nine o'clock at night to watch adrone show on a Friday night.
And that was over Labor Dayweekend too, so you know, some
people leave town.
(23:28):
But and then she also broughtthe Tenino Stone Carvers who are
pretty famous for work thatthey do and did a demonstration
there and that was pretty cool.
What's that?
They actually take Teninosandstone and they carve that
into street addresses, artwork,all kinds of things, and so
they've that's a 100 year oldindustry from Tenino and they've
(23:50):
got five stone carvers therethat are still practicing that.
They just did a huge thing inTom Waterfalls Park of the
Olympia Brewery logo and it'slike 15 feet wide and 12 feet
tall.
It's pretty darn cool, and sothey're well known.
But to bring it to Harbor Days,which is about tugboats and
tugboat races and arts andcrafts vendors and stuff, so
(24:12):
she's thinking outside the box.
She also brought Chehalis Tribewho did their salmon bake.
Jon (24:17):
So, you.
George (24:18):
You're there and you're seeing salmon on planks being
cooked over open fire, which isvery unique and different and
not always able to experiencethat.
So that was another thing shedid.
Jon (24:27):
I know from talking with Carol that Harbor Days has had
its share of challenges inrecent years and part of that I
can paint a broad stroke over.
All of it kind of an identitycrisis of sorts, changing times,
changing demographics.
So it warms my heart to hear they changed things up a little
(24:48):
bit this year and found successbeyond their expectations.
George (24:52):
I say they found relevance, still to be relevant
to the community and changed upwhat they were doing.
For that, and Carol to becredited she kept Harbor Days
alive when it probably wouldhave died if it wasn't for her.
Because, of COVID.
She kept it alive and COVID dida many, many, many, many Harbor
Days where she had porch.
People decorate their porchesin nautical theme.
Jon (25:16):
She's a force.
So those numbers 10,000 peoplecoming out for Harbor Days,
which is fantastic for thatevent.
In the last few years we'vebeen coming out of COVID.
I've had a number of smallevents.
We started those back up in2021.
Very early for coming out ofthe pandemic and the attendance
(25:39):
numbers were abysmal.
People are afraid still.
Yeah, people just weren't coming.
These are all outdoor publicevents that I'm talking about,
but the attendance was poor.
The next year, 2022, attendanceyou know apples to apples, as
close as you can get it was upabout 50% from that, so we took
that as a good sign.
2023, the numbers are up oversix-fold and this is across
(26:03):
multiple types of events.
I'm wondering if you've seenthat kind of a jump in 2023
numbers with your events.
George (26:10):
Well, in 2021, capital Lake Fair, which is the biggest
festival here in Thurston County, has over 150,000 people
attended.
We weren't allowed to hold itin 2021 either because they were
still concerned.
You know, the governor stillhad an issue out.
We didn't know if I was goingto be able to put it because
it's the third week in July, sowe missed two years of putting
it on.
So 2022, a ton of people cameout.
(26:33):
It was a record year for them.
Then 2023, it was about thesame, but not as much.
But we think there was such apent-up demand in 2022 that
people wanted to go out and see,and the demographic was a
younger demographic who weren'tas concerned about COVID at that
time.
Right, some people still woremasks, but other people didn't
For them.
For 2023, it was probably justabout the same.
(26:55):
Before Oregon Trail Days thisyear, we normally have 7,000
people attended.
We had over 11,000 peopleattended, probably 11,500.
And we did some geo-fencingaround the festival to see where
they're coming from, so we'reable to see from people who came
that were from 50 miles away ormore and how long they stayed
and the kind of things that theydid after they left us.
Jon (27:17):
How are you getting that data?
George (27:19):
So we work with our Visitor and Convention Bureau
and they have a program wherethey buy into the market
research, and so it's people'scell phones that are pinging
that they're at our festival andthey have to be there for two
hours or longer before they getcounted.
That's the trigger.
Yeah, yeah, that's great, it'spretty interesting.
Jon (27:37):
Many people have asked me this year about what I am seeing
, what I predict as far asaudience turnout for live events
coming up next year and theyear after that, and I kind of
had an aha moment just a coupleof months ago where I realized
that I think, coming out ofCOVID, you know that the general
rule, if you're going to starta new event, you can't really
(27:58):
judge it until you've run it forthree years.
Right, get three years worth ofdata, then you can start seeing
trends and stuff like that.
I think that COVID has beensuch a powerful reset of
everything in society that wehave to take that approach with
all of our events now, even ifthey've been running for decades
, even if they've been aroundfor generations.
(28:20):
I think it would be foolhardyto make assumptions about what
the future is going to look likeuntil we've gone through three
post-COVID years, and for manyevents that'll be next year,
2024 will probably be that thirdyear.
George (28:35):
Well, I think Bumbershoot is a good example of
retooling yourself and I thinkall festivals need to think
about that as what keeps usrelevant.
What can we do that's differentand what should we stop doing
because consumer really doesn'tdemand that anymore.
They don't like it because weget stuck on our ways of just
doing it.
We always do what we always didright and I've always tried to
add something new every year toa festival that I put on that
(28:58):
wasn't there the year beforethat people can experience.
And I think that's whatfestivals need to be thinking
about as they go forward is howare they relevant, what consumer
trends have changed and what isconsumer looking for today?
That's different from what itused to be in the past and it
really is experiential thatpeople want to have as an
experience, not just to go tothe festival, but they want to
(29:20):
have a real experience at thatfestival.
Jon (29:23):
Absolutely agreed.
The trick for producers comesin how do you come to an
understanding of what thosechanging trends are?
In the my Robin Kelly podcastepisode, she shares some
brilliant wisdom about prettymuch said exactly what you just
said about how every year theyhad a rule where every year
(29:43):
there had to be somethingsubstantially new and then they
had to take something, even ifit was been a beloved tradition
of the event.
Something had to go, and so Iasked them well, how did they
make those decisions?
And Issaquah Salmondays is aparticularly prime example of
that, because of the profounddemographic change that's
happened there over the lifespanof that event.
Issaquah of today is notIssaquah of yesterday not by any
(30:07):
stretch.
And what they used, which Ithought was brilliant, they use
their arts and craft vendors asa barometer of sorts of what
people are interested in.
That's where they make theirdecisions based on their vendor
experience.
Because it's such a largesample size, it works.
George (30:27):
Well, I would say the other thing for our festival
industry folks is you need toattend conferences.
You need to attend theWashington Festival and Events
Association Conference, for sure, and possibly the International
Festival and Events Associationor some other one to go to and
listen there as well, because alot of stuff gets talked about
the future and what's worked andwhat's not working and what
people are thinking, and itgives you a broader knowledge of
(30:49):
what's happening.
The other thing I would do islook up futurists and see what
are they saying about the futureand what's changing, especially
technology and what's changingtechnology world.
And in January, when they gotthat big show down in Las Vegas,
I always watched that to saywhat are the trends that are
happening there and what's thecraziness that's coming out of
that.
Is any of that craziness?
(31:10):
Could we have a demo of that atour festival?
Jon (31:12):
Technology drives everything.
That's one thing I've learned.
That has taken me the betterpart of a lifetime so far to
understand that throughout thecourse of human history,
ultimately, it's technology thatmoves things forward, whether
we like it or not.
You can literally look at theperiods of history.
You can find the periods ofhistory where there was not a
(31:33):
lot of technological development.
They were called the dark ages.
What it meant was just likenothing much changed for
hundreds of years.
But then there's thesebreakthroughs and all of a
sudden you have Renaissanceperiods.
Yep, so, going back to ThurstonCounty, edc, so are the cities
your clients?
Is that how you look at them?
George (31:51):
They're also our clients as well.
They have contracts with us.
All the cities have contractswith us to do community and
economic development activities.
And then we do a lot oftraining for their businesses.
They'll give us a contract andthat will build a specific
training program.
So we have a specific trainingjust for city of Lacey
businesses, just for city ofOlympia businesses, just for
city of Tumwater businesses.
(32:12):
They can.
Then they're like the businessis getting a scholarship to go
into that training that wouldnormally cost them 500 bucks to
participate in, but the citiesare covering that cost.
And then we also have acontract with the county
Thurston County to do economicdevelopment activities for the
county as well.
Jon (32:30):
I can imagine folks will listen to this podcast that
we're making today, and they'llbe from other parts of the state
maybe in other states orcountries for that matter and
they might, up until this point,be completely unaware of
entities such as Thurston EDC.
How would they go aboutconnecting and finding these
types of locations in their neckof the woods?
George (32:50):
We're kind of the Rodney Dangerfield of economic
development activity becausealmost every community has a
chamber of commerce as well.
Some places the chamber and theEDC have combined and are
working together, like inSpokane and Grays Harbor
Counties.
In our county we have both theThurston County Chamber of
Commerce and we have theEconomic Development Council.
So what you want to do inWashington we're called the ADO,
(33:11):
which we're officiallyrecognized by the Department of
Commerce as the entity in ourcounty that does economic
development and we are approvedby the county commissioners.
So economic development the ADOis Associate Development
Organization is what we aretaught.
But you go to your community,look for Economic Development
Council and just look that upand then go contact them and go
(33:34):
and meet them in person and saywhat do you do and how can I get
engaged and help do that?
And we even do nonprofit workwhere we teach nonprofits how to
start up.
We help them write theirbusiness plan and to think
through all that.
We connect them with attorneysto make sure they get all their
legal part together.
So we do the white varietybetween nonprofit and for-profit
(33:55):
businesses to assist them.
Jon (33:58):
Fantastic resources that are right under our noses a lot
of the time and 99% free Right.
Other than the events that youwork on, what festivals or
events have you seen, have youattended lately that have
inspired you?
George (34:13):
Again, I go back to Olympia Harbor days because how
they had reinvented themselves,how they add things to that, and
just Carol was an amazingfacilitator of that and running
of that organization.
The way she was able to go getsponsorship dollars was very
inspiring to me, and then howshe was able to get volunteers
(34:34):
to step up to the plate to helprun the festival and then just
adding those new events.
But the other one that I reallylike and have admired for over
10 years is the Lacey Spring FunFair.
The Lacey Spring Fun Fair wasrun by a nonprofit until about
four years ago when insurancebecame an issue and volunteers
issue, and so the city of Laceystepped up and said we will take
(34:56):
over and run Lacey Spring FunFair and keep the volunteers who
are interested in it, but we'lltake over the responsibility,
and so following their owninsurance.
And then they've reinventedthemselves and add things.
I mean they added a zipline tothis small festival and I say
small but they probably have50,000 people attend that over a
(35:16):
three day period and it's thesecond weekend in May which the
weather can be a little iffy.
And Janet Seiler she's just anamazing person that works with
the city of Lacey really admirewhat she does and she's very
inspiring.
And not only she does LaceySpring Fun Fair, but she does
probably another 30 events ayear.
She puts on a Lacey in tune,which is a evening well,
(35:40):
lunchtime program and eveningprogram and something on the
weekend throughout the summer,and just what they did.
They were very creative duringCOVID too, where they would do
stuff in their parks scavengerhunts and things that kept their
relevance to their audience.
I stole one of her ideas thisyear.
She had this thing called Cardin your Yard, which is a
national organization.
(36:01):
They have franchises all overand then this really cool sign
that said Lacey Spring Fun Fairand has all this graphics and
stuff.
And so I took that and Icontacted them and I said love
to have you do that for OregonTrail Days.
So we did it for Oregon TrailDays.
It says Oregon Trail Days 2023.
And then we have a motorcycledrill team in Tenino called
Tenino Motorcycle Drill Team.
(36:22):
That's in our parade.
So I had them put a Harley onit and balloons and stars and it
was really cool.
And then I had them made aframe so it became a selfie spot
.
So that's one idea I stole fromher this year.
I normally try to steal onething from her every year
because they do such an amazingjob, so You've piqued my
interest a city stepping in andsaying we'll take over this
(36:42):
event.
Jon (36:43):
It's exactly 180 degrees opposite of the way it usually
works.
I'm very familiar with thenotion that a city starts an
event and it grows and itbecomes successful, but at some
point they're almost alwayslooking to offload that risk to
the private sector or thenonprofit sector.
I don't think I've ever heardof it working the other way
(37:04):
around.
George (37:04):
Well, the threat was it was going to go away if somebody
didn't step in and help save itand reorganize it and keep it
coordinated and going.
And Lacey said and Lacey hasgood leadership the mayor's been
there for over 10 years andthey have a great new parks and
rec person that oversees thewhole parks and rec as well, and
it's leadership, really what itcomes down to.
Jon (37:25):
Well, it's leadership.
At the risk of staying theobvious, the city must see the
overall value clearly to move inthat direction.
Huh, now I kind of want to talkwith them.
George (37:37):
She's a great person, Janet Seiler.
Jon (37:38):
I've never, I don't think I've ever heard that story.
Would you recommend economicdevelopment to work as a career
path for folks?
George (37:48):
I would.
I always say you need to havethick skin, because there's a
critic about everything thething you do, both positive and
negative towards it, andespecially now with the keyboard
warriors out there, you dosomething, then boom, all this,
like 20,000 keyboard warriorssay, wow, that's negative,
something negative about it, andjust so you really have to have
(38:09):
thick skin.
But it's going to be one of themost rewarding careers that you
can have because you can make adifference in a small community
, in a county, and you can alsomake a difference statewide for
the economic developmentactivities of your state.
Jon (38:25):
What are some recommendations for a path of
entry into that type of work?
George (38:30):
Well, first off, I would start just contacting your
local economic developmentcouncil and say, hey, is there
any volunteer opportunities Ican be involved with?
And if it's a younger person,is there an internship you can
create whether it's paid ornon-paid internship that I can
actually get my feet wet and dosomething?
So this coming year I might becreating some internships for
(38:50):
people to assist me with socialmedia planning for the different
festivals that I'm involvedwith, so I can give them kind of
an experience and somethingthat they can seek their steeth
into so they can say, oh, I dolike that or no, I don't really
like that so much.
Jon (39:04):
Did you have any mentors in this business?
George (39:07):
Truthfully, I haven't had any mentors in this like
long term.
Like you know, one person youget with and they mentor you all
the way through.
I've had people who've inspiredme at other chambers of
commerce and then I would gomeet with them.
So one was Pat McGoy up at theCoeur d'Alene Area Chamber of
Commerce extremely creativeindividual, and so I would take
(39:27):
my whole staff up there and meetwith them once or twice a year
and we would walk through whatare you guys doing and then we
talk about what we're trying todo and they feed us back
feedback on that.
So Pat was great.
I followed him.
He became a consultant afterleaving that chamber and I
followed him for the last 25years and what he does and how
many chambers he's worked across.
There.
There's Frank Kenny he also.
(39:49):
He's created a chamber progroup, has 10,000 people in this
Facebook group and we askeveryday questions to that group
and get great answers of it.
Right now he's doing a campaignabout how to benefit from the
holiday season for yourcommunity.
So he's been a great mentor totalk to and I've had him come
speak when I was the Visitor ofthe Community Regional Director.
(40:10):
He had just written a bookabout social media somewhere
around 2015, which was, you know, just starting really to launch
.
So I had him come and do thatas well.
And then my mentor, who got mestarted in the right direction I
think from leadership etc wasmy FFA teacher, Jerry Longmeyer.
And so I in ninth grade washeaded the wrong direction.
Probably would have maybe noteven graduated from high school
(40:32):
if I hadn't had him come into mylife.
And so he said I'm going toenter you into a calf scramble.
So what's a calf scramble?
He says when we take you toPortland, there'll be 14 boys
and seven calves in this bigarena and they release them, and
if you can catch one and bringit over the finish line, then
you get to keep it for a yearand bring it back the next year.
So I caught one and that's whatchanged my life forever and I
(40:55):
learned responsibility.
And then he encouraged me toapply to be the FFA president.
So I was FFA president for twoyears in a row.
I was a star chapter farmer andall the different things that,
all the way to the nationallevel, that I could do in
leadership there.
And then he encouraged me to bethe ASB president.
So I ran for that and I wasable to become ASB president.
So he encouraged me and taughtme leadership all along the way
(41:18):
of that and just totally changedthe trajectory of my life.
You said that taught youresponsibility is that from the
keeping the calf for a year that, and then I actually went on to
raise sheep and pigs and Okay,so you just so.
George, did you grow up on afarm?
I did grow up on a farm,starting in eighth grade, so
eighth grade through high school.
Jon (41:38):
The reason I'm smiling right now is you start listening
to some of my other podcasts.
You'll hear me talk about thisquite a bit.
Several years ago.
I realized that in the eventproduction world specifically, I
learned this through concertsand touring a very large
percentage of the greatproduction managers, tour
(42:00):
managers, road managers outthere.
Their common thread is theygrew up on a farm.
And what is that?
Right, I think and I myselfincluded, I grew up on a farm as
well.
I think there's something tothat.
I think that, of course, I knowthat on the farm there is a
work ethic that is not optionalIn your case.
The calf.
Calf doesn't enjoy holidays.
(42:21):
The calf there is no, there areno days off.
The work's never done.
It's a commitment as alifestyle.
You're either in or you're out.
There is absolutely no middleground in farming or ranching,
and I can see I have seen in theworld of event production where
that is a really, reallyvaluable background to come from
(42:44):
that you can't get it any otherway.
George (42:47):
Well, you also learned to use baling wire and duct tape
and MacGyver type activities aswell.
Growing up on the farm, youfind a way.
Jon (42:54):
Whatever problem comes at you every day and they will come
at you every day, problemslarge or small, but you have to
solve it right now, often in thefield, with your wits and, like
you say, some baling, wire andtwine and whatever you've got.
If it really needs to be solved, you can figure it out right
now.
There's just so many skill setsthat come off of farming that a
(43:20):
lot of people don't think abouteven just being able to
prioritize or determine what'sreally important at the end of
the day and plan ahead also.
Yeah, and that cracks me up.
Everywhere I go, I just keeprunning into people who grew up
on a farm.
George, I know throughattending many of your talks at
conferences and seminars andwhatnot, that you're famous for
(43:40):
the George Sharp formulas forsuccess.
Can you share that with us?
George (43:45):
Yeah.
So when I worked for the statetourism office, I had to go to
all these other communities andhelp them, and so I tried to
figure out is there some kind ofrecipe, is there some kind of
common thread of the successfulones versus the ones who didn't
reach their full potential?
And so I created what wascalled my formula for success,
(44:05):
and it's three I's plus seven Ps, plus CS, plus Q, plus A equals
S, and I'll go through thosequickly.
But the first eye is forimagination.
You really have to have a greatimagination of what can be,
what can happen and bring newideas to your festival event and
to your organization.
The second eye is for intuitionand to use intuition in making
(44:29):
decisions and what's the rightthing to do, and that'll come to
you.
And then the third is I is forinitiative, and you need to take
the initiative to be active andproactive and take action to
make things happen for yourorganization and for your
community.
The first P in the form ofsuccess is passion, and
(44:50):
successful communities andorganizations and the festivals
are filled with people, withpassion for the community, for
the organization, festival, andpassion for others to exceed as
well, and that's reallyimportant.
It's not about you, but thatyou want to see other people
succeed.
Passion is the field thatdrives the community and
betterment and becomescontagious with the other people
, and we Love Rainier is a greatexample of that.
(45:12):
Started with 15 people grew to30 and then that became
contagious and people wanted tosee We Love Rainier be
successful, and it's also partof helping recruit new people to
your organization when youshare that passion.
But I saw a lot of passionatepeople in the story I told you
about the two people I stoppedthe fist fight for Right.
The second P, which ispersonality.
(45:33):
It's important to understandyour personality type and how
you're being perceived, as wellas the personality type of those
you come into contact with andwork with.
Each personality type has adifferent way of communication
that works with and or for them.
Understanding where people arecoming from and how they operate
is vital to building a longterm working relationship with
them.
I've witnessed personalitydifferences stop community
(45:56):
organizations and festivalefforts dead in their tracks
because they couldn't get along,and I've identified about 18
negative personality types andabout four good personality
types.
And so, anyway, from an egomaniac, right, how do you deal
with the ego maniac?
Well, I learned.
You make it their idea, so youplant the seed and then two
weeks later and said where areyou at with that idea?
(46:17):
And they have probably thoughtabout it by them and becomes
their idea and then they can ownit, because I don't care who
gets the credit, as long as weaccomplish what we were wanting
to accomplish.
Devils advocate there's alwaysone of those and they used to
drive me crazy until I realizedthey asked really tough,
difficult questions that aregoing to be asked by Joe Q
Public when you go out to dosomething, and so let them ask
(46:38):
them in a smaller setting andcome up with what the answer is
on that.
The third P is for a plan.
You need to establish anoverall plan that addresses the
mission and visions and goalsand the strategies, tactics,
budget, timeline and roles andresponsibly of staff and
volunteers, and then themeasurement and evaluation and
really important to put thatevaluation in there.
(46:59):
After every event I do, I askwhat went really well, what
could we have done better?
What should we stop doing?
Because we never ask thatquestion what should we stop
doing?
We just say what can we add onThen?
What should we start doing?
And the question to both ofthose is because technology has
changed, because consumers arechanged.
If you could ask 10 times forsomething, you may want to
(47:20):
consider putting that into yourplan and then in the plan, do a
strength, weaknesses,opportunities and threats
analysis.
That goes with it.
The fourth P is partnerships.
And it used to be that aChamber of Commerce or Visit
Conventure Bureau or EconomicDevelopment Council could do the
stuff just by themselves.
Take it on, let's do it, butbecause of the limitation of
(47:40):
time of volunteers, limitationof money, resources, that kind
of things, then you need to saywhat kind of partnership can we
have?
And the partnerships I reallyrecommend that you create a
memorandum of understanding thatreally outlines what are all
the roles and responsibilitiesof each organization involved,
then also what's going to be theevaluation process of that.
(48:02):
And I really recommend that youcelebrate once a year that
partnership, because some peoplewho came in the partnership in
the beginning may have left.
Some people die, some peopleget new jobs, etc.
They get a new person thatcomes on and they don't know why
we're in this partnershiptogether and you never, ever
want them to ask why are we inpartners with these people?
(48:22):
Why are we doing that?
So keep that updated with themAt least.
I really recommend that youcelebrate around a meal where
you celebrate, you stop and youask those questions and people
get to say together what wassuccessful, what could we do
better, and it gets by in thatway.
The fifth P, which people saythis never happens, but politics
and politics occur at manylevels, including the
(48:45):
organization.
It's important to understandwhat the key issues are,
concerns being addressed.
It's important to make sure thelocal, county, state and
federal elected officials knowwhat you're trying to accomplish
, because you never know wherethey're going to meet somebody
that will have a resource tohelp you, especially financially
.
And there's been a lot oforganizations across the state I
talked to that.
They get involved with that andthey ended up getting $250,000,
(49:07):
$500,000 because they hadtalked to their politician on
that.
The sixth piece of perseveranceif at first you don't succeed,
try, try again, but adjust.
Like I talked about the grants,why didn't we get that grant?
Ask the grantor, what do weneed to tweak to our grant to do
that and persevere?
And a lot of overnightsuccesses started 18 years ago.
(49:28):
I use Leavenworth as an example.
Leavenworth wanted to have atrain station because everybody
had to go to Wenatchee, get offthe train there and then bus
back to Leavenworth.
So it took them 10 years, but10 years later they had a train
station in Leavenworth for that.
And then the seventh piece isfor purpose.
It's about our why.
Why are we doing something asan organization, as a festival,
(49:51):
and then personally, what's yourwhy?
Why are you involved in that?
The CS stands for common senseand what I ask is that groups
say you get group think right.
And so you're going down thispath and we're all thinking the
same thing.
But do we ever stop and saydoes this make common sense?
So if you're working onsomething new, go to your
neighbor or somebody has no ideawhat you're talking about and
(50:12):
outline what you're saying andsay does this make common sense?
And they go what the heck areyou thinking?
Or, oh, yeah, that does makecommon sense.
Put you on the same page aswith what people are thinking.
The Q stands for quality.
It needs to be done.
Everything you do, from yourwebsite, flyers, social media,
anything you do that you do in aquality way.
The A stands for attitude andit should be an attitude as we
(50:34):
can do it as what's needed bytoday's individuals who are
working together for thebetterment of the community and
festival.
And some communities andeconomic development standpoint
get known for an attitude of wedon't want any business here.
And we had one of those inThurston County and I went to
their leadership and they askedme to come and talk to them
about recruiting businesses andI said you realize that you're
known for an attitude that youdon't want any businesses in
(50:56):
your community.
And one lady looked at me andshe says what do you mean?
I said what's the permittingprocess?
How long does it take?
What's it cost?
And you're known for trying tostop things instead of having
things start.
And that really had anadjustment for them and they've
gone 180% different now.
Jon (51:13):
Did they not realize that?
George (51:15):
that's how they were perceived.
No, they did not Got it.
Yeah, because they didn't askthe question.
Then the S stands for success,and you need to determine what
success looks like and whodetermines it with you.
And does it take intoconsideration the community
values?
Because what success looks liketo me in economic development
and recruiting businesses andseeing growth, et cetera and
(51:35):
we're having that in one of oursmall towns I'm working with is
we don't want any more outsidersand we don't want any big box
stores and we don't want that.
Well, to understand what theirvalue is and what success looks
like to them, their successlooks like growing small
businesses, no, outsidefranchises, that kind of thing.
And so who determines thesuccess?
Is it the city council?
(51:55):
Is it the county commissioners?
Is it your citizens?
Who determines that success?
And to know what that lookslike, like Stephen Covey said,
begin with the end of mind,everything you do.
What is it we want toaccomplish?
And what does that look likefive, 10, 20 years from now?
And so that's my formula forsuccess to consider.
Jon (52:13):
Who is your favorite ancestor?
George (52:19):
My grandpa, Harvey Williams my middle name's Harvey
as well.
He was just this awesome oldguy.
He was an entrepreneur, he wasa well-driller, he lived in
Baker City and then he ownedhalf of Hermiston, Oregon, at
one time.
Wow, and just learning from him, he was an inventor.
He invented a lot of thingswith irrigation, and so he
(52:39):
actually had trademarks orpatents on things as well, and
so he was my favorite grandpa.
I took him supper everySaturday, called buckwheat spuds
the exact same thing, andcornbread every Saturday, my
whole high school years until hepassed away in 1980.
Jon (52:54):
Who do you think?
George (52:55):
you are.
Who do I think I am.
I think what I want to be knownfor is somebody who really
cared about other people andwanted to make a difference in
the lives of other people, andthat's what I try to live up to
be every day and just show thatI care.
Jon (53:10):
You walk into an ice cream parlor, you're going to get a
cone with two scoops.
What are the flavors?
Vanilla and vanilla.
Say more about that.
George (53:19):
So I've always liked vanilla ice cream.
In fact, when I'm sick I get avanilla milkshake, Kind of as my
pick me up pick me up.
There.
We have friends in Pullman whoown a flower shop and a Neil's
Coffee and Ice Cream store, andso I went on a vegan kick for a
couple of years and I did veganand the only vegan they had was
vanilla.
So that worked out.
(53:40):
I'm not on the vegan kickanymore, but I still just love
vanilla ice cream, my favorite.
Jon (53:46):
George, it has been a real treat talking with you today.
Thank you so much for makingthe time and welcoming me into
your home, Well.
George (53:53):
I appreciate you coming down.
It was a great conversation.
I look forward to listening toall the other podcasts as well.
This is George Sharp and you're listening to One Hour to
Doors.
Jon (00:08):
This is One Hour to Doors, a podcast about the business and
soul of the festivals andevents industry.
I'm your host, Jon Stone.
Every episode of One Hour toDoors explores the people,
issues, insights and trendsimpacting the enterprise of
bringing people and communitiestogether in common cause.
My guest today is George Sharp.
(00:31):
I know George through theWashington Festivals and Events
Association, of which he hasbeen a fellow past- president,
and this year he was inductedinto the Association's Hall of
Fame, the highest eventsindustry honor in the state.
George works tirelessly topromote tourism and commerce in
Thurston County, which is hometo the Washington State Capitol,
(00:51):
and beyond.
He has served in impactfulroles with Washington State
Tourism and the State Departmentof Commerce.
His awards and credentials inhis field are too many to list.
The festivals and eventsindustry is George's native
language and, by my observation,his advocacy for our industry
is nothing short of relentless.
I want to learn more about whatfuels his extraordinary drive
(01:16):
and love for what we do.
We are recording today from theSharp residence in beautiful
Olympia, washington.
George, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, john.
My pleasure, I'm excited tocatch up with you.
I don't know your origin story.
How did you wind up in thefestivals and events biz?
George (01:34):
So in 1988, my wife and I opened up a balloon store in
Pullman, Washington, and we alsodid Gorillagrams.
So I was a gorilla, blackgorilla, pink gorilla.
I was a monster, a chicken, andjust did all these kind of fun
Gorillagram stories to peopleout of their houses.
Well, the festival went from aharvest festival in Pullman
where we said there's 3,000harvest festivals in America.
(01:56):
I was on a committee.
I said why don't we dosomething different?
And then Jim Crow from theColiseum said why don't we
celebrate something that's herein our own community, which is
lentils?
And they grow 98% of thelentils in the United States
right there in Pullman.
So the National Lentil Festivalwas born and they said, well,
let's create a mascot.
So they created a mascot.
He looks like a big cookie witheyes and lips and about six
(02:20):
feet tall.
And then they had a contest toname him and a sixth grade
teacher named him Tase T Lentiland they said we need somebody
to be Tase T Lentil.
And they said, George, well,you do all these mascot things,
how about you be our firstmascot?
And I said I'm gay and let's gofor it.
So we did that.
That first year.
(02:40):
We wrote a rap for it.
The only thing I can rememberfrom the lap rap now is it was
low in fat and high in protein,but it was like a minute and a
half rap.
And in Spokane Channel 4 calledand so Tase T Lentil got to go
up to Spokane, be on Channel 4News and do the rap for them.
And that was the birth of mebeing Tase T Lentil, the first
(03:01):
mascot of the National LentilFestival.
Jon (03:04):
Okay, that's first of all.
That's priceless.
But of all the folks who havebeen on this show so far
discussing origin stories,you're different.
You just jumped right in at thedeep end.
George (03:15):
Yeah well, I was on the visitor and convention bureau
committee that was kind of incharge of bringing visitors to
town, and one of the things wewanted to do is put Pullman on
the map by creating a foodie anda festival that people would go
oh wow, that's different, let'sgo check that out.
And so that really intrigued meas well 98% of lentils are
grown in Washington state.
In the United States are grownin Washington state.
(03:37):
Not enough.
That's still true today becausethat was back in 1989.
I think there's some otherstates like Montana have started
to grow lentils.
That didn't grow lentils backthen but I'm sure a lot probably
the highest amount produced inthe United States is still right
there on the Palouse.
Jon (03:54):
Is it?
It must be the particularclimate or soil, or something.
George (03:57):
It's the soil right, the Palouse Loam soil.
It's a good rotation crop toothat they put in, so they'll do
wheat, then they'll rotate tolentils, they'll do garbanzo
beans and then they'll go backto wheat.
I did not know that.
Jon (04:11):
Okay, so gorilla balloon, grams, lentil festival.
How long were you with thelentil festival?
George (04:18):
So then the next year they needed a visitor and
convention bureau director andmy wife and I ended up closing
our store because we lost$45,000 in 18 months and we put
the last six months of ourinventory on credit cards and
we're proud to say that we tookseven years to pay off that
inventory on those credit cards.
But we did.
We didn't file bankruptcy, andso when they opened up the next
(04:40):
year for the visitor andconvention bureau position, I
applied for that because I hadbeen Pullman's kind of biggest
cheerleader already anyway,because I had owned a restaurant
and a motel and understood theindustry, and so they hired me
to be the visitor and conventionbureau director and with that
you became immediately executivedirector of the national lentil
festival, and I may have fibbedand said that I liked lentils
(05:01):
during the interview.
I like lentils now, at thattime not so much.
Jon (05:06):
I just want to be clear.
I was laughing with you, not atyou in terms of your loss.
I've been there, done that, sodid you go from Pullman to
Olympia then?
Was that a direct no actually?
George (05:19):
Mike and Chicky Brennan recruited me to go to the ski to
sea festival in 1998.
Jon (05:25):
So you, didn't know anything about that.
George (05:26):
Yes, I went up there I worked with them for a year, but
I missed tourism so much that Icalled the Washington state
tourism director, then RobinPollard, and said, hey, I'm
going to be looking for atourism related job and would
you mind being a reference forme?
And she said, well, I justhappened to have a world tourism
development manager job, newjob opening up, and I encourage
(05:46):
you to apply for that.
So I applied, and I think therewas two of us that were the
final cut when somebody was fromTri-Cities area than myself,
and I was lucky enough to getthat job.
And so then I went on with thatjob and worked for the
department of commerce for 11years before a governor cut me
out of the budget during thehard times there are 2009, 2010.
And so my position waseliminated.
(06:08):
Then I went to work for theVisitor and Convention Bureau in
Thurston County, and I ran thatfor five years as well.
Jon (06:14):
And so now you're with the Economic Development Council of
Thurston County.
That's correct.
Yeah, tell us about thatorganization.
George (06:22):
So the Thurston Economic Development Council's main job
is to retain jobs, recruit jobsinto our community and then grow
and expand the economy.
And we do that in severaldifferent ways.
We have one program called theWashington P-TAC, which is now
Washington Accelerator, and theyteach businesses how to get
government contracts with cities, counties, state and federal
(06:44):
agencies, tribes and then largecontractors who are required to
hire smaller contractors to dotheir job.
That's eight offices around thestate that we have, so that's a
big, impactful program.
We also have the WashingtonCenter for Women in Business.
That serves 34 of our countiesin Washington state and they're
teaching businesses how to startup, how to grow, how to expand,
(07:05):
how to double their income overa year's time, and so that's
two of our major programs there.
And we have what's called theCenter for Business and
Innovation as part of the EDCand that program takes people
all the way from start up, allthe way to expanding their
business.
And those are the three mainprograms we have at the EDC.
But we do a lot of other things.
So I'm the Rural ProgramManager and I run a program
(07:29):
called the South ThurstonEconomic Development Initiative,
and so we support six ruralcommunities.
We support Yelm that's 10,000population, Rainier, that has
about 2,200 population, Tenino,that has 1,800 population,
Bucoda, that has 580 population,and then Grand Mound is not an
incorporated city, so they'reoverseen by the county and they
(07:51):
have about 4,000 population.
And then Rochester, which isonly four miles away, also has
about 4,000 population.
So that's my job is to serveall those communities to do
community and economicdevelopment activities.
We meet on a monthly basis onthe third Friday we meet from 8
to 9.30.
And I have all three countycommissioners there.
I have an elected official fromeach one of the cities in town.
(08:13):
We have all three chambers.
So there's Yelm Chamber, TeninoChamber, Grand Mound, Rochester
Chamber, we have the Visitorand Convention Bureau, we have
the Thurston Regional PlanningCouncil, we have Washington
State University Extension, theConservation District, and we
all get together and we talkabout what are best practices
and community and economicdevelopment, what are funding
(08:33):
sources that are comingavailable, and then how can we
all work together?
And more importantly is whatare the lessons learned and best
practices and some lessons thatsome of the communities learn?
We want the other ones to knowthat, hey, we never, ever want
to do that because how it turnedout, or wow, that was a great
win for them.
How can we repeat that in othercommunities?
(08:53):
So that's what we work with indoing that from the rural
program.
Jon (08:58):
I follow you on Facebook and so I can see your work, your
travel to these communities andlocal festivals.
Local events is a constant,year round theme that I see
through all of your travels.
George (09:12):
I attend over 25 festivals every year, and most
of them are all in our ruralcommunities.
So, for example, Yelm puts afestival starting on that first
Saturday in June and they have afestival every single weekend
through almost the end of August, and so I attend a lot of those
festivals.
I'm an advisor to all thesecommunities about how to grow or
make their festival and eventsbetter too, so I'll attend and
(09:34):
I'll give them feedbackafterwards.
This went really well, and thisis some places where I think it
could create a better wowfactor for your audience.
Jon (09:42):
And are the festivals having a positive economic
impact on these communities?
George (09:46):
They are.
And one example is for Bukota,which is B-U-C-O-D-A 11 months
of the year and then byproclamation they changed their
name officially to B-O-O-C-O-D-Afor the whole month of October
and we just put on a whole monthlong festival.
The first weekend was a familyfun day.
The second weekend was a Hearstprocession, which is like a
(10:07):
parade, and viewing is, whichwas like a car show.
Then the third weekend waswhat's ours are casket races,
and last year we had six caskets.
This year we had 18 casketscompete and it was phenomenal.
In the bar there called Joe'sPlace, the 125 year old bar
fifth generation owns and saidwe had our biggest day in the
(10:28):
history of Joe's Place on theCasket Race Day, and so from an
economic development standpointthat was a big win for them.
But they've had a good weekendevery weekend in that.
So wow, I also coordinatedthrough the EDC.
We have contracts with the cityof Tanano for do economic
development, but also for me toserve as their creative district
manager.
(10:49):
And then we have contract withthe Tanano chamber for me to
serve as their staff, becausethey're only like a 50 member
chamber, so they don't haveenough money to generate to have
a full-time or even a part-timereal staff member, whereas they
can contract with us and Iserve it.
So this year I actuallycoordinated the Tanano Oregon
Trail Days the fourth weekendand they reports this year was
(11:10):
it was the best vessel they'veever had and that all the
businesses experienced a lot.
We have one retailer there.
She normally does about $250 to$500 on a Saturday.
On Oregon Trail Day weekend shedid $2,000 in revenue so she
was extremely excited.
And then the restaurant therein town.
The chamber president actuallyowns the restaurant and it's one
(11:30):
of her biggest days of the yearis the Oregon Trail Days.
And then we bring in about 40vendors there who are also
making money arts and craftsvendors that are selling their
product there at the festival.
We have also food vendors, likemost festivals.
So we had 10 food vendors thatcame in and they were making
some money off of that.
And then our museum gets moredonations during that time of
(11:52):
the year.
So it really is a trulyeconomic impact for these
communities to do thesefestivals.
Jon (11:58):
So, George, historically we only really see each other at
the WFEA events once, twice,three times a year or something
like that, but, as I saidearlier, I track you year-round
on your Facebook.
What made me reach out to sitdown today is the fact that,
over the years and years andyears, your enthusiasm for the
(12:20):
festivals and events industryappears to be stuck on level 10.
It's like your enthusiasm neverwanes through ups and downs in
the industry, through sunny dayor rainy day, it makes no
difference.
You seem to be almost immune tobeing slowed down, put down
about anything with the industry.
(12:41):
You're perhaps one of thegreatest advocates cheerleaders
out there that I know of whatdrives you.
George (12:48):
Well, it really comes down to my personal mission
statement that I've had since Iwas 17 years old and that was to
make a difference in the livesof other people.
And one of the easiest andfastest ways we can do that is
through festival and events,through threefold.
One is just for the consumerwho comes to the event, brings
them happiness and joy andexperience that they can have.
(13:08):
And then two to the community,who's putting it on, or the
organization allows them tobrand their community around, so
brand their organization toprove that they're credible
through their community andthey're important to our
community.
And then third is the impact ithas for the business community
which, having been a smallbusiness owner before and had a
festival in my town and didbenefit, didn't benefit
(13:31):
sometimes.
I think there's a way for us tohelp the community threefold
that way the consumer, theorganization, the community's
name.
And then also to impact forthose businesses.
And that's what drives me, itmakes me, that's my purpose, my
passion.
And then I think it's one ofthe fastest ways to do it
because you bring you know two,three, five, 10,000 people to
(13:52):
your community to have thisexperience and hopefully they
have a good experience and theywant to come back, maybe not
even at next festival, butanother time of that year.
So it's a great way to bringmore, bring more income into
your community from outside.
Jon (14:07):
In your EDC work with these various rural communities.
How do you define success?
What are some of your metrics?
So?
George (14:15):
One of the success I had was in 2018, there's a city
council member, george Johnson,with the city of Rainier, and he
came to our study meeting inJanuary that year and I had the
communities tell what were theirsuccess stories for the year
before and what are they workingon, and he got extremely fired
up, said I want to do that forRainier what Tenino did for
Tenino.
(14:35):
And so he came and he called me.
He says, hey, I really want todo something for my community.
He said you really want to dosomething for your community?
He said, yep.
I said, okay, I'll come out onSaturday.
You can show me everythingabout your community you want to
do and what your goals are andthat.
So I went out there on aSaturday.
We spent five and a half hoursin his truck driving around the
community, going, meeting witheverybody, and after we were
(14:57):
done with that, he said yeah, Ireally want to do.
I said, okay, let's brainstormthat out and what that looks
like.
Because they had apathy at thattime in their community, the
people weren't engaged, weren'thappening, etc.
So we ended up creating whatwas called we Love Rainier a
community organization, kind oflike a quasi chamber of commerce
for them and create a nonprofit organization.
The first meeting we did, webrought 15 people to kind of do
(15:18):
a pilot test of hey, are youinterested in this?
Would you participate in thisIf we build something out and do
that?
So there was interest.
So a month later, on May 18th2018, we held our first we Love
Rainier community meeting.
We had 30 people come to themeeting and we asked each one of
them what's your view, what'syour vision, how do you want
engaged with your community?
And that launched the We LoveRainier campaign.
(15:40):
And so then we set up a matrixwhere we created what are all
the projects that you want to dofor Rainier?
And then I asked themprioritize your top five
projects?
And they had 20 some projectsthey wanted to do.
So we picked the top five.
They will say how are we goingto accomplish them and who's
going to take role?
Well, george, really, he's citycouncil member, but then he
(16:02):
became chair of the we LoveRainier program and kicked it
off that year.
That group has stuck togetherall this time and now they're
phenomenal what they do.
They just put on a bigHalloween event yesterday.
Probably had 2000 kids come tothat and they have only 2000
people who live in that town, sopeople from other.
They do a big holiday Christmastime event.
(16:22):
They did Easter egg hunt for10,000 eggs for kids last year.
They just got done distributingdictionaries to all third
graders in Rainier.
So this community has been abig success for me to watch them
grow.
I helped them in the beginning,like I ran the meetings the
first year, because what happensthe first year?
Politics and personalities canstop things dead.
(16:44):
So I was a referee and Imanaged that and set
expectations.
And then, when difficultconversations had to happen, I
managed those conversations andthat kept them going, kept them
alive.
And then the next year Georgetook over and he was able to be
the chairperson of that and heran that for the next four years
and now they're getting otherleadership people to start and
(17:06):
step into that.
So that's one success for them.
And then, of course, Bucoda.
They got over 100,000 mediacoverage in 2018, just because I
had them buy a hearse.
I convinced the mayor to buy ahearse.
He calls me up the day we'rebuying a hearse.
He says, George, you sure weshould be buying a hearse
because we used a grant from thePort of Olympia for $1,000 and
(17:27):
then an anonymous donor foranother $1,000 if we would buy a
black hearse, she said.
And so we bought that.
They took that.
King 5 came down immediately thenext week, did the two and a
half minute story about Bacota,the haunted house and buying a
hearse.
And then the Olympian came andthey did a one and a half minute
story on it and that story gotpicked up in every single
(17:49):
newspaper website across Americathat Tegna at that time was
owner of, and so that was a bigdeal.
And then Q13 came down and theydid four stories on it about
the haunted house, about thecasket races and then about
Joe's place.
I convinced Joe's place tocreate, called the spirit of Joe
drink which Joe died behind thebar.
(18:11):
He was the owner of the bar in1938.
And so they believe he's stillthere as a ghost, and so he
created a drink with a localsandstone distillery bacon,
whiskey and then also thissipping vinegar from Wildheart
sipping vinegar.
So it was unique andcharacteristic, just that area.
Well, Ellen Taylor came down andshe wanted to do it, so she and
I went behind the bar.
(18:31):
The bar manager is supposed todo it, but she showed up late
and they said no, we got to gonow, so I stepped in and taught
her how to make this drink.
It was really fun.
So then that went on there.
So four different stories, butjust it was a phenomenal.
Of all the communities.
I've worked in probably over ahundred communities in 30 years
because I was with State TourismOffice and I go to all these
communities and teach them howto do community economic
(18:52):
development through publicrelations, product development
or marketing.
And this little town of Bucodahas gotten the more media
coverage than any of the othercommunities I work with, so I
call that success for them aswell.
Jon (19:03):
Now how many years for Bucoda?
George (19:06):
Festival now Started in 2018, and we only skipped 2020.
We did 2021.
Jon (19:12):
Okay, that's remarkable because I have seen media
coverage for that event that'snot just something in my
Facebook that's getting servedup because of my associations or
whatever, like I've seennatural in the wild media
coverage for that event in thelast, within the last couple of
years, yeah, every every year.
That's pretty remarkable forlisteners that are not local.
(19:33):
I mean, this is a very rural,small town.
George (19:37):
It just blows me away that in every year, I try to
create something unique,different.
That's going to be the mediaattention draw for that.
So, and it's worked every year,the casket races issue we huge,
with, you know, tripling thenumber.
But also I talked to theChronicle, which is out of
Centralia, to become actualsponsor of it, and so they're
promoting it through all theirmedia.
(19:58):
We had Evening Magazine comedown in 2021 and they did a
story.
Well, they replayed that storyagain this last week.
So every year they replay thestory and so it just keeps
growing as a those are actuallyremarkable statistics.
Actually for a little bitty townof 560 people.
Jon (20:17):
That's absolutely remarkable.
Congratulations, thank you.
Something else that you saidthat caught my attention was I
think you're talking about thecity of Rainier and how they
were having trouble internallycoming to agreement on this or
that, and you said that you wereable to go in and act as a
referee Right Now.
That raised an eyebrow with mebecause, at least in my limited
(20:40):
experience in going in cold toother communities, generally
speaking, the outsider isn'tlooked upon as the trusted
referee.
How did you, how does that work?
How did you manage to?
George (20:52):
I think the biggest thing, john, is people know that
I care and it comes across thatI care and that I have their
best interest in it, and thenalso that I have 30 years
experience working in all thesedifferent communities and I've
seen about every kind ofinteraction there is.
I stopped a fist fight betweena city council member and a
heritage commission member inCle Elum, who are fighting over
(21:16):
where the visitor informationcenter was going to be located.
Jon (21:19):
No, and when?
George (21:20):
I tell them that story, they go oh, wow, and so, and I'm
fair to everybody.
And then I also have a problem,a lot of probing questions when
there is disagreements, andsometimes I say we just have to
agree that we're going todisagree and we're going to
create a parking lot and stuffthat don't we don't agree on
right now.
We're going to stick over inthat parking lot and we'll come
(21:40):
back at another time and we'llask more questions of what kind
of questions do we need to getto and research to do to kind of
solve that.
But let's not stop all theprogress that we're making right
now for your community andfocus on those top five
priorities that you have thatyou want to accomplish and so
brilliant.
Jon (21:57):
You've shared a couple of success stories.
How about some challenges orthings that didn't quite pan out
the way that you?
George (22:05):
The biggest challenges that we've seen is one is time.
People have enough time toinvest in and be volunteers in
and be part of.
Second is financial.
That's always a challenge ofhow are we going to pay for that
, and I've told communities thatif you have a really quality
project, the money will come.
It will just take time, butwe'll identify all the funding
(22:27):
sources and we'll apply.
If you get told no, then we'llask why were we told no of the
funding source?
What do we need to do to tweakwhat we need to apply the next
time for a grant source and thenjust keep coming back until
we're successful?
And that's called perseverance.
Jon (22:44):
What's the good news in Thurston County
George (22:47):
Well, I think the biggest thing that's happening
in Thurston County is that we'reseeing people coming back out
to festival and events andcelebrating them, and we saw
record growth in a lot of ourfestivals this year.
Olympia Harbor Days was aphenomenal turnout that they had
and they did some creativethings.
They had a drone show this yearfor the first time ever.
First time ever in.
Jon (23:06):
Thurston County.
George (23:07):
First time ever in Thurston County, and so that was
on a Friday night and it was atnight time and just an amount
of people that came out to watchthat was crazy to me to have
that many like I don't know,probably 10,000 people came out
nine o'clock at night to watch adrone show on a Friday night.
And that was over Labor Dayweekend too, so you know, some
people leave town.
(23:28):
But and then she also broughtthe Tenino Stone Carvers who are
pretty famous for work thatthey do and did a demonstration
there and that was pretty cool.
What's that?
They actually take Teninosandstone and they carve that
into street addresses, artwork,all kinds of things, and so
they've that's a 100 year oldindustry from Tenino and they've
(23:50):
got five stone carvers therethat are still practicing that.
They just did a huge thing inTom Waterfalls Park of the
Olympia Brewery logo and it'slike 15 feet wide and 12 feet
tall.
It's pretty darn cool, and sothey're well known.
But to bring it to Harbor Days,which is about tugboats and
tugboat races and arts andcrafts vendors and stuff, so
(24:12):
she's thinking outside the box.
She also brought Chehalis Tribewho did their salmon bake.
Jon (24:17):
So, you.
George (24:18):
You're there and you're seeing salmon on planks being
cooked over open fire, which isvery unique and different and
not always able to experiencethat.
So that was another thing shedid.
Jon (24:27):
I know from talking with Carol that Harbor Days has had
its share of challenges inrecent years and part of that I
can paint a broad stroke over.
All of it kind of an identitycrisis of sorts, changing times,
changing demographics.
So it warms my heart to hear they changed things up a little
(24:48):
bit this year and found successbeyond their expectations.
George (24:52):
I say they found relevance, still to be relevant
to the community and changed upwhat they were doing.
For that, and Carol to becredited she kept Harbor Days
alive when it probably wouldhave died if it wasn't for her.
Because, of COVID.
She kept it alive and COVID dida many, many, many, many Harbor
Days where she had porch.
People decorate their porchesin nautical theme.
Jon (25:16):
She's a force.
So those numbers 10,000 peoplecoming out for Harbor Days,
which is fantastic for thatevent.
In the last few years we'vebeen coming out of COVID.
I've had a number of smallevents.
We started those back up in2021.
Very early for coming out ofthe pandemic and the attendance
(25:39):
numbers were abysmal.
People are afraid still.
Yeah, people just weren't coming.
These are all outdoor publicevents that I'm talking about,
but the attendance was poor.
The next year, 2022, attendanceyou know apples to apples, as
close as you can get it was upabout 50% from that, so we took
that as a good sign.
2023, the numbers are up oversix-fold and this is across
(26:03):
multiple types of events.
I'm wondering if you've seenthat kind of a jump in 2023
numbers with your events.
George (26:10):
Well, in 2021, capital Lake Fair, which is the biggest
festival here in Thurston County, has over 150,000 people
attended.
We weren't allowed to hold itin 2021 either because they were
still concerned.
You know, the governor stillhad an issue out.
We didn't know if I was goingto be able to put it because
it's the third week in July, sowe missed two years of putting
it on.
So 2022, a ton of people cameout.
(26:33):
It was a record year for them.
Then 2023, it was about thesame, but not as much.
But we think there was such apent-up demand in 2022 that
people wanted to go out and see,and the demographic was a
younger demographic who weren'tas concerned about COVID at that
time.
Right, some people still woremasks, but other people didn't
For them.
For 2023, it was probably justabout the same.
(26:55):
Before Oregon Trail Days thisyear, we normally have 7,000
people attended.
We had over 11,000 peopleattended, probably 11,500.
And we did some geo-fencingaround the festival to see where
they're coming from, so we'reable to see from people who came
that were from 50 miles away ormore and how long they stayed
and the kind of things that theydid after they left us.
Jon (27:17):
How are you getting that data?
George (27:19):
So we work with our Visitor and Convention Bureau
and they have a program wherethey buy into the market
research, and so it's people'scell phones that are pinging
that they're at our festival andthey have to be there for two
hours or longer before they getcounted.
That's the trigger.
Yeah, yeah, that's great, it'spretty interesting.
Jon (27:37):
Many people have asked me this year about what I am seeing
, what I predict as far asaudience turnout for live events
coming up next year and theyear after that, and I kind of
had an aha moment just a coupleof months ago where I realized
that I think, coming out ofCOVID, you know that the general
rule, if you're going to starta new event, you can't really
(27:58):
judge it until you've run it forthree years.
Right, get three years worth ofdata, then you can start seeing
trends and stuff like that.
I think that COVID has beensuch a powerful reset of
everything in society that wehave to take that approach with
all of our events now, even ifthey've been running for decades
, even if they've been aroundfor generations.
(28:20):
I think it would be foolhardyto make assumptions about what
the future is going to look likeuntil we've gone through three
post-COVID years, and for manyevents that'll be next year,
2024 will probably be that thirdyear.
George (28:35):
Well, I think Bumbershoot is a good example of
retooling yourself and I thinkall festivals need to think
about that as what keeps usrelevant.
What can we do that's differentand what should we stop doing
because consumer really doesn'tdemand that anymore.
They don't like it because weget stuck on our ways of just
doing it.
We always do what we always didright and I've always tried to
add something new every year toa festival that I put on that
(28:58):
wasn't there the year beforethat people can experience.
And I think that's whatfestivals need to be thinking
about as they go forward is howare they relevant, what consumer
trends have changed and what isconsumer looking for today?
That's different from what itused to be in the past and it
really is experiential thatpeople want to have as an
experience, not just to go tothe festival, but they want to
(29:20):
have a real experience at thatfestival.
Jon (29:23):
Absolutely agreed.
The trick for producers comesin how do you come to an
understanding of what thosechanging trends are?
In the my Robin Kelly podcastepisode, she shares some
brilliant wisdom about prettymuch said exactly what you just
said about how every year theyhad a rule where every year
(29:43):
there had to be somethingsubstantially new and then they
had to take something, even ifit was been a beloved tradition
of the event.
Something had to go, and so Iasked them well, how did they
make those decisions?
And Issaquah Salmondays is aparticularly prime example of
that, because of the profounddemographic change that's
happened there over the lifespanof that event.
Issaquah of today is notIssaquah of yesterday not by any
(30:07):
stretch.
And what they used, which Ithought was brilliant, they use
their arts and craft vendors asa barometer of sorts of what
people are interested in.
That's where they make theirdecisions based on their vendor
experience.
Because it's such a largesample size, it works.
George (30:27):
Well, I would say the other thing for our festival
industry folks is you need toattend conferences.
You need to attend theWashington Festival and Events
Association Conference, for sure, and possibly the International
Festival and Events Associationor some other one to go to and
listen there as well, because alot of stuff gets talked about
the future and what's worked andwhat's not working and what
people are thinking, and itgives you a broader knowledge of
(30:49):
what's happening.
The other thing I would do islook up futurists and see what
are they saying about the futureand what's changing, especially
technology and what's changingtechnology world.
And in January, when they gotthat big show down in Las Vegas,
I always watched that to saywhat are the trends that are
happening there and what's thecraziness that's coming out of
that.
Is any of that craziness?
(31:10):
Could we have a demo of that atour festival?
Jon (31:12):
Technology drives everything.
That's one thing I've learned.
That has taken me the betterpart of a lifetime so far to
understand that throughout thecourse of human history,
ultimately, it's technology thatmoves things forward, whether
we like it or not.
You can literally look at theperiods of history.
You can find the periods ofhistory where there was not a
(31:33):
lot of technological development.
They were called the dark ages.
What it meant was just likenothing much changed for
hundreds of years.
But then there's thesebreakthroughs and all of a
sudden you have Renaissanceperiods.
Yep, so, going back to ThurstonCounty, edc, so are the cities
your clients?
Is that how you look at them?
George (31:51):
They're also our clients as well.
They have contracts with us.
All the cities have contractswith us to do community and
economic development activities.
And then we do a lot oftraining for their businesses.
They'll give us a contract andthat will build a specific
training program.
So we have a specific trainingjust for city of Lacey
businesses, just for city ofOlympia businesses, just for
city of Tumwater businesses.
(32:12):
They can.
Then they're like the businessis getting a scholarship to go
into that training that wouldnormally cost them 500 bucks to
participate in, but the citiesare covering that cost.
And then we also have acontract with the county
Thurston County to do economicdevelopment activities for the
county as well.
Jon (32:30):
I can imagine folks will listen to this podcast that
we're making today, and they'llbe from other parts of the state
maybe in other states orcountries for that matter and
they might, up until this point,be completely unaware of
entities such as Thurston EDC.
How would they go aboutconnecting and finding these
types of locations in their neckof the woods?
George (32:50):
We're kind of the Rodney Dangerfield of economic
development activity becausealmost every community has a
chamber of commerce as well.
Some places the chamber and theEDC have combined and are
working together, like inSpokane and Grays Harbor
Counties.
In our county we have both theThurston County Chamber of
Commerce and we have theEconomic Development Council.
So what you want to do inWashington we're called the ADO,
(33:11):
which we're officiallyrecognized by the Department of
Commerce as the entity in ourcounty that does economic
development and we are approvedby the county commissioners.
So economic development the ADOis Associate Development
Organization is what we aretaught.
But you go to your community,look for Economic Development
Council and just look that upand then go contact them and go
(33:34):
and meet them in person and saywhat do you do and how can I get
engaged and help do that?
And we even do nonprofit workwhere we teach nonprofits how to
start up.
We help them write theirbusiness plan and to think
through all that.
We connect them with attorneysto make sure they get all their
legal part together.
So we do the white varietybetween nonprofit and for-profit
(33:55):
businesses to assist them.
Jon (33:58):
Fantastic resources that are right under our noses a lot
of the time and 99% free Right.
Other than the events that youwork on, what festivals or
events have you seen, have youattended lately that have
inspired you?
George (34:13):
Again, I go back to Olympia Harbor days because how
they had reinvented themselves,how they add things to that, and
just Carol was an amazingfacilitator of that and running
of that organization.
The way she was able to go getsponsorship dollars was very
inspiring to me, and then howshe was able to get volunteers
(34:34):
to step up to the plate to helprun the festival and then just
adding those new events.
But the other one that I reallylike and have admired for over
10 years is the Lacey Spring FunFair.
The Lacey Spring Fun Fair wasrun by a nonprofit until about
four years ago when insurancebecame an issue and volunteers
issue, and so the city of Laceystepped up and said we will take
(34:56):
over and run Lacey Spring FunFair and keep the volunteers who
are interested in it, but we'lltake over the responsibility,
and so following their owninsurance.
And then they've reinventedthemselves and add things.
I mean they added a zipline tothis small festival and I say
small but they probably have50,000 people attend that over a
(35:16):
three day period and it's thesecond weekend in May which the
weather can be a little iffy.
And Janet Seiler she's just anamazing person that works with
the city of Lacey really admirewhat she does and she's very
inspiring.
And not only she does LaceySpring Fun Fair, but she does
probably another 30 events ayear.
She puts on a Lacey in tune,which is a evening well,
(35:40):
lunchtime program and eveningprogram and something on the
weekend throughout the summer,and just what they did.
They were very creative duringCOVID too, where they would do
stuff in their parks scavengerhunts and things that kept their
relevance to their audience.
I stole one of her ideas thisyear.
She had this thing called Cardin your Yard, which is a
national organization.
(36:01):
They have franchises all overand then this really cool sign
that said Lacey Spring Fun Fairand has all this graphics and
stuff.
And so I took that and Icontacted them and I said love
to have you do that for OregonTrail Days.
So we did it for Oregon TrailDays.
It says Oregon Trail Days 2023.
And then we have a motorcycledrill team in Tenino called
Tenino Motorcycle Drill Team.
(36:22):
That's in our parade.
So I had them put a Harley onit and balloons and stars and it
was really cool.
And then I had them made aframe so it became a selfie spot
.
So that's one idea I stole fromher this year.
I normally try to steal onething from her every year
because they do such an amazingjob, so You've piqued my
interest a city stepping in andsaying we'll take over this
(36:42):
event.
Jon (36:43):
It's exactly 180 degrees opposite of the way it usually
works.
I'm very familiar with thenotion that a city starts an
event and it grows and itbecomes successful, but at some
point they're almost alwayslooking to offload that risk to
the private sector or thenonprofit sector.
I don't think I've ever heardof it working the other way
(37:04):
around.
George (37:04):
Well, the threat was it was going to go away if somebody
didn't step in and help save itand reorganize it and keep it
coordinated and going.
And Lacey said and Lacey hasgood leadership the mayor's been
there for over 10 years andthey have a great new parks and
rec person that oversees thewhole parks and rec as well, and
it's leadership, really what itcomes down to.
Jon (37:25):
Well, it's leadership.
At the risk of staying theobvious, the city must see the
overall value clearly to move inthat direction.
Huh, now I kind of want to talkwith them.
George (37:37):
She's a great person, Janet Seiler.
Jon (37:38):
I've never, I don't think I've ever heard that story.
Would you recommend economicdevelopment to work as a career
path for folks?
George (37:48):
I would.
I always say you need to havethick skin, because there's a
critic about everything thething you do, both positive and
negative towards it, andespecially now with the keyboard
warriors out there, you dosomething, then boom, all this,
like 20,000 keyboard warriorssay, wow, that's negative,
something negative about it, andjust so you really have to have
(38:09):
thick skin.
But it's going to be one of themost rewarding careers that you
can have because you can make adifference in a small community
, in a county, and you can alsomake a difference statewide for
the economic developmentactivities of your state.
Jon (38:25):
What are some recommendations for a path of
entry into that type of work?
George (38:30):
Well, first off, I would start just contacting your
local economic developmentcouncil and say, hey, is there
any volunteer opportunities Ican be involved with?
And if it's a younger person,is there an internship you can
create whether it's paid ornon-paid internship that I can
actually get my feet wet and dosomething?
So this coming year I might becreating some internships for
(38:50):
people to assist me with socialmedia planning for the different
festivals that I'm involvedwith, so I can give them kind of
an experience and somethingthat they can seek their steeth
into so they can say, oh, I dolike that or no, I don't really
like that so much.
Jon (39:04):
Did you have any mentors in this business?
George (39:07):
Truthfully, I haven't had any mentors in this like
long term.
Like you know, one person youget with and they mentor you all
the way through.
I've had people who've inspiredme at other chambers of
commerce and then I would gomeet with them.
So one was Pat McGoy up at theCoeur d'Alene Area Chamber of
Commerce extremely creativeindividual, and so I would take
(39:27):
my whole staff up there and meetwith them once or twice a year
and we would walk through whatare you guys doing and then we
talk about what we're trying todo and they feed us back
feedback on that.
So Pat was great.
I followed him.
He became a consultant afterleaving that chamber and I
followed him for the last 25years and what he does and how
many chambers he's worked across.
There.
There's Frank Kenny he also.
(39:49):
He's created a chamber progroup, has 10,000 people in this
Facebook group and we askeveryday questions to that group
and get great answers of it.
Right now he's doing a campaignabout how to benefit from the
holiday season for yourcommunity.
So he's been a great mentor totalk to and I've had him come
speak when I was the Visitor ofthe Community Regional Director.
(40:10):
He had just written a bookabout social media somewhere
around 2015, which was, you know, just starting really to launch
.
So I had him come and do thatas well.
And then my mentor, who got mestarted in the right direction I
think from leadership etc wasmy FFA teacher, Jerry Longmeyer.
And so I in ninth grade washeaded the wrong direction.
Probably would have maybe noteven graduated from high school
(40:32):
if I hadn't had him come into mylife.
And so he said I'm going toenter you into a calf scramble.
So what's a calf scramble?
He says when we take you toPortland, there'll be 14 boys
and seven calves in this bigarena and they release them, and
if you can catch one and bringit over the finish line, then
you get to keep it for a yearand bring it back the next year.
So I caught one and that's whatchanged my life forever and I
(40:55):
learned responsibility.
And then he encouraged me toapply to be the FFA president.
So I was FFA president for twoyears in a row.
I was a star chapter farmer andall the different things that,
all the way to the nationallevel, that I could do in
leadership there.
And then he encouraged me to bethe ASB president.
So I ran for that and I wasable to become ASB president.
So he encouraged me and taughtme leadership all along the way
(41:18):
of that and just totally changedthe trajectory of my life.
You said that taught youresponsibility is that from the
keeping the calf for a year that, and then I actually went on to
raise sheep and pigs and Okay,so you just so.
George, did you grow up on afarm?
I did grow up on a farm,starting in eighth grade, so
eighth grade through high school.
Jon (41:38):
The reason I'm smiling right now is you start listening
to some of my other podcasts.
You'll hear me talk about thisquite a bit.
Several years ago.
I realized that in the eventproduction world specifically, I
learned this through concertsand touring a very large
percentage of the greatproduction managers, tour
(42:00):
managers, road managers outthere.
Their common thread is theygrew up on a farm.
And what is that?
Right, I think and I myselfincluded, I grew up on a farm as
well.
I think there's something tothat.
I think that, of course, I knowthat on the farm there is a
work ethic that is not optionalIn your case.
The calf.
Calf doesn't enjoy holidays.
(42:21):
The calf there is no, there areno days off.
The work's never done.
It's a commitment as alifestyle.
You're either in or you're out.
There is absolutely no middleground in farming or ranching,
and I can see I have seen in theworld of event production where
that is a really, reallyvaluable background to come from
(42:44):
that you can't get it any otherway.
George (42:47):
Well, you also learned to use baling wire and duct tape
and MacGyver type activities aswell.
Growing up on the farm, youfind a way.
Jon (42:54):
Whatever problem comes at you every day and they will come
at you every day, problemslarge or small, but you have to
solve it right now, often in thefield, with your wits and, like
you say, some baling, wire andtwine and whatever you've got.
If it really needs to be solved, you can figure it out right
now.
There's just so many skill setsthat come off of farming that a
(43:20):
lot of people don't think abouteven just being able to
prioritize or determine what'sreally important at the end of
the day and plan ahead also.
Yeah, and that cracks me up.
Everywhere I go, I just keeprunning into people who grew up
on a farm.
George, I know throughattending many of your talks at
conferences and seminars andwhatnot, that you're famous for
(43:40):
the George Sharp formulas forsuccess.
Can you share that with us?
George (43:45):
Yeah.
So when I worked for the statetourism office, I had to go to
all these other communities andhelp them, and so I tried to
figure out is there some kind ofrecipe, is there some kind of
common thread of the successfulones versus the ones who didn't
reach their full potential?
And so I created what wascalled my formula for success,
(44:05):
and it's three I's plus seven Ps, plus CS, plus Q, plus A equals
S, and I'll go through thosequickly.
But the first eye is forimagination.
You really have to have a greatimagination of what can be,
what can happen and bring newideas to your festival event and
to your organization.
The second eye is for intuitionand to use intuition in making
(44:29):
decisions and what's the rightthing to do, and that'll come to
you.
And then the third is I is forinitiative, and you need to take
the initiative to be active andproactive and take action to
make things happen for yourorganization and for your
community.
The first P in the form ofsuccess is passion, and
(44:50):
successful communities andorganizations and the festivals
are filled with people, withpassion for the community, for
the organization, festival, andpassion for others to exceed as
well, and that's reallyimportant.
It's not about you, but thatyou want to see other people
succeed.
Passion is the field thatdrives the community and
betterment and becomescontagious with the other people
, and we Love Rainier is a greatexample of that.
(45:12):
Started with 15 people grew to30 and then that became
contagious and people wanted tosee We Love Rainier be
successful, and it's also partof helping recruit new people to
your organization when youshare that passion.
But I saw a lot of passionatepeople in the story I told you
about the two people I stoppedthe fist fight for Right.
The second P, which ispersonality.
(45:33):
It's important to understandyour personality type and how
you're being perceived, as wellas the personality type of those
you come into contact with andwork with.
Each personality type has adifferent way of communication
that works with and or for them.
Understanding where people arecoming from and how they operate
is vital to building a longterm working relationship with
them.
I've witnessed personalitydifferences stop community
(45:56):
organizations and festivalefforts dead in their tracks
because they couldn't get along,and I've identified about 18
negative personality types andabout four good personality
types.
And so, anyway, from an egomaniac, right, how do you deal
with the ego maniac?
Well, I learned.
You make it their idea, so youplant the seed and then two
weeks later and said where areyou at with that idea?
(46:17):
And they have probably thoughtabout it by them and becomes
their idea and then they can ownit, because I don't care who
gets the credit, as long as weaccomplish what we were wanting
to accomplish.
Devils advocate there's alwaysone of those and they used to
drive me crazy until I realizedthey asked really tough,
difficult questions that aregoing to be asked by Joe Q
Public when you go out to dosomething, and so let them ask
(46:38):
them in a smaller setting andcome up with what the answer is
on that.
The third P is for a plan.
You need to establish anoverall plan that addresses the
mission and visions and goalsand the strategies, tactics,
budget, timeline and roles andresponsibly of staff and
volunteers, and then themeasurement and evaluation and
really important to put thatevaluation in there.
(46:59):
After every event I do, I askwhat went really well, what
could we have done better?
What should we stop doing?
Because we never ask thatquestion what should we stop
doing?
We just say what can we add onThen?
What should we start doing?
And the question to both ofthose is because technology has
changed, because consumers arechanged.
If you could ask 10 times forsomething, you may want to
(47:20):
consider putting that into yourplan and then in the plan, do a
strength, weaknesses,opportunities and threats
analysis.
That goes with it.
The fourth P is partnerships.
And it used to be that aChamber of Commerce or Visit
Conventure Bureau or EconomicDevelopment Council could do the
stuff just by themselves.
Take it on, let's do it, butbecause of the limitation of
(47:40):
time of volunteers, limitationof money, resources, that kind
of things, then you need to saywhat kind of partnership can we
have?
And the partnerships I reallyrecommend that you create a
memorandum of understanding thatreally outlines what are all
the roles and responsibilitiesof each organization involved,
then also what's going to be theevaluation process of that.
(48:02):
And I really recommend that youcelebrate once a year that
partnership, because some peoplewho came in the partnership in
the beginning may have left.
Some people die, some peopleget new jobs, etc.
They get a new person thatcomes on and they don't know why
we're in this partnershiptogether and you never, ever
want them to ask why are we inpartners with these people?
(48:22):
Why are we doing that?
So keep that updated with themAt least.
I really recommend that youcelebrate around a meal where
you celebrate, you stop and youask those questions and people
get to say together what wassuccessful, what could we do
better, and it gets by in thatway.
The fifth P, which people saythis never happens, but politics
and politics occur at manylevels, including the
(48:45):
organization.
It's important to understandwhat the key issues are,
concerns being addressed.
It's important to make sure thelocal, county, state and
federal elected officials knowwhat you're trying to accomplish
, because you never know wherethey're going to meet somebody
that will have a resource tohelp you, especially financially
.
And there's been a lot oforganizations across the state I
talked to that.
They get involved with that andthey ended up getting $250,000,
(49:07):
$500,000 because they hadtalked to their politician on
that.
The sixth piece of perseveranceif at first you don't succeed,
try, try again, but adjust.
Like I talked about the grants,why didn't we get that grant?
Ask the grantor, what do weneed to tweak to our grant to do
that and persevere?
And a lot of overnightsuccesses started 18 years ago.
(49:28):
I use Leavenworth as an example.
Leavenworth wanted to have atrain station because everybody
had to go to Wenatchee, get offthe train there and then bus
back to Leavenworth.
So it took them 10 years, but10 years later they had a train
station in Leavenworth for that.
And then the seventh piece isfor purpose.
It's about our why.
Why are we doing something asan organization, as a festival,
(49:51):
and then personally, what's yourwhy?
Why are you involved in that?
The CS stands for common senseand what I ask is that groups
say you get group think right.
And so you're going down thispath and we're all thinking the
same thing.
But do we ever stop and saydoes this make common sense?
So if you're working onsomething new, go to your
neighbor or somebody has no ideawhat you're talking about and
(50:12):
outline what you're saying andsay does this make common sense?
And they go what the heck areyou thinking?
Or, oh, yeah, that does makecommon sense.
Put you on the same page aswith what people are thinking.
The Q stands for quality.
It needs to be done.
Everything you do, from yourwebsite, flyers, social media,
anything you do that you do in aquality way.
The A stands for attitude andit should be an attitude as we
(50:34):
can do it as what's needed bytoday's individuals who are
working together for thebetterment of the community and
festival.
And some communities andeconomic development standpoint
get known for an attitude of wedon't want any business here.
And we had one of those inThurston County and I went to
their leadership and they askedme to come and talk to them
about recruiting businesses andI said you realize that you're
known for an attitude that youdon't want any businesses in
(50:56):
your community.
And one lady looked at me andshe says what do you mean?
I said what's the permittingprocess?
How long does it take?
What's it cost?
And you're known for trying tostop things instead of having
things start.
And that really had anadjustment for them and they've
gone 180% different now.
Jon (51:13):
Did they not realize that?
George (51:15):
that's how they were perceived.
No, they did not Got it.
Yeah, because they didn't askthe question.
Then the S stands for success,and you need to determine what
success looks like and whodetermines it with you.
And does it take intoconsideration the community
values?
Because what success looks liketo me in economic development
and recruiting businesses andseeing growth, et cetera and
(51:35):
we're having that in one of oursmall towns I'm working with is
we don't want any more outsidersand we don't want any big box
stores and we don't want that.
Well, to understand what theirvalue is and what success looks
like to them, their successlooks like growing small
businesses, no, outsidefranchises, that kind of thing.
And so who determines thesuccess?
Is it the city council?
(51:55):
Is it the county commissioners?
Is it your citizens?
Who determines that success?
And to know what that lookslike, like Stephen Covey said,
begin with the end of mind,everything you do.
What is it we want toaccomplish?
And what does that look likefive, 10, 20 years from now?
And so that's my formula forsuccess to consider.
Jon (52:13):
Who is your favorite ancestor?
George (52:19):
My grandpa, Harvey Williams my middle name's Harvey
as well.
He was just this awesome oldguy.
He was an entrepreneur, he wasa well-driller, he lived in
Baker City and then he ownedhalf of Hermiston, Oregon, at
one time.
Wow, and just learning from him, he was an inventor.
He invented a lot of thingswith irrigation, and so he
(52:39):
actually had trademarks orpatents on things as well, and
so he was my favorite grandpa.
I took him supper everySaturday, called buckwheat spuds
the exact same thing, andcornbread every Saturday, my
whole high school years until hepassed away in 1980.
Jon (52:54):
Who do you think?
George (52:55):
you are.
Who do I think I am.
I think what I want to be knownfor is somebody who really
cared about other people andwanted to make a difference in
the lives of other people, andthat's what I try to live up to
be every day and just show thatI care.
Jon (53:10):
You walk into an ice cream parlor, you're going to get a
cone with two scoops.
What are the flavors?
Vanilla and vanilla.
Say more about that.
George (53:19):
So I've always liked vanilla ice cream.
In fact, when I'm sick I get avanilla milkshake, Kind of as my
pick me up pick me up.
There.
We have friends in Pullman whoown a flower shop and a Neil's
Coffee and Ice Cream store, andso I went on a vegan kick for a
couple of years and I did veganand the only vegan they had was
vanilla.
So that worked out.
(53:40):
I'm not on the vegan kickanymore, but I still just love
vanilla ice cream, my favorite.
Jon (53:46):
George, it has been a real treat talking with you today.
Thank you so much for makingthe time and welcoming me into
your home, Well.
George (53:53):
I appreciate you coming down.
It was a great conversation.
I look forward to listening toall the other podcasts as well.
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