Contributed by Josh Fryfogle
Mark your calendars, because the 12th Annual Who Let the Girls Out spring-fling event is happening the last weekend in April. April 29th & 30th. Who Let the Girls Out is a HUGE community effort where dozens of local businesses invest time and money into unique events at their locations. They all do specials, giveaways, demonstrations, live music, and much more to draw in the large crowd of shoppers the event brings to Palmer.
Who Let The Girls Out started with a group of local business women, local leaders in the Palmer community. They wanted to simply increase business in a traditionally slow time of the year. This cooperative effort was not a competitive concept, either. It was just the opposite.
Most businesses in Downtown Palmer at the time were owned and operated by women. These business owners wanted to do something special, not only for women, but celebrating women in the community. The initial thought, brought forward by founder Denise Statz, was that with a little cooperation, the downtown area could become a venue for each little shop to produce their own specials, events, and offerings that day. Denise went door to door (I know because I went with her), explaining to the shop owners how we could cooperate, producing separate events, but without stepping on each other.
“A rising tide raises all ships.” That aphorism is usually quoted by those advocating for government economic policies, but when we went door to door to talk to local business owners about our cooperative effort, Denise Statz repurposed that quote. She applied it to our own voluntary cooperation, and I’ve always preferred her usage of the phrase.
By making sure that the main events of the day were not in competition with one another, Who Let The Girls Out was able to bypass the competition that is otherwise the norm, that would prevent our attendees from enjoying everything we had to offer at WLTGO. Businesses are always competing for your dollars, your time, but with WLTGO, the downtown Palmer business owners were able to avoid overlap.
These downtown businesses are always working to keep the doors open, and in their daily occupations they are fully occupied. WLTGO allowed each business owner the creative freedom to create their own events, or special offers, or other interactive opportunities as usual, and our planning group worked to make sure that these separate events and efforts benefitted each other. This was the secret to success for WLTGO. By not dividing our attendees’ attention, we were able to create a concept that starts with the annual run on Friday evening, and ends Saturday evening.
The goal was to make sure that the day’s events were not conflicting with each other. That’s where my company got involved.
Make A Scene media company has organized and distributed the official WLTGO guide inside Make A Scene Magazine, and also the Stamp Pass. As we build the guide each year, we let the separate planners know when their event might be in conflict with another, and with small adjustments to their respective plans they were able to benefit each other rather than detract from each other. The guide includes a schedule of events and a list of businesses with their special offers. Our goal was to create a schedule that, if someone were to follow it, would allow an attendee to enjoy everything the event has to offer! Not only did this eliminate competition between the participating businesses, and event promoters, but it ensured that each participating business and event promoter was given the best possible opportunity for success!
It’s hard to get outside of the competitive mindset. It’s difficult, especially for business-minded people, to set aside their own competitive interests in favor of cooperation and coordination. But WLTGO is a testament that when we do cooperate, voluntarily, with an earnest desire to help each other, we succeed in doing so.