Committee members spent substantial meeting time weighing options for promoting Main Street Live and other town events, balancing the limits of the committee’s marketing line against the desire to bring in outside attendees.

Members criticized very small, one-time paid-ad amounts as unlikely to deliver meaningful results and stressed that paid advertising requires a minimum, sustained spend to be effective. The town’s communications staff described the town’s organic promotion channels and noted the communications team’s competing priorities, advising committees to provide advance notice for scheduling and any paid-ad parameters (geography, demographics, languages) if committees require targeted buys.

In place of larger paid buys, the committee agreed to pursue several lower-cost and nonpaid tactics: posting events on Eventbrite and other local event directories, requesting that bands and sponsors repost event materials, using the town’s email newsletter and local business contact lists where appropriate, and piloting a ‘‘recognized local promoter’’ program that would formally acknowledge local micro-influencers or community promoters in exchange for promotional posts. A committee member suggested offering small physical recognition (plaques or certificates) as nonmonetary reciprocity to encourage local social-media promotion.

Business networking socials: The committee also set the 2026 business networking-socials cadence to every other month, allocating existing funds across January, March, May, July and September events. The committee kept the current approach of a $500 restaurant sponsorship per event (vendor provides receipts/invoice) and asked staff to confirm logistics and reminders well in advance to allow hosts time to plan and promote.

Quotes and attributions are limited to speakers identified in the meeting record. One committee member proposed using a recognition/awards approach for local promoters instead of direct ad buys; Felicia emphasized leveraging bands and sponsors for organic reposts and said the performance invoices and paperwork were ready to go for some dates.

Next steps: Committee members were asked to compile a short list of local micro-influencers, to confirm whether town communications can schedule targeted organic posts for the events, and to prepare an outreach plan for the networking-social series in January.