An all-day festival is a promoter’s dream; you can aim subtle messages at people who don’t mind being marketed to because they’re having a good time. That’s just what happened at the 4th Annual Great American Youth Festival in Lowell, MA. The festival was hosted by the Greater Lowell Council Boy Scouts of America and sponsored by a number of local and national corporations. Thirteen youth associations also participated. Admission was only $2, but there were all kinds of things to keep young people occupied. “There were fun things like dunking tanks that the Pop Warner football folks had sponsored,” says Thomas F. Markham III, president of the Greater Lowell Boy Scout Council and employee of the PR firm that provided publicity for the event. There was also music, dance and other stage acts. Promotional products started showing up early on. One way promoters boosted awareness was selling buttons at $2 each. These were available two months before the festival through the Boy Scouts and other groups. Half the proceeds went to the cost of the festival; the other to the group doing the selling. Another early product was a keytag, given out by organizers seeking financial support. “We had a series of speakers who would speak to Rotary Clubs and Kiwanis Clubs and Chambers of Commerce and things like that,” Markham explains. “You could give one [tag] to every member at a speaking opportunity. It was a great way to keep the logo and symbol and name of the event in someone’s mind." On festival day, more promotional items were used. A festival store sold things like T-shirts, windbreakers and baseball caps. The festival also used imprinted golf shirts as thank-you gifts. “If you were a $500 or $1,000 sponsor, you got a golf shirt,” Markham said. “If the kids sold 50 buttons, they would get a T-shirt.” The products all bore the copy “Great American Youth Festival.” Some included the event’s slogan, “Xtreme Xcitement,” with a black-and-white graphic. The initial idea of the festival was to showcase the good things young people do, and in that respect it was a tremendous success. “Everything you see in the newspapers is always about kids in trouble,” Markham says. “Here are 10,000 young people and their parents and family members who came out to show these kids are doing great things with their childhood. They’re learning skills. They’re putting themselves to work.”