Part of the national Doors Open Days event, and organised by Glasgow Buildings Preservation Trust, the Glasgow Doors Open Days Festival is an annual celebration of the city’s architectural heritage and the communities that built it.
I joined the festival at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as a digital marketing consultant and manager, using a combination of social media, digital advertising, e-newsletters, blogs and press strategy to promote over 100 events in a virtual festival.
The conditions of that first digital event were complex. My content strategy condensed a programme of streamed talks (some pre-recorded and some live), video tours and audio walking and cycling tours, while highlighting the festival’s theme, Untold Stories, which unearthed the city’s lesser told colonial histories and niche obscurities.
The festival went hybrid in 2021, meaning that my key messages were focused on explaining varying levels of social distancing at events, as well as the already existing virtual programme.
The theme that year was Sustainable Communities, which presented the opportunity to explore climate change and built heritage (Civic House’s “PassivWareHaus” retrofit being a personal favourite), Glasgow’s Gaelic etymology as the “Dear Green Place”, and the people that have rallied to preserve beloved old buildings.