Building healthy events

An event or festival that is healthy, fun, smoke-free, and safe, attracts individuals and families from across your community, ready to stay longer and spend money. 

This guide is designed for use by anyone involved in organizing a community event, fair, music or art festival, cultural celebration, museum exhibit, concert, sporting event, or fundraiser. It is a tool for community organizations, schools, health departments, or other community serving agencies looking for new and innovative ways to impact the health of a community.

Follow some of these easy and simple steps to make your event healthy, fun, and a huge community success.

• Create designated drinking areas such as beer gardens.
• Standardize alcohol sales.
• Require mandatory and consistent pricing.
• Consider limiting cup sizes to 12 ounces.
• All beverage cups should be transparent.
• Limit 2 beverages per person, per purchase.
• Prohibit guests from bringing alcohol onto festival grounds.
• Stop serving alcohol one (1) hour before event ends.
• Post signage with alcohol policies in multiple languages at each vendor station.
• Require proof of identification for every customer at every sale.
• Colorful wrist ID bracelets verifying that “age” has been checked are OK – but can easily be removed and passed from one person to another.  And they don’t relieve the seller of ultimate responsibility for serving to a minor.
• Require training in Responsible Beverage Service for staff selling alcohol.
• Partner with law enforcement and community prevention coalitions to deliver convenient trainings.
• Practice reviewing identification to avoid illegal sales to minors.
• Prohibit servers from consuming alcohol.
• Require all alcohol servers to be 21 years of age or older.
• Develop and enforce consequences for vendors who sell to obviously intoxicated individuals or to minors.
• Visible presence of law enforcement at alcohol booths is a great way to decrease problems related to youth attempting to purchase or over consumption.

• Celebrate and highlight healthy food options already offered at your festival.
• Collaborate with food vendors to provide a diverse variety of healthy food choices assuring items are prepared trans-fat free, served in biodegradable containers and represent cross-cultural cuisine.
• Require food vendors develop menus that include healthier options at competitive prices.
• Feature healthy menu items and vendors in event marketing, brochure, website, and social media.
• Promote healthy strategies to the media.
• Avoid marketing that promotes unhealthier choices and activities.
• Add vendors’ healthy food items to event maps and guides.
• Partner with local culinary organizations and dietitians to offer food vendor trainings and consultations on how to create healthier menus.
• Offer healthy cooking demonstrations. Restaurant, restaurant supply stores, and chefs will eat up the attention.
• Create prominent “eye-catching” signage for healthy food options.

The safest and healthiest option for any event, is a complete smoking prohibition, but even for events where smoking is permitted, both smokers and non-smokers can be helped by policies that restrict smoking and clearly designate smoking areas. Smokers who want to stop will be supported by these policies, and community members will appreciate not being exposed to pollutants. No amount of exposure to second-hand smoke is safe. All forms of smoke are harmful (tobacco, marijuana, and even electronic nicotine devices like vape pens). Adopting a smoke-free policy affirms a family-friendly atmosphere in a safer, healthier environment.  *Smoking is not allowed on any County of Marin property.

• Replace tobacco sponsorships with a community collaborative, non-profit or other type of business.
• Ban tobacco marketing.
• Eliminate tobacco branded giveaways.
• Ban smoking except in designated smoking areas.
• Create designated smoking areas in highly visible locations outside event gates.
• Actively redirect all types of smoking to designated areas.  Make sure all signage is bilingual to reflect the community.
• Provide training to staff and volunteers in tobacco related problems and prevention.

Health happens best where and when your community is at play! Visitors come to your event or festival to have fun. Creating an environment that encourages health and physical wellness will add to the overall experience and memory of your festival, will be appreciated by guests, and will even contribute to changes in the social and community fabric of your community.

• Creating healthy activities leads to families staying longer and brings valuable and free media attention.
• Work with sponsors and partners to create venues, booths and activities that culturally represent your community and highlight and promote fun physical activity. Family runs and races, hula hooping contests, Conga Lines, and flash mobs can be easily added to festival attractions.
• Kids love to run. Create a fun run to get them moving and excited about being active.  Invite parents with strollers to join the fun.
• Offer and promote Free Valet Bicycle Parking. Bicycle Coalitions LOVE this attention.
• Give out free pedometers for guests to track their steps and win prizes as they reach milestones while walking around the festival.
• Organize and promote a scavenger hunt.
• Use the course to promote vendors with healthy menu items.
• Highlight other points of interest and offerings along the route, providing fun “clues to good health.”
• Give passes to a local YMCA as prizes.

It’s easy to be green!  There are many creative ways to make your event more environmentally friendly and financially beneficial too.

• Partner with local conservation organizations on waste diversion and composting.
• Provide training to vendors on recycling practices.
• Require vendors to use compostable containers.
• Place eco stations throughout the event (which include bins for compost, recycle, landfill). Don’t forget to staff the eco stations or provide instructions showing what goes where!
• Partner with local bike organizations to offer complimentary bicycle valet parking.
• Replace light fixtures with energy-conserving bulbs.
• Invite attendees to bring their own reusable empty water containers. Provide water stations throughout the event.
• Encourage interactive learning opportunities; discourage exhibitors from handing out paper flyers, brochures, or other materials. They’ll just end up in the trash or fly away in the wind.

• Let everybody know what you are doing!
• Include healthy messages in your marketing strategy.
• Identify staff to promote the event using all forms of media to different audiences by age, gender, culture, ethnicity, or use of technology.
• Use social media as a low-cost way to promote the event.
• Before and during the event, highlight the healthy food options, free bicycle parking and fun physical activities for children (Fun Run, hula hoop, etc.).
• Create a #hashtag for your event such as #YourFairName. Invite participants to share their photos from the event on social media using a #hashtag. Some social media sites to use: Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, others.
• Ask partners to share your messaging, particularly to groups who would appreciate your healthy changes like to “Mommy” bloggers and to social media influencers (local people with large followings on Facebook or Twitter) to announce the healthy food choices and family friendly activities happening at the event.  
• Send event announcements and press releases to local media (newspapers, local TV stations, radio, magazines, bloggers).
• Prepare an Op Ed or Letter to the Editor well in advance of the event and reach out to media to schedule the publication.
• Work with local elected officials to review and support healthy policies and ordinances. Write press releases about how they have helped, they will appreciate the attention.

Look in your own community for organizations that are eager to partner with you. Some of these may be already among existing partners and vendors. You’ll be surprised at how eagerly others will jump at the opportunity to join the fun:

• Smoke-free coalitions.
• Healthy eating and active living partnerships.
• Alcohol and drug free community coalitions.
• Breast feeding coalitions.
• Health and fitness centers.
• Hospitals, medical centers, and physicians’ groups
• Youth serving organizations.
• Faith-based organizations and collaboratives.
• Health departments.
• Community foundations.
• Promoters and community health workers.
• Nonprofits (especially those already working at your event).
• Local colleges, fraternities, sororities, and clubs.
• Regional occupational programs, dietetic programs.
• Culinary programs.
• Police department.
• Food Bank and food pantries.
• Schools and Head Start sites.
• Farmers markets.

Consider perks for partners who agree to be part of these innovative efforts:

• Recognition as a sponsor of your event.
• Signage and banners throughout the fair.
• Coverage and advertising in event program.
• Link from event website to agency website.
• Inclusion of submitted partners’ materials into media.
• Booth space at in the community partners sections.

It is okay to start with small steps! Take on what’s manageable – one step at a time. There’s always next time for adding and editing what works and what doesn’t. Commit to making small changes, one event at a time. Just making a few small changes can make a big impact!

If we can do it, so can you!