It’s been a couple of years since the #BigIndoorEggRoll – but with Easter on the horizon, and Preston gearing up for its annual (somewhat bonkers) Avenham Park tradition, we’ve decided it’s time to revisit a campaign that actually, looking back, was pretty special.
We’ll not tire you with a rehashing of spring 2020, but needless to say there were a couple of not entirely selfless motives behind the idea of creating a virtual egg roll for the good folk of Preston. Living in the city-centre with no garden meant each of our daily walks in the park was precious and we saw a real risk of access being taken away if even half of the usual crowds visited on Easter Monday.
Also from the practical side of things my clients had pulled their design projects and Helen was freshly furloughed from her events job; we were both left with a whole lot of nothing to do. There are only so many banana breads a person can make…
Planning
From ‘let’s do this’ to Easter Monday was a grand total of 12 days, and we packed a lot in. Though there were 100+ years of history and tradition to tap into, we had to rebrand the event to bring it entirely online, raise awareness and get people involved ASAP. I worked (and reworked) the visuals creating logos, banners, gifs and downloads while H got cracking on media outreach, organising PR, prizes and getting as many eyes as possible on our socials.
Easter Weekend
By Easter Weekend we’d both been on Radio Lancashire, submitted awkward talking head footage to North West Tonight, and had converted Make Do Drink into a temporary #BigIndoorEggRoll hub. There was an original song by James Mulholland complete with its own music video, colouring sheets and egg hunt clues were being downloaded across the county, our mentions were blowing up, and the videos had started to roll in!
By Monday there were eggs going down stairs, out of windows, through loft hatches and across gardens. We had everything from civil engineers building elaborate backyard egg runs to siblings squabbling over the top step, there were adults in bunny heads and kids in peter rabbit outfits, it was crafty and crackers and absolutely magic.
(check out the highlights here)
Aftermath
We had the extra post-event treat of picking ten winners for the prizes Booths had kindly donated to the cause, combing through dozens and dozens of tags, DMs and submissions to choose our absolute favourites. Eggs were posted as far as Cornwall and we were able to spread a little lockdown joy with doorstep drop-offs the length and breadth of Lancashire.
People sent the most gorgeous messages and we finished the weekend feeling like we had contributed in a small way to the city’s morale. In the end our campaign reached over thirty thousand(!) people, and the park stayed completely empty over the bank holiday weekend 🙌
Make Do Egg
Whilst at first glance it might not seem totally on brand for Make Do Drink to run a mostly family centric campaign, actually it was creative, it was events, and it had local at its heart. The Big Indoor Egg Roll just wouldn’t have worked anywhere else because it’s Preston through and through (raise your hand if you’re just now finding out nobody else in the country rolls their eggs 🙋).
Luckily times are looking a little more precedented this spring, but should you find yourself in need of a #crevents team (creative events, see what we did there…) — well then you know where to find us 😉
