7. Publicity

You can promote go, and your local club, by getting a story about your tournament into the local media. The local press are always looking out for stories, especially with photographs. This chapter covers external publicity for your Tournament. It does NOT cover advertising your Tournament to the Go-playing community.

7.1 Press Release

The first item is to write a Press Release. This should be done about a week before the event (any earlier and it is likely to be forgotten). It should be emailed to the local press (both paid-for, and free), and local TV/Radio stations.

It is not hard to write a basic press release. The key elements are:-

• The phrase “Press Release: For Immediate Use”
• “Photo-call: (specific time and place)”, so they know when to turn up if they wish to take photographs;
• a few paragraphs making up a half-written story about your event, which they can buff up;
• contact details for you, of which email address and phone number are the most important.
• Background information ("Notes for Editors"). See the second page of this example Press Release for words that you can use after appropriate editing.

Email this to the paper, marking it “for attention of” (name) if you have a contact there, otherwise “News-desk”.

Appendix C gives an example Press Release; others are available here.

Pictures taken with a digital camera can be e-mailed to local newspapers together with a press release. This saves them doing any work and can result in good coverage in the local papers.

You can also consider giving information, perhaps a copy of the Press Release, to the local Tourist Information Bureau.

7.2 Local TV and Radio

A spot on local TV would be a real coup, but it is relatively difficult to achieve. They will need advanced warning to get a camera crew there.

On the other hand, local radio is a much easier nut to crack. Local Radio stations have hours of air-time to fill.

You may be invited in to give an interview before the Tournament itself. Do not be afraid; the interviewers are there to get the best out of you, not to emulate John Humphries or Jeremy Paxman. They are experienced in dealing with tongue-tied or hesitant interviewees. Nevertheless, you should be well prepared for such an interview: think (and practice) in advance the words you wish to use.

7.3 After the Event

A second Press Release should be sent immediately after the Tournament. This should include:-

• One of more good quality photographs (better taken with a digital camera than a phone)
• text, including any news of local interest.

Make sure the BGA web news editor (web-news-editor at britgo.org) gets a report of your event so that you will get a write-up of your tournament into his BGJ tournaments column and the news pages on this web site; this will also cause a report to appear in the next BGA Newsletter.