One of my favorite parties of all times was done at a lease up property. We invited all the restaurants and food vendor to participate in a ‘TASTE OF ____________ APARTMENTS’! This was open to current residents, and the entire community at large! We had 18 restaurants participate. We had a new building coming on line soon and needed traffic. We held the event in the parking lot, under the carports. We had several local bands playing through out the day, (They volunteered their time for the exposure) a beer and wine tent and activities for families and people of all ages. We had a bouncy slide, a trackless train that rode through out the community, (this was big enough for adults and awesome) the Fire Department was their giving rides on the bucket truck and they had their little demo house for the kids to play in. We had a lady painting faces and doing other crafts with the kids. We also had gifts basket drawings throughout the day.
We partnered with the local Restaurant Association. The restaurants gave out samples of food from their menus. Visitors paid $10 per adult, kids under 10 ate free. Visitors could visit any or all of the restaurants, but they had to purchase their tickets in the community clubhouse! Current residents volunteer to help us. They were given food tickets in exchange for helping.
The money that was raised went to a local charity for kids. All of the restraints advertised the event. Several local TV and radio stations participated in the event, providing extensive publicity for the event with live broadcasts through out the day.
We had almost 1500 come through from 1pm to 6pm and rented 37 apartments that day. At an average of $800 that’s $355,200 per year!! The event cost about $2100. Not a bad return.