Rebecca Serna is the Executive Director of the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, which organizes Atlanta Streets Alive. This Open Streets event first took place in 2010 and has grown into an event that takes place three times a year and drew 15,000 people in 2013. This blog is part of a series. 

Here’s her advice for new Open Streets organizers.

We made a deliberate choice to use a name that didn’t connote bicycles. We took a softer approach to introducing people to bikes. Our marketing was much more about exploring the streets and being active – and we brought in lots of different activities.

Great marketing can make an event take off. Our goal for the first event was 3,000 people, and we ended up with 5,000 people.

Marketing images for Atlanta Streets Alive focused on walking more than biking. Image: Rebecca Serna

Atlanta Streets Alive branding highlights the many activities that can be part of a great Open Streets event. Image: Rebecca Serna

Do partner with government agencies and officials. We worked with the metropolitan planning organization, which helped make the event appear more official. A champion councilmember and his staff also showed up.

If you have a potential political champion, try to send them to an Open Streets in another community. It’s hard to understand what an Open Streets initiative is until you see it for yourself.

Don’t fight the weather! We attempted to do an event in the summer of 2011 – which is HOT in Atlanta – and attendance went down significantly.

At the beginning, we faced several challenges:

• We’re a small nonprofit with a small budget.
• We had no event planning experience. We tried hiring an event company, but they weren’t mission driven. We solved this problem by hiring an in-house events manager.

At first, we tried to use functional committees (i.e., marketing, fundraising, etc.). That didn’t work super well, so we switched to location-specific committees (i.e., organized by neighborhoods). That works quite well.

Atlanta Streets Alive organizers found it difficult to work with funtional committees. Image: Rebecca Serna

Location-based committees worked much better. Image: Rebecca Serna

We made an initial decision not to bring in outside vendors and just support local businesses instead. We faced some initial opposition to the event from local businesses, so this ended up being a good decision.

Think about how an Open Streets initiative fits into your core mission as an organization. This is an ongoing conversation for us. We also face pressure to make the Open Streets more like a festival, with more beer tents or vendors. We need to resist that.

Atlanta's Open Streets initiative has a clear mission statement. Image: Rebecca Serna

After you have an event or two under your belt, consider how you want to grow. We started in 2010 with a one mile event and 5,500 attendees. By October of 2012, we had a five mile event with 20,000 attendees. Demand continues to increase: we’re looking at adding one new route every year, and hope to have four events in 2015!

Atlanta Streets Alive has been so successful that many people would like to see an event each month. Image: Rebecca Serna