Join the Festivities

Jun 23, 2008

The Extreme Makeover boat at Oregon's Da Vinci Days // (c) Corvallis Tourism 2008 As with other destinations around the world, Oregon’s visitor-friendly festivals focus on wine, food and music. But this Pacific Northwest state doesn’t stop there. Instead, it likes to add a little spunk to its special events, an approach that gives travel agents extra selling power.

Teresa O’Neill, Travel Oregon’s director of international sales and marketing, said Oregon’s unique festivals help create a buzz among potential visitors. “Clients contact their travel agents to learn more about an event that sounds like fun, and ultimately they book a trip which involves commissionable hotel room nights,” said O’Neill. “Often, accommodations in the area offer packages for the festivals, including reduced room rates that the agent can pass along to their customer as added value.”

Since the state’s marketing tag line is “We Love Dreamers,” it only follows that Oregon lays claim to a full calendar of unconventional gatherings. “We’re targeting clients who are seeking a different type of vacation experience,” O’Neill said. “Many of our festivals tend to incorporate that unique and quirky feeling that often captures the interest of the more educated and affluent traveler.”

DaVinci Days is a perfect example of Oregon’s offbeat approach to annual affairs. The Corvallis event encourages clients to get in touch with their inner inventor. Held this year from July 18-20, the Willamette Valley-based spree sparks creativity, celebrates innovation and fosters understanding of art, science and technology. During its Kinetic Challenge race, clients watch human-powered all-terrain vehicles slosh through muddy puddles, glide along city streets and defy gravity with every turn. DaVinci Days also features an electric car race. Another popular attraction is the open-air flying art exhibit with winged creatures and other vehicles soaring overhead.

Then, there’s the Tualatin Crawfish Festival Aug. 8-9. The oldest of its kind in the U.S., the celebration was created to honor Tualatin’s new Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Hall that was built in 1951 and coincides with an abundance of crawfish in the Tualatin River. These days, attendees celebrate with a cook-off, a crawfish-eating contest, dog show, live music, arts and crafts vendors and as much crawfish as clients can handle.

Mushrooms pop up all over the coastal town of Yachats from Oct. 15-17 during the Yachats Village Mushroom Festival. Clients can taste mushroom-inspired cuisine at local restaurants throughout the weekend and they can visit the Harvest Festival Farmers Market for fresh and dried delectable ’shrooms picked from area forests, as well as other local produce. Mushroom walks, talks and workshops are offered throughout the weekend to educate fungus lovers about wild mushrooms, both edible and toxic.

Each spring, the city of Portland goes manic over movies during its Faux Film Festival, next slated for April 3-5, 2009. During this event, an unpredictable and truly bizarre assortment of films descends upon the city’s Hollywood Theatre, a historic venue that has screened films and hosted performances for more than 80 years. The festival includes fake movie trailers, infomercials and public service announcements, along with mockumentaries and music video parodies. Recent audience award-winners have included “Li’l Cocktail Lounge,” a commercial selling a cocktail-themed child’s play set, and “300 Pounds,” an epic battle of 300-pound men.

Arguably the weirdest and wackiest of all the state’s special events is the annual UFO Festival, held at the McMenamin’s Hotel Oregon in McMinnville. Celebrating 10 years in May 2009, the second largest UFO festival in the nation attracts extraterrestrial aficionados who assemble to ponder the possibilities of life beyond Earth. Festival-goers enjoy out-of-this-world sounds with a live band, jog together in a one-mile glow-in-the-dark fun run, listen to forums by top alien abduction experts and dress for the occasion at the annual alien costume ball.

For all of its initiatives — whether traditional or not — Travel Oregon is keeping travel agents in the loop in a number of ways. The group’s staff mingles with hundreds of agents at the annual Addison Travel Show in western Canada, and it works closely with tour operators to develop packages that travel agents can pitch to their clients.

“Often, we support these packages with special promotions, including travel agency training, window displays and sales calls to offices with suppliers,” O’Neill said.

But perhaps the best way for agents to appreciate Oregon’s one-of-a-kind personality is to visit it on a research tour, Travel Oregon’s term for a fam trip.

“We are committed to providing an educational experience for agents,” said O’Neill. “We’re ready to show them firsthand how much fun it is to march to your own drummer.”