Rockers, Riders & Ribs became 13th month of revenue for daily paper

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New products introduced by the Longview (Texas) News-Journal are not traditional by any means, says Advertising Director Larry Jobe.  One of the paper's newest revenue generators was an event called "Rockers, Riders & Ribs." The event took place in downtown Longview Texas on Oct. 22, 2016.

R3 (as its known) was a community music and motorcycle festival that drew over 10,000 attendees. It was a ticketed event, and "a logistical miracle" that involved working with the city of Longview, volunteer groups and non-profits.

Jobe said, "We had eight musical acts including Shooter Jennings, Big Smo, The Georgia Satellites and our headliner, The Marshall Tucker Band. We had over 100 merchandise and food vendors as well as tremendous sponsorship support.

"The morning of the event we conducted a ride to benefit the local chapter of BACA (Bikers Against Child Abuse) and over 1,000 motorcyclists participated on that ride.

"The day of the event, we had the Harley-Davidson Burnout Contest, Dyno Drags, Globe of Death, The Russ Brown Motorcycle Attorneys Custom Bike Show and Biker Games, as well as a concert that went from 12:00 noon until midnight."

He said they had more than 150 volunteers helping with the event and the paper made donations back to their respective charities.

He said Rockers, Riders & Ribs exceeded all expectations and was the single biggest "new" event ever held on the streets of Longview, Texas. While it is not the paper's practice to share specific revenue amounts, he said the event was wildly profitable in both revenue and impact on the community. "It essentially became a 13th month of revenue for us in one day," he said.

"We GEO-fenced the event and the report we generated on the Monday after the event showed that we pulled people from over 460 different ZIP codes across the country – as far away as Seattle, Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Hawaii."

He said the effort and the results of this first year, local newspaper-implemented event "was nothing short of amazing."

The Second Annual event is in the planning stages and is expected to be the biggest party East Texas has ever seen. The Longview News-Journal said Rockers, Riders & Ribs 3.2 will feature an amazing Rock lineup, biker events and a BBQ cook off on Friday and Saturday, October 20 and 21, 2017.

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Longview, event marketing, Jobe
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