If You Don't Tell Me, I Won't Come

I've been cruising through Downtown sites on the net, looking for strengths and weaknesses and there's one thing that drives me crazy. A whole bunch of cities and towns just don't get marketing! "With-it" cities have lots of events and tell you about them all - on Downtown Web, Twitter, Facebook and Blog sites; on the Chamber of Commerce sites; in email lists and RSS feeds. But Rookie cities don't have many events or promotions.  And what's the worst? Those cities who have events, but don't tell you about them!

How do these cities think customers will find out about events? With today's rich choices in media (printed, web, email, social networks, radio, computer broadcasts, podcasts, video) promotion isn't hard, and doesn't have to be expensive. I made a couple of random Google searches to see how cities stack up:

"downtown raleigh nc events" - top reply is main site, event information is comprehensive and easy to read; just social/entertainment events, no meetings, conferences, Downtown committees. Easy to see Twitter and Facebook icons.
"downtown phoenix az events" - 1st two sites are irrelevant, third looks right, but it is an "About.com" column that says, in summary, "Phoenix has cool events."  It doesn't even link to a calendar somewhere, even though the article includes 26 links. The apparently real downtown Phoenix site appears 4 entries further down. All events are social/entertainment. Banner for Twitter and Facebook at bottom.
"downtown kansas city events" - goes right to the Visitor & Convention Bureau (are these passee?) with good information. Includes social/entertainment and special events, no promotional events. Icon for Facebook.
"downtown nashua nh events" - the first 6 items are downtown Nashua pages, but all for out of date events. No link to their Facebook page but if you get there it has Downtown Nashua promotional events, but no entertainment or other activities.
"downtown concord nh events" - Main Street Concord comes up first, and "Upcoming Events" is right on the navigation bar. But all the events are meetings and promotion oriented; there is no link to an entertainment or other activities calendar.
"downtown pittsburgh events" - goes to a calendar page with social/entertainment, educational, exhibition and other displays. Pittsburgh has a Facebook site, and with the feed you get many many promotions and events, as well as blurbs about closed roads, pothole reporting instructions and more. There is no Facebook link on the events page, however.

So you can try the same dipstick with your favorite cities and see who is on top of the information game. Meanwhile, let's all be empowered citizens: if you learn of a class, concert, art show, committee meeting, mrechant promotion, trade show or any other event after the fact, send a Tweet to your powers that be and remind them "If you don't tell me, I won't come!"