BERLIN– Tourism directors and representatives from Main Streets and Arts and Entertainment districts from more than a dozen different municipalities in two states gathered at The Globe in Berlin last Wednesday, to discuss an innovative new way to promote arts and entertainment in their areas.
The Tourism, Arts and Downtown Development collective are developing a mobile app that will list festivals, restaurants and art galleries in a dozen towns in Maryland and five in Delaware, along with connecting buyers with local artists.
“We have 17 communities who have pitched in to pay for that – Delaware and Maryland towns,” said Berlin Economic and Community Development Director Michael Day. “We’ve found we can afford things like this as a group whereas individual towns would have trouble.”
Three Worcester County towns – Berlin, Snow Hill and Ocean City – are members of TADD.
Day estimated the app, based on the Eat, Drink and Buy Art on Delmarva web site, cost $3,500.
“You can hit a town, see what’s going on and what events are going on in that town,” Day said. “If you don’t have Internet, you can still have the app come up.”
Mindie Burgoyne, Upper Shore Senior Business Development representative with the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, founded TADD in 2005.
“My role with the state is to coordinate resources for businesses,” she said. “When I started eight or 10 years ago, I had in my region, Denton and Easton and Cambridge, and they were all Main Street communities.
“They were asking me for help and I couldn’t give them the help they needed because I was only one person, so I worked closely with the Cambridge people and their Main Street director and we decided to invite all the Main Streets from the upper shore to come to a meeting to share resources and talk about what everybody was doing.”
The Department of Housing and Community Development encouraged the group to include the rest of the Eastern Shore and TADD was born.
Participating towns in Maryland must have Main Street or Arts and Entertainment District designations. Just a few years ago, the organization began allowing Delaware towns as well.
“(Delaware) do not have a Main Street or Arts and Entertainment District program, but we told their state arts folks who were coming to meetings, ‘We’ll let you decide what your criteria should be,’” Worcester County Tourism Director Lisa Challenger said.
Challenger, who took over administrative duties from Burgoyne, called TADD a “very grassroots organization.”
“There’s no board, there’s no 501(c)(3), there’s no officers – it’s just we all kind of meet and network,” she said. “The Eat Drink and Buy Art project that we did in conjunction with Maryland Life Magazine when they were up and running was a pretty big project. That little promotion with them ended, and we asked Maryland Life if we could have the URL and if we could use the name. They said, ‘yes,’ so we’ve been trying to give the whole Eat Drink and Buy Art lasting legs, and this app is one way we can do that.”
Day said the meetings help connect Main Street and art groups across the two states.
“This is the only Main Street organization in the county that crosses state lines to meet and network,” he said. “Now that we’ve incorporated art and entertainment, it’s been a great pooling of resources. I can call up somebody in Delaware like Lee Nelson from Milford, because I know him (through TADD), and ask him questions about their public art program. It’s nice to know these people at each town. It’s a great organization.”
The app, developed by appcreatorpro, is set to launch in December and will be available on Apple and Android devices.
“We were brainstorming today about what else we can do to help promote each other and looking at other examples, like Virginia, where they have an arts trail,” Challenger said.
“Hopefully this app helps people know what arts event, or what wine or beer festivals or what’s going on to help them get from place to place if they want to experience those things. And it showcases our artists. We’re interested in anything we can do to help our artists and help our community.”
For more information, visit www.eatdrinkbuyart.com.
The Tourism, Arts and Downtown Development collective are developing a mobile app that will list festivals, restaurants and art galleries in a dozen towns in Maryland and five in Delaware, along with connecting buyers with local artists.
“We have 17 communities who have pitched in to pay for that – Delaware and Maryland towns,” said Berlin Economic and Community Development Director Michael Day. “We’ve found we can afford things like this as a group whereas individual towns would have trouble.”
Three Worcester County towns – Berlin, Snow Hill and Ocean City – are members of TADD.
Day estimated the app, based on the Eat, Drink and Buy Art on Delmarva web site, cost $3,500.
“You can hit a town, see what’s going on and what events are going on in that town,” Day said. “If you don’t have Internet, you can still have the app come up.”
Mindie Burgoyne, Upper Shore Senior Business Development representative with the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, founded TADD in 2005.
“My role with the state is to coordinate resources for businesses,” she said. “When I started eight or 10 years ago, I had in my region, Denton and Easton and Cambridge, and they were all Main Street communities.
“They were asking me for help and I couldn’t give them the help they needed because I was only one person, so I worked closely with the Cambridge people and their Main Street director and we decided to invite all the Main Streets from the upper shore to come to a meeting to share resources and talk about what everybody was doing.”
The Department of Housing and Community Development encouraged the group to include the rest of the Eastern Shore and TADD was born.
Participating towns in Maryland must have Main Street or Arts and Entertainment District designations. Just a few years ago, the organization began allowing Delaware towns as well.
“(Delaware) do not have a Main Street or Arts and Entertainment District program, but we told their state arts folks who were coming to meetings, ‘We’ll let you decide what your criteria should be,’” Worcester County Tourism Director Lisa Challenger said.
Challenger, who took over administrative duties from Burgoyne, called TADD a “very grassroots organization.”
“There’s no board, there’s no 501(c)(3), there’s no officers – it’s just we all kind of meet and network,” she said. “The Eat Drink and Buy Art project that we did in conjunction with Maryland Life Magazine when they were up and running was a pretty big project. That little promotion with them ended, and we asked Maryland Life if we could have the URL and if we could use the name. They said, ‘yes,’ so we’ve been trying to give the whole Eat Drink and Buy Art lasting legs, and this app is one way we can do that.”
Day said the meetings help connect Main Street and art groups across the two states.
“This is the only Main Street organization in the county that crosses state lines to meet and network,” he said. “Now that we’ve incorporated art and entertainment, it’s been a great pooling of resources. I can call up somebody in Delaware like Lee Nelson from Milford, because I know him (through TADD), and ask him questions about their public art program. It’s nice to know these people at each town. It’s a great organization.”
The app, developed by appcreatorpro, is set to launch in December and will be available on Apple and Android devices.
“We were brainstorming today about what else we can do to help promote each other and looking at other examples, like Virginia, where they have an arts trail,” Challenger said.
“Hopefully this app helps people know what arts event, or what wine or beer festivals or what’s going on to help them get from place to place if they want to experience those things. And it showcases our artists. We’re interested in anything we can do to help our artists and help our community.”
For more information, visit www.eatdrinkbuyart.com.