Guidelines for Student Events
Planning Your Event
Campus events should be scheduled through the Office of Campus Life using the Room Scheduler.
Williamstown and the college are small communities and the available audience is limited. Most events attract no more than 50 people; a large crowd here is usually about 200, but it takes 500 people to make Chapin Hall look full. To save the sponsoring organization and speaker the embarrassment of a small turnout, choose a date with few conflicting events and a room that will hold the number of people you expect. Do not book a large room if you do not expect a large crowd.
Publicity
The best ways to publicize student events are Daily Messages, the Daily Advisor, posters, word-of-mouth, and advertising in The Williams Record and on WCFM (see the main Publicizing Your Event page).
Events open to the public beyond Williams may be submitted to At Williams via the At Williams Submission Form.
Scheduling Your Publicity
One month before the event
- Posters (see Publicizing Your Event)
- WAMC/NPR (Albany): Send event release to kcorreia@wamc.org. They only include events of wide public appeal. See "Writing an Event Release" and "Submitting an Event Release" below.
Two weeks before the event
- Send event releases to local media: Student organizations are expected to write and distribute their own event releases. See "Writing an Event Release" and "Submitting an Event Release" below.
- Advocate (11,600 circ.) The Advocate is published on Thursdays. Copy is due the Friday before. news@advocateweekly.com
- iBerkshires (local online newsletter) info@iberkshires.com
- Berkshire Eagle (32,000 circ.) news@BerkshireEagle.com
- North Adams Transcript (8,000 circ.) news@thetranscript.com
- WNAW 1230 AM/WMNB 100.1 FM news@WNAW.com
Friday before the event
- Williams advertising: The Williams Record and WCFM (see Publicizing Your Event)
- Williamstown media: The weekly Advocate is an inexpensive place to advertise. Ad copy is due on Friday at 3 p.m. for publication on Thursday. Call 664-6900 for guidelines and pricing.
One or two days before the event
- Daily Messages (student organizations may submit two DMs per event to run on different days)
- Daily Advisor (see Publicizing Your Event)
Writing an Event Release
At the top, put the contact person for more information. Include email address and phone number. (Contact: Tom Jones, tjones@williams.edu, (413) 597-1234.)
Write a succinct headline which entices the reader to read more.
The first paragraph of an event release begins with the speaker's name, day, date, time, location, and title of the lecture or performance. (Example: Mathematician Colin Adams will deliver a lecture "Why Knot?" on Saturday, Oct. 23, at 11 a.m. The lecture will be held in the Bronfman Science Center auditorium on the Williams College campus.)
The body of the release should include a description of the speaker or performer and his/her program or lecture. Include why this event is newsworthy. Use adjectives and adverbs sparingly. If you have a quote from a well-known publication about the speaker, include it with attribution. Include admission and ticket information, sponsoring organization(s), and how to find more information.
The release should be no more than 250 words.
Submitting an Event Release to the Media
Send only one press release per event to each of the media.
Send releases by e-mail with a subject line of "Calendar Editor." Copy and paste your release into the body of the e-mail message -- do not send attachments. (calendar addresses above)
Please note that the media is under no obligation to run event releases. They run what interests them, depending upon space availability.
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