In May 2020, as the world faced unprecedented challenges, organisations across Salisbury came together to create a virtual celebration: The Salisbury Big Weekend. Inspired by the city’s community spirit and in honour of the 800th anniversary of the cathedral, this two-day online festival delivered a packed programme of music, wellness, talks, exhibitions, family workshops, sports, and more.

With little time and no playbook for a digital-first event of this scale, the organising team brought in Utterly Social to manage and coordinate the social media campaign. The goal: build momentum from a standing start, engage local audiences, and deliver a festival that felt communal, even from a distance.

Challenges

• Zero baseline: No existing social media presence for the event, and limited time to grow a relevant audience before launch.
• Tight timeline: Less than two months to plan, design, and execute a full campaign.
• Multi-partner coordination: Content and involvement came from dozens of partners – each requiring asset support and content scheduling.
• Virtual event fatigue: Audiences were already overwhelmed by digital content during lockdowns – we had to make this feel fresh, local, and energising.

Solution

Utterly Social designed a lean, dynamic campaign focused on amplification, community interaction, and clear messaging. We worked across the entire campaign lifecycle, from pre-launch to post-event wrap-up.

• Strategy & planning: We quickly created a campaign blueprint that mapped out content phases, tone of voice, platform use, and messaging priorities. Each stage was designed to generate excitement, drive tune-in, and encourage sharing.
• Content creation: Designed eye-catching visual assets and video teasers for use across partners’ channels, optimised for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter/X.
• Partner collaboration: Coordinated with dozens of contributors – from yoga instructors to choirs and historians – to create content packs that made it easy for them to promote the festival.
• Live weekend support: Managed the main social media accounts during the event, scheduling content, reacting in real-time, resharing live streams and stories, and keeping momentum going throughout the weekend.
• Post-event coverage: Captured highlights, stats, and community reactions to sustain buzz and showcase the success of the event after it closed.

“Working on a tight timeline, Sarah was able to quickly get on top of a complex project providing all the support and coordination of the social media for a number of different partners, whilst also managing the main accounts.

The impact of the campaign from a standing start was fantastic and Sarah’s planning, production of strong and easily shareable assets for partners, alongside her strong work ethic, built and maintained momentum to the end of the event and beyond. It’s been a pleasure working with her.”

~ James Gough, Project Manager, Salisbury 2020 Big Weekend