BACOLOD City – The Aug. 23 launching of MassKara Festival 2023 didn’t have the much needed mainstream media publicity.
This was because festival organizer Bacolod Yuhum Foundation (BYF) did not invite the media to the event held in a hotel here.
The MassKara will be staged this October.
According to Yves Montecillo, president of the Bacolod City Hall Press Corps, none of the city hall beat reporters were invited to cover the launching.
Realizing the publicity flub, BYF issued a statement blaming the media no-invite to “miscommunication”.
“There was no intention to ‘shutout’ the media as there is a scheduled press presentation solely for our media partners this coming weekend,” read part of BYF’s statement.
It added: “We regret the miscommunication on this matter…we have scheduled separately an event for our media friends to allow us more time for discussions and Q and A (question and answer).”
The recent launch and sponsor’s night, it clarified, was intended for the Bacolod City Council and corporate sponsors.
Its aim was “to provide the Council a sneak preview of what will be in store during the festival, present sponsorship rates to our corporate partners, and allow the organizers time to tweak schedules if needed, before the final schedule of activities, venues, logo and song will be shared to the public through the press presentation,” BYF added.
“We value media as our partners, particularly in promoting our MassKara Festival and we hope to see you this Saturday,” the press statement also said.
On his part, Councilor Jason Villarosa, chair of the committee on tourism, said he and fellow councilors were surprised that the festival launching had zero mainstream media presence.
He stressed the importance of the mainstream media for MassKara’s publicity and information dissemination./PN
