I recently spoke with Katie Brewda from the City of Mississauga and she’s given me the scoop on the special events going on in the city throughout the year and how businesses can connect with the local community through special sponsorships through the city.

This post was created from an interview in my YouTube series, Mississauga in a Minute, and has been edited for length and clarity.

Katie, what do you do with the city?

I started with the city 12 years ago, and my work has evolved as the city has grown. When I started, we were just doing advertising and sponsorship for the arenas, but over the years, we have progressed into helping the community through programming like events at Celebration Square or for older adults, and marketing via print, digital – you name it, we do it. It's an evolving industry, but we have no choice but to evolve with the city.

Tell us about some of the exciting events coming up at Celebration Square for 2020.

Right now, we are in our planning season so we can get all of our sponsors and events lined up for 2020, but we always start off our year on Victoria Day, which is our summer kickoff event. And it's really like a pep rally, a kickoff for all of the events that we have going on all season long. Very fun, family-friendly. It's the only celebration in Mississauga on Victoria Day as well.

Thursdays are Movie Nights, so every Thursday from May through September you can come down to Celebration Square and enjoy an outdoor movie with your family. After the kids are out of school, it really picks up and sometimes you can find over a thousand people watching a movie over there. We did a screening of Frozen one year and 8,000 people came out; that tends to happen with the big Disney blockbusters, and it’s a great time for everyone.

There's always something going on. Wednesday nights we have Fresh Air Fitness which also runs May through September. And of course Canada Day, that's always our biggest event with 100,000 people. And fireworks at the end of the night. There are road closures and lots of people, but it brings the community together.

Then we roll into Halloween, followed by Light Up the Square, which is my favorite event of our whole lineup. That one was just a few weeks ago in November. It's the kickoff event for the holiday season, and now we're getting ready for New Year's Eve, and that's going to round out our event schedule.

For New Year’s, we have a great lineup. Jazz Cartier is coming, but this year we're also introducing New Year's Eve Junior from 8:00 to 9:00 with the Mini Pop Kids and a confetti blast at 9:00, so there’s something for everyone that night.

Family Day is coming up as well. There’s always a nice skate and festivities on the Square for Family Day.

Do you have vendors for the events?

We have great opportunities for all of the events I just talked about. These are perfect for local businesses in Mississauga to get involved and engaged with the community and the residents. For every event, we have a presenting sponsor, a supporting sponsor and then an onsite sponsor so they can come out and set up a booth at any of those events. We've started booking those for 2020 already and they're going fast, so if anyone is interested, please let me know soon.

We do have a lot of corporations that support our events, but we also seek to do business with all of the mom and pops and small businesses within Mississauga because that's who we want to have engaging and connecting.

What comes in the package for an onsite sponsorship?

We have a great marketing plan behind all of our events; we include digital as well as print and some media coverage. But the onsite activations are a 10 x 10 spot on the Square. And you could really do with that as you wish, depending on your business. So if you're looking to increase your email list, you could have a contest for emails; you could do giveaways; you could have swag; you could do some type of activity, which is always what gets people to come over and see what's going on. The prize wheel or some type of bean bag toss. Whatever you would like to do to help your business.

Is there something someone's done that stood out to you as being really cool?

Recently, at Light Up the Square, we had TD and they sponsored our glow lounge, and we literally had furniture that lit up. Because it's an evening event and it's dark, it really stands out and it gives people a place to sit and hang out. I love things like that.

We always have a Tim Horton's do our fireworks at Canada Day. We sometimes have them onsite as well with their big coffee truck. Who doesn't love coffee or hot chocolate?

In addition to the events, I handle all of the sponsorships and advertising for the arenas, the golf courses and within the libraries. We just had a property up the street here, the Hilton Garden Inn, do a rink board that was on the visitor's bench, and it was all of the Sesame Street characters from the neck down. So, when the visitors were sitting there, it looked like they were either Cookie Monster or Big Bird or Ernie or Bert. It was so, so creative. I love when my clients get creative with their artwork because it really does engage the users of the arena.

Where do the sponsorship and advertising funds go?

The good thing with the city is that 100% of what you purchase in sponsorship or advertising, the revenue goes directly back to the community. It goes to that facility to offset the costs of running it in order to help keep the costs low for the residents. So, not only do you get your business in front of the residents, you’re also supporting your community.

Are the ads on the bridges yours as well?

Those are not. Those are through Van Horn. There is a partnership there, so I have the contact information if anyone is interested in those. But we have golf, we have hockey, we have events. We have an older adult publication. We have something for everyone.

If somebody wants to get involved with sponsorship, how do they go about it?

Feel free to give me a call. We have a wide variety of ways to participate in addition to the few things we have talked about here. We have Braeben and Lakeview Golf Courses, so we'll start getting that ready in March. We have wonderful museums in Mississauga that many people don't know about and these offer great programs and events. Maple Magic is coming up the week of March break and that's at the Bradley Museum and it's the only maple syrup festival in Mississauga. You can get fresh pancakes with maple syrup and there are lots of activities to do surrounding the history behind maple syrup and how important it was to this community.

We have marketing opportunities at all of these events and spaces so give me a call and we can talk about what will work for your business. If there is a certain way you'd like reach a target audience or consumer in Mississauga, there's definitely some way we could help. We also do the online ads on Active Mississauga, which is where everyone comes to register for recreation programs. We have the digital screens within all of the community centers, arenas and libraries, so there are the TV screens that play the 10 second ads.

I encourage anyone who is interested to give me a call or send me an email and we can chat about your business’ needs. My direct number is (905) 615-4017 and my email is [email protected].