Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton Warren County Visitors Bureau Executive Director Casey Ferry speaks during an event planner party held Wednesday night at the WCVB office in Starbrick. Two dozes of the county’s largest events were given up to $500 to advertise their events outside of the county.

Tourism promotion can take a lot of different forms.

To that end, the Warren County Visitors Bureau brought 24 of the county’s largest events together Wednesday night.

The hook? $500 in advertising funding from the WCVB.

WCVB Executive Director Casey Ferry said that the 24 events were selected by the organizations board. Representatives of 18 of the events were there Wednesday.

“We want you to advertise outside the county,” Ferry said. “We want you to bring people in.”

She explained that 66 people requested visitors guides in March and nearly one-in-three selected “events and festivals” as the reason they were interested in the information. That included requests from Pennsylvania but also North Carolina, New Mexico, New York and California.

On top of that, she said that people often come into the Starbrick office and ask what’s going on while they’re here.

“People are excited for your events,” she said. “There’s such a variety of events. It’s awesome.”

And the WCVB has a good reason for letting the events do the advertising directly.

“You know your crowd better than we do,” Ferry said. “Five hundred dollars can go a long way. We want to give you money which helps you, which helps us. The better you do, the better we do.”

Information for many of these events will also be part of an event fair at the WCVB office next week that will include a series of raffles.

The idea is to “get people excited for the event season coming up,” Ferry said. “There are literally thousands of events coming up.”

Some of the events awarded funding include the Warren County Fair, Pa. State Championship Fishing Tournament, Wild Wind Craft Festival, Allegheny River Monsters, Allegheny Mountain Championship Rodeo, Lottsville Heritage Days, Pine Grove Days, Sugar Grove Cruise-In, Warren County Pride, Fourth of July, Music in the Park, Hickory Creek Wilderness Ranch, WCCBI (Winterfest, Trail Fest), Kinzua Heritage Festival, YMCA (Tango), K9 Choper Memorial Tournament, Music on the Mountain and the Johnny Appleseed Festival.