East Central Illinois Website Offers Trove of Local Events, Maps
Nathan Woodside
Published: September 19, 2013
Related to: Southeast Central eTeam
A website in east central Illinois is creating buzz about local public events and entertainment.
The site, www.eastcentralillinoisevents.com, launched in April after several meetings convening tourism and marketing experts, economic development professionals and area city officials.
Featuring calendars and information on various family friendly events including festivals and farmers markets, the site also offers a multitude of maps and information on local wineries and other attractions.
“It’s a quality of life issue to let our citizens know there are wonderful things to do here in our communities,” said Jeane Anne Grunloh, Executive Director of East Central Illinois Development Corporation.
Information on the site is provided by community, business and education leaders associated with the 11 counties served by the East Central Illinois Development Corporation.
Grunloh said that many area event coordinators are volunteers serving small towns and just don’t have the cash to pay for much advertising, so they turn to East Central Illinois Events.
“This platform is allowing those community leaders to share information about their festivals in a large regional area and reach an audience of 250,000 citizens,” Grunloh said.
The site also offers information and maps for other attractions, including area wineries.
“We found out that a lot of citizens had no idea we had 11 wineries right here in east central Illinois,” Grunloh said. “In that project, we have over 20,000 downloads for those maps in the first two years.”
Grunloh added that the site itself has had over 27,000 page views in the first several months of operation.
“This project was born out of community leaders not waiting on grant dollars to make it reality,” she said. “It was a project with many volunteers coming together and saying, ‘How can we make this happen with zero funding?’”
Grunloh said that many of the small communities and countryside residents in east central Illinois haven’t had access to high-speed internet connections for long, and the website is showing the positive impact broadband can have in rural areas.
“It was only through being able to utilize our website and broadband, and our citizens having broadband access, that the project became a reality with no funding,” she said.