Traditionally known as Washington Wine Month, WAugust celebrates our vibrant industry with 31 days of fun and festivities that you can join in and truly make your own. Now in its second year, we’re ready to take WAugust up a notch—but we need your help!
August is a special time in Washington. WAugust bottles this summer feeling, pairs it with Washington Wine, and serves as an official invitation to seek out WA Wine Month events and participate any way you please. Whether you take a road trip to a new winery, or pack WA wine in the cooler for your camping trip, there’s no wrong way to WAugust.
Test your Washington Wine Knowledge!
WAugust is for everyone—attracting wine loyalists as well as a younger demographic that’s ready to taste, and experience, something new. As the campaign grows, our focus is on attracting visitors from outside the state. As always, the success of WAugust depends on the support of everyone in the WA wine community. We’re outfitting you with this toolkit to help us make this year’s WAugust celebration our biggest yet. But don’t let this toolkit limit your imagination! You’re encouraged to celebrate WAugust in your own unique way that best serves you and your customers.
WAugust is about ‘event-ivizing’ your efforts in August, giving you a platform to increase excitement, and providing your fans a compelling reason to show up at your tasting room door. WAugust is about summer spirit and building community through events, so use this opportunity to get creative with some events of your own that capture the magic of summer and bring your brand to life.
Submit Your Events!
3 Steps to Make Your WAugust a Success
1. Make a plan.
Add key dates to your calendar such as dinners, tastings, special events, posting schedules, and announcement plans. Create an event for WAugust, build a timeline and schedule, and prepare for when you will use your digital platforms like social media or email.
Event Ideas we’ve seen that work include:
• Personalized events for your wine club members
• Winemaker dinners with the restaurants that support you most
• Vineyard walk-throughs and behind the scenes tours
• Themed happy hoursLawn games and prize giveaways
• Discounts on wine club membership, case sales, or shipping
• Special pours in the tasting room
Collectively, these events will add up to a festival feeling, driving consumers to look for ways to engage with Washington Wine all August long (and throughout the summer!).
2. Spread the word.
Start announcing some of those plans. Tell your customer base, distribution network, and other favorite accounts – PLUS! Don’t forget to add your event to our website calendar here. We will feature winery events on our Map My WA Wine app—which has 20K+ users—as well as our WAugust.com landing page.
Take pictures! Describe them in your own words and use our photo overlays in the digital toolkit to bring them all under one roof. Can you imagine the power of 1,000+ all using the same messaging? Don’t forget to tag @wa_state_wine and use our hashtags #WAwine and #WAugust so that we can share your content easily on our own channels.
The success of this state-wide wine festival depends on the support of everyone across the state. Once you’ve planned your WAugust events and activations, let us be your megaphone!
3. Take advantage of the Toolkit.
To help you maximize WAugust, we have provided a digital toolkit available for download below. We hope these assets will help you tell your story, energize your fans, connect with new club members, and educate your communities about why Washington is the most exciting wine region on the planet.
This year in addition to the WAugust toolkit, WSWC will send each tasting room a WAugust poster including a QR to the waugust.com event landing page. This will be an easy way to share what’s happening around the state with those who visit your tasting room!
The most important element of this August is creating a festival feeling that consumers can’t resist. The more wineries that are holding their own events and promotions and helping to spread awareness, the more successful the whole month will be. The options are endless, so get creative!
Looking for more educational materials? Reach out to Mac Pedersen at mpedersen@washingtonwine.org to order pocket maps, stickers, and more!
