Though a away year from its debut, the initial work on the inaugural Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational is well underway. Octagon, the sports marketing and consulting agency hired to manage the event, already has boots on the ground in Midland, putting together the necessary pieces to execute the event.
The Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational, or DGLBI, is the first ever professional women’s golf tournament for the area. It’s a partnership between The Dow Chemical Company, Midland Country Club and the Ladies Professional Golf Association, or more commonly known as the LPGA.
Chris Chandler, event manager for Octagon, has already moved to Midland in preparation of the tournament. The company has hired three additional full-time employees, two from Midland and one from Florida, that will work with Chandler year-round on the DGLBI.
Chandler says that the group will use the next few weeks to develop a marketing plan. After that, it’s on to developing relationships with the community to host ancillary events, recruiting approximately 800 volunteers, selling the tournament to local and national sponsors and building the physical pieces of the tournament itself.
To do so, Octagon will need much more than the four employees it currently has in Midland. That’s why they’ll be reaching out to labor providers throughout the Great Lakes Bay region, seeking out help for everything from building scaffolding to the hospitality suites--and then help tearing it all down again.
According to Chandler, it’s part of Octagon’s mission statement to do everything they can to showcase and strengthen the region.
"We want to build an event that’s successful for this community as a whole. We want to build an event that’s for everybody, and not just the golf fans, but one that gets the entire community engaged and invested in what we’re doing," Chandler says.
"You have to find the right people to do that."
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