Preview for an event vs. a Press Release - help!

October 31, 2024 10:37 AM

Short version: I have to write a preview for an event. I have the official press release. Any tips?

Longer version: I have a small blog and I was excited to get press passes to an upcoming event featuring an artist I like. The PR agent asked me to write a preview and provided the press release. Do I just re-write the press release? Can I add my own personal "voice" to it? Do I then copy and paste the official press release at the bottom? Any tips? Do you have examples of a written preview? Google is not being very helpful. Thanks!

[Not sure if this should go under Writing & language or Media & arts.]

posted by dabadoo to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

Best answer: You can rewrite the press release in your own words, and you can also copy paste directly from it with no attribution needed for the prose part of the press release. Most press releases will also include pull quotes from the artist, which you can quote directly in your piece. For example, you could write something like "This show is about love," explains Smith.

You can also write your draft as a Google Doc and send it to the PR agent or even directly to the artist - just say something like "This is what I was going to post, wanted to run it by you for accuracy! Feel free to suggest any changes you'd like!"

Many artists LOVE having a little peek at the promo as sometimes paraphrasing the press release will introduce minor inaccuracies that are noticeable to their peers, so they like having a chance to correct those. Might even be a nice way to make a personal connection to the artist!
posted by nouvelle-personne at 10:55 AM on October 31 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I'd write a paragraph or two (they don't have to be long) about why I was excited by the event ("I've been following Artist for years now so I'm excited to experience their work in person" or whatever). You should probably also mention you're happy you were given press passes (this just keeps things above board).

I'd also include the press release in full after what you've written, introducing it as such ("The full press release from the upcoming Artist's Event is included below"). That just helps make sure you're not getting anything wrong by paraphrasing.

If it's open to the public and tickets are available, I'd put that closer to the top with the time/date, even if that information is included in the press release (just double-check it).

I personally only sent previews of my posts to people if I knew them well (like by posting about it, I was basically serving as their PR). I just think there's too much room for you to start to do their work for them. But it's OK to send it to them after it's posted and if they want changes ("Artist was born in 1980, not 1979"), make those after.

It's been a good while since I've done any of this, though, but that's basically what I used to do in these scenarios.
posted by edencosmic at 12:02 PM on October 31

Response by poster: This is helpful, I got it done!

An add-on question: If I want to have a small "portfolio" of these previews/event reviews so that I (hopefully) keep getting invited to more events, what would you call that section/page of my blog? I have a page where I include all my restaurant reviews, I'd like to start another section for event reviews.
posted by dabadoo at 1:04 PM on October 31

If you have a category that's called something like "events," I'd include it there but also put a tag on it that was something like "event preview." (As in, I wouldn't make a separate "event previews" category, unless you really wanted to). I'd make sure the tags pretty much matched for each preview entry with the subsequent event coverage (if that's something you're planning on doing, anyway). I just think being able to link to the tag if you want to show someone your previews is good but keeping the previews within the context of your coverage is a good practice.

I would liked to note I was never overly successful as a blogger but I got enough attention in my time that a select group of people knew who I was. I had a decent amount of traction among those people and it was good because they were my audience. (We had to make my site static earlier this year but it was still getting a decent amount of traffic even after I mostly hadn't updated it in nearly 5 years.)
posted by edencosmic at 5:41 PM on October 31