Creating a Rainbow Event

Why Make a Rainbow

My rainbows have been very successful for organizational fund raising, political and community gatherings and celebrations. Celebrating with a large scale natural rainbow is a great way to enhance an existing event or to create a new one. On warm days many of the children and some of the adults actually will get to walk into and to discover what is at the end of the rainbow.

Considerations

There are a couple of things to consider if you want to bring a rainbow event to your town:

1. The rainbow time is fixed based on your location and the time of year. A very rough estimate of the possible time schedule for a rainbow event is after 4:30 p.m. or before 10:00 a.m.

2. Rainbows can only happen when the sun is shining. No sun no rainbow!

How do I make sure the sun will be out for an event? My first rainbow never happened because the sun went behind the clouds 10 minutes before the event was to happen. After that I gave up being responsible for nature. I now request people coming to the event to bring the sun with them.

This means that rainbow events are a collaboration between a sponsoring organization, people attending the event, a local fire department, nature and me. By the way there has only been one other unrealized event in the over 50 rainbows I have created around the world. his includes locations where it has been rainy and cloudy for days before the event and for some reason the sky always seems to open up in time for the rainbow. In my experience children are great at moving clouds away from the sun.

The bottom line: There are no guarantees regarding rainbows., If this makes you nervous we can always schedule the event for multiple days although I have never required a backup day.

If the time and sunshine are not issues for you, then write me and tell me who you are and why you would like me come to your town to make a rainbow for you and your organization.

Putting the Event in Place

The first thing we will do is decide on an event location. If your event is already set we can share a couple of interactive Goggle Earth visits to check out the site. For towns on or near the water we can use a fire boat sail a rainbow along the shore.

Next I will speak to your local fire department about the technical details. Because Fire departments I work with have never charged a fee because the humanist organizations and the causes the rainbows are supported are so well respected. The Fire Department in working with the event get exposure and a chance to be out with the community.

When all the pieces are in place I will provide your public relations people with press releases they can integrate into their event publicity. I always set up a rehearsal with the fire department two or three days before the event to work out all the kinks that tend to come up. I invite the print and television media to attend the rehearsal to provide pre-event publicity. A man made natural rainbow is so visual and off the wall that we always get the local news paper front page and prime time television coverage.

All that’s left is the event and that usually goes without a hitch, most of the time.

The Costs

Last but not least are what does all this cost. The only costs are actual travel and accommodation expenses plus a modest fee to enable me to keep this work alive. My travel is usually from New Mexico.