Denmead, Hampshire. Spring bank holiday weekend.
The event
The Overlord Show is one of the largest military vehicle and living history events in the south of England. Organised by the Solent Overlord Executive Military Collectors Club, it brings together roughly 300 military vehicles, 30 re-enactment groups and 100 trade stands across three days at The Lawns in Denmead, with arena displays spanning the Great War to the present day.
What we provided
This was not a print order. DM Media Group and Dispatches Magazine provided a wider package across the show:
- Marketing and campaign support
- Graphic design
- The event programme
- External advertising
- An on-site media operation across the show dates
The team handled production, editing and the publication of content while the event was running.
The problem
A show programme at this scale is not a leaflet. It is a publication, with all of a publication's problems.
- Volume of listings. Thirty re-enactment groups and a hundred traders, every one needing to be named correctly. Get a regiment or a society wrong and the people who care most about your event are the ones who notice.
- A moving timetable. Arena running orders and vehicle displays were still shifting well into the final fortnight.
- A date that cannot move. A bank holiday weekend is a bank holiday weekend. There is no version of this job that gets delivered late.
- Mixed contributors. Copy arriving from committee members, societies and sponsors in every format imaginable.
What we did
- Designed the programme to carry a large volume of listings while staying readable outdoors, in a field, by somebody standing up
- Built a structure that absorbed late timetable changes without a full relayout
- Managed copy collection from multiple contributors against a single deadline
- Produced the artwork to print specification and ran the print through to delivery
- Delivered ahead of the event with time in hand
On the ground: the media operation
Alongside the print and design work, a media team was on site across the show dates.
The team worked the whole site rather than sitting in the arena. Photography across displays, encampments and the trade area. Video and interviews with organisers, exhibitors and participants. Short-form social clips and behind the scenes material. Editing happened on site, so content went out while the show was still running rather than a fortnight afterwards.
The committee did not have to think about any of it. They ran the show. We covered it.
The material also became a library the organisers could use afterwards, for next year's marketing and for editorial in Dispatches.
Coverage of this kind helps support visibility, engagement and attendance. It sits alongside everything else an organiser does, and we would not claim sole responsibility for any of it.
Read more about the On-Site Media Team
Why it matters to your event
Whatever the scale of your show, the problems are the same shape. Too many listings, a committee, contributors who are late, a timetable that changes, and a date that will not move.
We have done it at 300 vehicles and 100 traders. Yours will be more straightforward than that.
The Overlord Show is organised by the Solent Overlord Executive Military Collectors Club. Referenced here as an example of our work.
