We are so thrilled to have another event join the Saffire Family, the Benton-Franklin Fair & Rodeo!

This fair has hosted some great country singers, including Johnny Cash, The Mamas and the Papas, Buck Owens and many more!

We can’t wait to see who they can snag this year when the Fair and Rodeo runs August 20th through the 24th of 2013!

Using your computer:

Remember when Facebook only allowed for one photo upload at a time to your Timeline? Well now they have made your life easier with the new Drag and Drop photo upload tool.

Steps to dragging and dropping your photos onto your timeline:

• Open the folder where your pictures are located on your computer
• Highlight those you want to add
• Drag them into your “Status Bar” on your newsfeed OR profile
• A dashed-line box will appear saying “DROP HERE”
• Drop your photos and watch them upload!

I tried clicking on the image of the camera (as shown below) and it opened my gallery folder but WON’T allow me to drag and drop photos that way. I would suggest not clicking the camera image, but rather dragging and dropping your photos by opening up your gallery folder first.

NOTE: This feature will NOT add them to a photo album. This is simply a Facebook post on your timeline.

Using your smartphone:

This drag & drop feature has not been added to the Facebook App for mobile use. However, I do use an Android smartphone, and have learned that if I go to the Facebook App for Androids and click on the photo tab at the top, it brings up all my photos from my phone’s gallery with check boxes; allowing me to upload multiple photos at once! This is excellent, because I am no longer staring at my phone missing out on the action waiting to see if my picture has uploaded so I can upload another one.

We are so excited to welcome Sangamon County Fair to the Saffire Events family. Upon meeting this fair at the IAFE Convention & Trade Show in Vegas this year, we knew it was a match made in heaven.

This fair has one event we have never heard of before: the HAYLOFT (Helping All Youth Learn Of Farming Techniques) in which kids step into the shoes of a farmer for a day to learn how food is grown from the land. The kids even get to enjoy hands-on activities, like milking cows, collecting eggs and riding a mini tractor around!

We can’t wait to see what kind of an impact their new site will have on their attendance and online presence when their fair opens up in June of 2013.

We are so thrilled to announce the newest member to the Saffire Community, The Delaware State Fair! What began in a small Harrington railroad station, quickly grew into a fair that houses over 300,000 attendees a year! They always have great performers, including Luke Bryan, who will be performing next year when their fair opens in July of 2013.

Delaware State Fair heard about us at this year’s IAFE Convention & Trade Show in Las Vegas just a few weeks ago. We were overjoyed to receive a new client so quickly after meeting us, and are excited to be a part of this “Best of Delaware” event!

We are excited to bring you Saffire 2.1! You will find that this release makes your site even easier for you to use, as well as provides an enriched viewing experience for your customers. Read about the awesome new features listed below!

New Features

1. Your interactive event schedule will now have a completely new look to enrich your customers’ browsing experience. It will contain the same great functionality before, but now:
   1. The schedule will be divided by events per day.
   2. The schedule can be filtered to easily display color-coordinated categories that display in the grid.
   3. The hover and quick view features now include even more “quick view” information.

If you missed our interactive event schedule webinar, we strongly recommend you watch the video linked here to learn more about the new interactive event schedule format.
Watch this video to learn more!

1. With Saffire version 2.1, your homepage will now be rendered without Adobe Flash. Your page will be displayed in a newer format called jquery! Now your homepage can now be viewed the same on devices regardless of whether they support Flash, including iPads! Due to the complexity of this change, we will be scheduling clients on a more individual basis to actually make the conversion. Keep an eye out for important communication from us regarding this shift!
2. Our ShoWorks integration is now even tighter! After saving your final results, simply click the “Publish on Saffire” button within ShoWorks, select the event for which you want to display the results, and they will immediately show on your Saffire site.
   Watch this video to learn more!

It’s officially here: Saffire 2.0! As you know, our releases are always a mix of customer requests and the latest internet trends. With the continuing rise in popularity of mobile internet, we are bringing you Saffire Mobile Admin, so you can update the most crucial elements of your website right from your smart phone.

Mobile Enhancements

We now give you the ability to maintain important features of your website on the go with your new mobile admin site! You can change your general message, update your homepage features or edit basic information about your events or all from your smart phone.
Watch this video to learn more!

SaffireMail Enhancements

It’s now easier than ever before to keep in touch with your email list! When you create a campaign, adding your content is very similar to adding dynamic page content. You can drag and drop modules as you wish to give you more control over the layout for your emails.
Watch this video to learn more!

Customer Site Enhancements

1. Your customers now have the ability to search for items within your interactive event map!  This box searches only map items and auto-fills based on the first few characters of their search criteria.
2. From now on, if you only have one event in any given subcategory, the link from the dropdown goes directly to the event detail page!
3. You now have the ability to change information about multiple events with ease! Use the check boxes in your events list to select as many events as you wish and then use the “Actions” dropdown to list, deactivate or unlist several items at one time. You can even use this functionality to control the “Our Pick” icon!
   Watch this video to learn more!
4. You now have the ability to “Quick Edit” your events without leaving the event listing page! This will help you be more efficient with your Saffire site.
   Watch this Video to Learn More!
5. You now have the ability to add any text in the cost field for each of your items. We hope you can use this to get the word out about free events happening on your grounds and boost overall gate admission!
6. If you have one sponsor that stands out among the rest, you now have the ability to place a sponsor logo on your homepage permanently, while your other sponsor logos continue to scroll!
7. You now have the opportunity to specify which of your photos appear in the photo gallery!
8. When adding Featured Events in year-round mode or adding More Exciting Events, you no longer have to give events a title. You can also opt to leave off the link on your More Exciting Events. These changes allow you to be a little more creative in the management of your homepage.

Saffire Commerce ENHANCEMENTS

1. You can now add custom text to the receipt that your customer automatically receives after they place an order within Saffire Commerce. This can help you relay a message about a specific item or even just provide a way for you to show your thanks for their purchase!
2. Additionally, if there is a date and time associated with an item, this information will now automatically appear on the customer receipt!

Earlier this week, Kendra was joined by our friend Jennie from Rodeo Austin to discuss why events should be using email marketing.  We had such a positive response, it only seemed right that this week’s Feature Friday was how-to create an email marketing campaign with SaffireMail!

Here are a few reasons why your event should be using email marketing:

Here is a quick tour of SaffireMail and some tips and tricks for you to use as you get ready to send your next marketing email!

We received such positive feedback from our customers about the interactive event map, that we decided to live by the motto the more the merrier!

The flexibility of the Saffire software gives you the chance to create exactly the website you want, down to each custom page.  After hearing such rave reviews of the interactive event map, we added the option of including a map on every page of your site.

Our Marketing Manager, Rebekah, will show you how to add an interactive map as you’re creating the exact page your event website needs.

It is estimated that by 2014, more people will access your website via a mobile device than a desktop computer.  This means that the future of the web is in the palm of your hand, and here at Saffire we make sure our clients are staying ahead of the curve.

As we have watched the mobile web browsing experience evolve over the last few months, we decided now was the perfect time to redesign our mobile websites to make them even more user-friendly.

In this video tutorial, Kendra will give you a quick tour of the new site and explain why a mobile site is important to the success of any event’s online presence.