Business & Event Listing Policy

Visit Canton Mission Statement: To Attract and Engage Visitors, Serve and Educate Regional Tourism Partners, and to Generate Economic Development through Travel and Tourism Development.

IS THIS YOUR FIRST TIME SUBMITTING AN EVENT TO THE VISIT CANTON CALENDAR OF EVENTS?

Please read the below guidelines to make sure your event qualifies for the Visit Canton Calendar of Events. If it does, please contact Laura Felberg, Partner Relations Manager at LauraF@VisitCanton.com to get your profile set-up to submit!

VisitCanton.com Profile Listings & Event Calendar Guidelines:

Our goal is to provide information for visitors on fun and exciting things to do while traveling to Stark County. Visit Canton reserves the right to determine eligibility for inclusion on VisitCanton.com with consideration given to the appeal of the event to attract day trips and overnight visitors.

Visit Canton believes in ethical standards and values diversity, equity, and inclusion. To ensure that visitors to Stark County are welcomed and treated with respect and equality, Visit Canton reserves the right to suspend business or event listings from our website if these values are not upheld.

Approval/rejection of all submissions is at the discretion of Visit Canton, which reserves the right to edit or refuse any listing at any time.

Please remember that these are only guidelines. Please contact us directly with any questions or concerns, and we would be happy to provide additional guidance.

Attraction Listing or Event Calendar Listing: For each listing, partners will receive a login and will be responsible for managing and updating their individual listing in adherence with the stated policies below. Any listing on VisitCanton.com may be revised or updated at the discretion of Visit Canton: Stark County Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Yearly Re-Occurring Events: If you have an event that reoccurs, please use a past entry in the Partner Extranet to update the details for the next one: instead of creating a new event, select the event that has passed and update the information! This saves YOU time & avoids creation of new URL and confusion amongst guests.

Regional Partners: Out-Of-County, non-lodging properties, may purchase advertising in the Visit Canton Travel Guide and/or VisitCanton.com sponsored content with the approval of Visit Canton. Participation in either paid marketing opportunity will qualify the business as Regional Partner for the duration of their advertisement. Regional Partners will be eligible to participate in other Visit Canton promotions and opportunities which include a website profile, event listings, promotional pass opportunities, educational and networking events, etc. All opportunities will be approved at the discretion of Visit Canton. Regional Partners are not eligible for Visit Canton Grant Funding.

Editorial Content: From time to time, Visit Canton will develop content for VisitCanton.com that helps tell the destination story to visitors, pitch to media or showcase our destination for a social promotion. In most instances, Visit Canton will link its editorial content to partner listing pages on VisitCanton.com. These editorial pieces are written at the discretion of a Visit Canton employee or a guest author as distinguished and seen fit by Visit Canton.

What can I submit to the VisitCanton.com event calendar?

  • Prominent events open to the general public and actively marketed to audiences outside of the greater Stark County area
  • Events showcasing a community’s unique character, history or heritage
  • Performances, live music, theatre productions, and music festivals
  • Exhibit openings and open houses of historic homes
  • Holiday events that include activities of interest to visitors
  • Ethnic festivals providing activities of interest to visitors
  • Multi-day community festivals & county fairs that offer entertainment and activities that would interest a visitor
  • Major and minor league sporting events, 5Ks, and Marathons (individual games or the season)

What does NOT qualify for the VisitCanton.com event calendar?

  • Events that are NOT being held in Stark County
  • Events that are your normal business model. These include and are not limited to daily repeating exhibits, daily or weekly deals, happy hour specials, seasonal deals, themed sales at a business that do not have an entertainment factor, speaker series, or celebration to kick off the sale, or open times of a business. All of the items mentioned can be and are encouraged to be listed in each partner profile's description.
  • Events closed to any segment of the general public for any reason
  • Fundraisers – these include basket raffles, reverse raffles, galas, golf outings or events that categorize themselves as a fundraiser in the main description without an entertainment element such as a full concert, taste of event, wine or beer tastings, etc.
  • School or College events; student only events
  • Pageants -- beauty pageants, competition pageants
  • Coloring contests, photo contests, pie-eating contests etc.
  • Church or worship services
  • Family or class reunions; church bazaars, picnics and special events
  • Retail sales, craft shows and yard sales that are not associated with a special tourism event
  • Multi-week classes/workshops/summer camps
  • Running or biking clubs that meet weekly or monthly
  • Book club meetings, social club meetings, neighborhood gatherings, ice cream socials, etc.
  • Private or members‐only events
  • Events open only to home‐school students
  • Civic, club and community meetings, conferences and activities (Please reach out about the Industry Partner Calendar for these event listings)

More Partner Resources