Event Strategy & Signage

Prairie Clean Energy

Prairie Clean Energy is a start-up that has developed a process to use flax waste to create clean, reliable biomass fuel. Founded in 2020, it has quickly become a fully realized biomass business, with three biomass fuel product lines (wood, flax straw, and ag residue), and has built partnerships with farmers and organizations across Canada and the world to deliver high-quality biomass fuel to customers.

The Challenge

Prairie Clean Energy took the opportunity to appear at Canada’s Farm Show 2022 in Regina and wanted to make their presence known. This was the first Farm Show since the COVID-19 epidemic and there was no way of predicting how busy the show would be. PCE is still a relatively young company and wanted to use this opportunity to attract investors, yet also needed to build partnerships with flax-straw producers to secure product. In short, they needed the assets to make a big, flashy, informative bang.

The Thinking

Strategically, we needed to attract the attention of flax producers, media and government. With PCE, we set goals: we would like to see 600 producers sign up throughout the week, we would like 12 media mentions and to have a government official attend PCE’s private dinner the week of Farm Show.

As part of the delegate package, PCE was given 90 minutes on the Innovation Stage. To take full advantage of this, we created invitations and sent those out to contacts, noting there would be two big announcements with a lunch to follow. We also sent out a media releases informing them of our announcements: the first was that the first pellet processing plant in Regina would be operating by the fall of 2022, and the second was announcing the signing of the first ever long term supply agreement with flax producer Thomas MacKenzie of Darian Farms.

We partnered with IKS Media & Technology who took our creative vision and produced some big and bold animated screen loops at the booth as well as produced the presentation during the Innovation Stage announcements. Their tech expertise brought our vision to the next level. We also partnered with Creative Display to create a transparent exhibit that was filled with flax pellets to let people get a sense of what we were creating. Lastly, to complete PCE’s attention-getting booth, we took a risk and printed a flax straw design on the carpet to mimic the barn bedding that flax straw is more traditionally used for. This straw carpet was a huge hit and looked amazing from the second-floor meeting rooms.

The Result

We set some ambitious goals with our client, and met almost every one of them. The launch event achieved the biggest crowd at the Farm Show and that wave followed PCE throughout the week. PCE had many producers stop by the booth saying they saw PCE on the news or read an article and were really interested in what they were doing. PCE got more than 12 media mentions and had the pleasure of the Honourable Dana Skoropad, Minister of the Environment, attending their Farm Show dinner. The eye-catching booth caught the attention of many, creating a tonne of connections and inspiring some farmers to sign right on the spot. PCE garnered a lot of attention not only because of their unique product but because of the success of the Farm Show booth and events in getting their name out there.