A Cultural Phenomenon?

[Redcrown]

I'm curious about a phenomenon I've seen over several years as I've photographed cultural events.

I'm a "non-commercial" photographer. I go to cultural festivals, photograph the activities, and post the results in my SmugMug galleries. I provide free, high resolution images for download. I do it for fun, not for profit, and I've been doing it for over 10 years. All the festivals but one show appreciation of my efforts and interest in the photos.

In my area, the annual events include two Asian festivals, a Latino festival, an American Indian festival, a Renaissance Faire, a Civil War reenactment, and a Dutch "Tulip Time" festival.

After each festival, I contact the organization via e-mail or their Facebook page. I thank them for their efforts and give the link to the SmugMug galleries. I tell them they can use any of the images in their promotions, and ask that they share the link with participants.

Those that respond thank me for my support, and share the links. I see the results in my website traffic. The Asian festivals generate significant traffic. The Latino festival and Civil War group are a close second. The American Indian and Renaissance Faire groups show reasonable interest, but less than the others.

But the Dutch "Tulip Time" organization has never responded to my contacts. I've covered their festival 6 times in the last 9 years. I've never heard back from them, and see no traffic to the gallery. Of course I'm a little miffed at being ignored, but I'd really like to understand why.

Do some cultures embrace imagery more or less than others? Do some tend to dismiss outsiders?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... the Dutch "Tulip Time" organization has never responded to my contacts....I've never heard back from them..

Perhaps they are afraid of inciting another Tulip Mania?

[Colorado David]

Perhaps they are somewhat untrusting of an online contact. Perhaps you would do well to introduce yourself to the organizers in person before the next Tulip Festival.

I get dozens of unsolicited emails every day. I'm sure someone is mining the data from directories of professional associations. I throw away a bunch of email every day without ever reading it. If I read every email I get, I'd never get anything done. And I'm not even Dutch. Ha!

[Zorki5]

Perhaps they are somewhat untrusting of an online contact.

Perhaps it's even simpler -- they may never receive the email because it's filtered out by their spam filter. My junk folder on server never gets less than 50 spam messages a day, and up to 200 during blasts; fortunately, I never see them thanks to the over-zealous spam filter... and, unfortunately, I sometimes miss legit emails.

Anyways, this is from http://www.tuliptime.com/contact/:

Contact the Tulip Time Festival office at 800-822-2770 or locally at 616-396-4221.
OFFICE HOURS DURING THE FESTIVAL
Monday – Saturday, 9am-7pm     Sunday, 11am-5pm

Susan Zalnis
Marketing/Public Relations Director
Extension 107

Just call her and have your question answered.

[Otto Phocus]

The Tulip event organizers may be too busy to respond to you.  Running such events, with the usual below minimum staffing, makes it easy to postpone responding to non-critical E-mails only to have them forever in the "to do" box.

Does your E-mail require a response?  From your posting, it sounds like it doesn't.  Have you tried contacting the event organizers about 6 months out (if it is held every year)?

I have worked on the staff of such events and E-mails fall into two distinct groups.  Those that I need to respond to now, and everything else.