“It has this kind of effect of energizing the businesses,” said Chris Schutte, Greater Springfield Partnership (GSP) vice president of destination marketing and communications.
The 2023 winners were announced Thursday night in a downtown Springfield event.
The event is presented by the GSP, which has partnered in recent years with the Springfield News-Sun, “which has grown the contest immensely,” Schutte said.
He said comparing Springfield to other communities is a common practice for the partnership and that “really was the genesis for Best of Springfield.”
“We do a lot of benchmarking to other communities,” he said, noting comparisons to similar communities and to places “like the Columbuses and Nashvilles, too, to see what are they doing.”
Schutte and Greater Springfield Partnership CEO Mike McDorman saw that “best of” events were really popular in other communities and decided to launch one here.
“The businesses just instantly embraced it,” Schutte said. “It was just such a hit.”
Businesses liked being promoted, liked the contest idea and connected with their own customers via social media to increase interest, he said.
He called Best of Springfield a great way to promote the variety of businesses while promoting healthy, fun competition that “produces good results all around.”
The party to announce the winners also is fun, he said, and sells out.
“You never know when you start an event whether or not it is going to be embraced ... and you also don’t know if it is going to have longevity,” Schutte said. “This shows no signs of slowing down.”
“They like the contest as much as we did.”
“It was really done as a promotional tool for the businesses of Springfield,” said Schutte.