How 17th Ave Used a Digital Trick-or-Treat Trail to Bring Visitors Into Local Businesses
Updated: Jul 30
By Andrew, Digital Tourism Expert
Families rarely need much persuasion to take part in Halloween. The harder task for a business improvement area is turning that interest into visits across an entire district, including businesses beyond the busiest event areas.
The 17th Ave BIA in Calgary built its Halloween campaign around a simple activity: a digital trick-or-treat trail that guided families from one participating business to the next.
The event reported 57,000 visitors, up from 24,000 previously. Participating businesses reported sales increases of up to 50%, and Driftscape recorded its highest number of app downloads in a single day.
Those results reflect the event as a whole. Promotion, programming, weather and merchant participation can all affect turnout and sales. Still, the campaign offers a useful example of how a tourism storytelling app can connect a fun community event with visits to local businesses.
The challenge: Spreading event traffic across the district
Large events tend to concentrate people around their most visible attractions. A main stage, public square or popular block can draw a crowd while businesses a few streets away see much less activity.
For a BIA, attracting people to the district is only part of the job. The event also needs to give visitors a reason to move through the area and enter participating businesses.
A trick-or-treat trail does this naturally. Each stop has a clear purpose, and the reward makes sense for the audience. Families know why they should visit the next location, while businesses become part of the experience rather than simply appearing on an event map.
How the 17th Ave trick-or-treat trail worked
The 17th Ave event combined a digital trail with in-person Halloween programming. Families could enjoy activities such as photo opportunities, food trucks and outdoor entertainment, then use Driftscape to find participating businesses throughout the district.
Each business appeared as a stop on the mobile map. Visitors could see where to go next and follow the trail at their own pace. Explore Self-Guided Tours and Scavenger Hunts.
This helped connect the main event area with the surrounding business community. The map gave families a practical reason to continue exploring, while the treats offered at each stop encouraged them to walk through the door.
For participating merchants, that interaction mattered. A family entering to collect a treat could also discover the business, browse its products or return another day. The event introduced people to businesses they might otherwise have walked past.
The results
The campaign reported several strong outcomes:
Foot traffic reached 57,000 visitors, compared with 24,000 previously.
Participating businesses reported sales increases of up to 50%.
Driftscape recorded its highest single-day app download total.
The sales result should be understood as merchant-reported feedback, rather than a controlled measure of revenue caused by the trail. Similarly, the increase in foot traffic reflects the entire event and cannot be attributed to the digital map alone.
What the results do show is that the event attracted a much larger audience while giving participating businesses a defined role in the visitor experience. The strong app adoption also indicates that families were willing to use a mobile trail as part of the event.
Why this format can support business visits
The strongest part of the idea is its simplicity. Visitors are not being asked to download a business directory and browse it without a clear reason. They are following an activity with a recognizable goal.
Several parts of the campaign helped connect the fun of the event with visits to merchants:
Every stop offered an immediate reason to visit.
The map made less-visible businesses easier to find.
Families could move through the trail in their preferred order and at their own pace.
The broader event programming helped attract an audience that could then explore the district.
This approach can be particularly useful for seasonal events because the activity and the visitor incentive are easy to understand. The technology supports the experience without becoming the focus of it.
What a tourism storytelling app adds to the campaign
A printed event map can show participating locations, but it becomes difficult to update when a business changes its hours, withdraws from the event or joins after printing.
With Driftscape, the BIA team can manage the trail through a web-based dashboard. Each participating business becomes a point of interest containing its location, description, images and relevant event details.
A basic setup looks like this:
Step | What the organizer does | What visitors receive |
Create each stop | Add the business location, description and event information | A clear profile for every participating business |
Build the trail | Add the stops to a self-guided route | A mobile map connecting the participating locations |
Publish and update | Make the trail live and revise details when needed | Current information without reprinting the event map |
This does not remove the need for physical promotion. Window signs, QR codes, social posts and instructions from event staff can all help visitors find the trail.
The digital and physical parts of the campaign should be planned together. A QR code hidden behind a counter will not help a family standing outside. Merchants should know how the trail works, where promotional materials belong and what visitors will expect when they arrive.
How to plan a similar trick-or-treat trail
A useful trail starts with the visitor action. In this case, the desired action was entering participating businesses to collect treats.
Once that action is clear, organizers can build the campaign around it.
Choose stops that can participate fully
Confirm each business’s event hours, accessibility information and capacity to welcome families. Give merchants a clear deadline for joining so the public trail is accurate when promotion begins.
Make every stop easy to understand
Each listing should explain what visitors will find and when it is available. If supplies are limited or an activity has age restrictions, include that information.
Test the route from the sidewalk
Walk the district before launch. Check whether map pins are accurate, signs are visible and street crossings are practical for families. Digital routes still need to make sense in the physical environment.
Prepare participating merchants
Provide a short briefing explaining how visitors will find the trail, what they will see in the app and how staff should respond. A one-page guide or brief video may be more useful than a long training session.
Decide how results will be measured
Set the reporting plan before the event. Depending on the campaign, useful measures could include:
overall foot traffic;
app downloads;
trail or business-listing views;
check-ins or contest entries;
coupon redemptions;
merchant-reported sales or visitor feedback.
These metrics should not be treated as interchangeable. An app download does not confirm a business visit, and a listing view does not show that a purchase occurred. Reporting each action accurately gives staff and boards a more credible picture of campaign performance.
The trail can become a reusable seasonal format
Once the business listings and route structure are in place, the same approach can support other events throughout the year.
A BIA could adapt the format for a holiday shopping trail, restaurant week, public art walk or local history event. The visitor incentive and creative treatment may change, while much of the underlying business information remains usable.
This gives tourism and downtown teams a practical way to build a recognizable series of local experiences without starting from an empty map each time.
The lesson from 17th Ave
The 17th Ave campaign made local businesses part of the Halloween activity. Families had a reason to move beyond the main event area, and each participating merchant became a destination along the way.
The reported increase from 24,000 to 57,000 visitors, sales increases of up to 50% among participating businesses and record day for Driftscape downloads make it a compelling example. The figures do not isolate the effect of the app from the rest of the event, but they show what can happen when strong programming, merchant participation and a simple digital trail work together.
For BIAs and tourism organizations, the practical takeaway is straightforward: begin with an activity people genuinely want to do, connect that activity to specific business visits and make the route easy to follow.
Driftscape can help organizations create self-guided trails, interactive maps and seasonal experiences that support local exploration. Book a demo to discuss how a similar campaign could work in your district.
About the author: Andrew Applebaum is a digital tourism expert at Driftscape who helps destinations, BIAs, museums, and tourism teams create self-guided visitor experiences rooted in local stories. He writes about practical ways to improve visitor engagement, support local businesses, and make tourism initiatives easier to launch and manage.
View Andrew’s profile and connect on LinkedIn.
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