Tone of Voice

Festival Season Network writes for community organizers, coalition partners, and volunteers — not for investors, product managers, or AI researchers. The goal is clarity and trust, especially when we talk about money, attendance, and competition.

Core voice

Do Don’t
Write like a helpful colleague who’s run events Write like a strategy deck or academic paper
Use plain words first; define a term once if needed Assume everyone knows festival-industry shorthand
Be honest about uncertainty (“we don’t have a gate count yet”) Inflate numbers or hide gaps
Stay neutral — any organizer can fork this Sound like cPALSs marketing or a single coalition’s press release
Keep sentences short; use tables and lists for reference material Stack jargon in one paragraph

We are: direct, practical, respectful of volunteers’ time, honest about limits.
We are not: hype-driven, punitive toward other organizers, or preachy about “the right way.”

Two registers

We use two registers on purpose. Don’t mix them on the same page without translating.

Public (GitHub Pages — humans)

For people browsing the site. Plain English only. AI agents should use the cloned repo, not this rendered HTML.

Instead of… Write…
direct comp direct competitor (same weekend, same city, or same type of event)
roll-up violation season calendar conflict (e.g. two capstone events fighting the same families)
field read / field estimate on-the-ground estimate (someone attended and counted)
organizer claim what the host said (flyer, press, social)
mobilized groups groups you can actually bring (PTA, parish, club, repeat families)
TCOA total cost of a night out (tickets + parking + food)
capstone main weekend or flagship event — then use capstone if the season doc already defined it
afterglow events after the main weekend
relationship product on-site design that helps groups stay together
ecosystem harmony events and partners working together without stepping on each other
substitute comp different kind of event, same free weekend (pumpkin fair vs Tết fair)
reference only out of our region or season — listed for context

Internal (Google Sheets, schemas, AGENTS.md)

Short column values and stable enums for sorting and AI tools. Abbreviations are OK here when defined in the schema.

Example: sheet cell Direct comp - same day capstone = public phrase direct competitor on capstone Saturday.

Schemas must include a plain-language gloss for every enum. When adding a new value, add both the short label and one sentence a volunteer would understand.

Naming the seasons

When both are mentioned together, use Lunar New Year & Autumn Festivals.

Together One season only
Lunar New Year & Autumn Festivals Lunar New Year / LNY season / EGLNY (capstone)
  Autumn / Mid-Autumn / MAF (capstone)

Do not say “autumn and Lunar New Year” or “Autumn and LNY” in public copy — use the paired name above, or name the single season you’re discussing.

When listing both seasons (tables, navigation, links), always put Lunar New Year before Autumn.

Sensitive topics

Attendance. Never state a number without saying where it came from. Prefer “about 5,000–6,000 (park district estimate)” over “10,000+.”

Competition. Naming another event is factual, not hostile. “California Is My Home runs a Mid-Autumn fair the same month” — not “competitor threat.”

Coalition events. EGLNY and MAF are coalition capstones within Lunar New Year & Autumn Festivals — not the brand of this library. List coalition hosts together in Host / Organizer: VACOS, cPALSs, NVCC (that order, always all three). VACOS leads Mid-Autumn; cPALSs leads EGLNY. Say “the Elk Grove capstone” when you do not need org names.

Checklist before publishing

  1. Would a parish volunteer understand this without a glossary?
  2. Did we separate claims from verified numbers?
  3. Are we describing coordination, not ordering people around?
  4. If a term appears in a sheet column, is the plain English version on this page or in the schema?