Genesee Sun

Upcoming County Tourism Video to Feature “Have a Field Day” Jingle

LIVINGSTON COUNTY — After winning the Livingston County Tourism jingle contest in October, Len Squires now has something else to celebrate.

Squires’ 30-second jingle about Livingston County’s many attractions will be featured in a video of the Chamber of Commerce Tourism Office’s annual motorcoach familiarization tour. The FAM tour, as it’s nicknamed, features the county’s many tourist destinations and attractions, making the jingle a suitable soundtrack.

Lisa Burns, the county’s Tourism Director, said the video should be up on the county’s tourism website — Fingerlakeswest.com — and YouTube sometime in February. She also said the Tourism Office plans to use the jingle in future TV and radio ads for the county in the coming year.

Jingles entered into the Tourism Office’s contest needed to be 30 seconds long, feature the phrase “Have a field day in Livingston County” twice, be lively, catchy, feature county attractions and have no political or religious references. Overall delivery, technique and creativity were also factored into the judges’ decisions. The contest was broken up into three rounds, with a winner chosen at the end of each round. Each round’s winner received $100, with the final contest winner receiving $250 and a chance for their jingle to be used in county advertising.

Squires, a resident of Avon and employee of the Geneseo Wegmans, tied the first round with Beth Sleboda of Livonia. He and the other finalists tweaked and perfected their jingles and faced off during the final round, where Squires’ light-hearted jingle was chosen.

Before writing his jingle, Squires said he visited the tourism website for ideas of places to include in it. He also studied the contest’s criteria to make sure his jingle fit. He also made sure his jingle wasn’t too crammed with places and images.

“I wanted to make sure I had enough in it, but I also wanted it to sound like a jingle,” Squires said.

Squires’ hard work on the jingle didn’t end with his win. In order to make sure the jingle sounded the best it could, Squires re-recorded it in Avon’s Bluebrick Recordings and sent it to Burns.

That extra effort didn’t go unnoticed by the Tourism Director, who expressed her excitement to use the professionally recorded jingle in upcoming county commercials and videos.

“He really labored over it,” Burns said. “He wanted it to be as good as it could be.”

Squires’ winning jingle can be heard in the slideshow video below.