{"id":4403,"date":"2010-11-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=4403"},"modified":"2014-07-22T18:01:10","modified_gmt":"2014-07-23T01:01:10","slug":"noozhawk-talks-leslie-dinaberg-sits-down-with-shannon-turner-brooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=4403","title":{"rendered":"Noozhawk Talks: Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Shannon Turner Brooks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Shannon<\/a>

Shannon Turner Brooks of the Santa Barbara Conference & Visitors Bureau and Film Commission says the \u201creally cool part of my job\u201d is taking people out, \u201cwhether it\u2019s for a travel TV show or just showing people around … I don\u2019t think I ever have gotten over how pretty Santa Barbara is, just what a beautiful place it is.\u201d (Elite Henenson \/ Noozhawk photo)<\/p><\/div>\n

As Director of Communications for the Santa Barbara Conference and Visitors
\nBureau and Film Commission, it’s Shannon Turner Brooks<\/a>‘ business to talk-a
\nlot-about Santa Barbara. Here Noozhawk gives her the chance to talk-a
\nlittle-about herself, as well what’s going on at the CVB.<\/p>\n

Leslie Dinaberg: Can you explain how the Conference and Visitors Bureau and
\nFilm Commission is different from the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown
\nOrganization?<\/p>\n

Shannon Turner Brooks: Essentially our mission is to market Santa Barbara as a
\ndestination for tourism and film production. The simplest idea to convey is that
\nwe bring people here who spend money in our community and then leave,
\nwhereas I think the chamber is more about business development and people
\nmoving here. Then we work with the Downtown Organization a lot like on
\nEpicure.SB (a 31-day, community-wide culinary extravaganza coming up in
\nOctober) (http:\/\/www.santabarbaraca.com\/epicuresb\/<\/a>), that’s a good example of
\nour partnership. We collaborate with them on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

LD: And film production is different than the film festival?<\/p>\n

STB: It is. We get a lot of commercials, catalog shoots; photo shoots and then
\nfeature films. “It’s Complicated” was one that was filmed recently, “Sideways,”
\ntoo, but we’re used more often for one day of shooting or getting a few scenes
\nhere. Any kind of production like that, that would bring people in to use the
\nlocations and then also use local services.<\/p>\n

… The film commissioner, Jeff Alexander, … his job is basically connecting
\npeople, whether it’s location scouts or producers, with the locations they need
\nand the resources and showing them what we have. So if they say, “I need a
\nWild West saloon,” we say, “Here’s Maverick’s, that’s where you should go.”<\/p>\n

LD: People always hear about “Sideways” or “It’s Complicated,” but I know there
\nare a lot of smaller things going on too.<\/p>\n

STB: The bread and butter would be the commercials like car commercials and
\nfashion photography for catalogs. … Definitely more of the production is in North
\nCounty.<\/p>\n

LD: That makes sense just because of the open space and it’s sort of different
\nlooking. So can you explain your job a little?<\/p>\n

STB: As director of communications I manage all of our public relations, so I’m
\nthe primary media liaison and a big part of my job is working with travel and
\nlifestyle media from around the world to generate editorial coverage about Santa
\nBarbara. So I set up press trips, come up with story ideas and pitch Santa
\nBarbara. We put on media events; relationship building is a big part of that. We
\nput on a dinner in LA recently. The California Travel and Tourism Commission
\nthey host media receptions in New York and LA and San Francisco so I
\nrepresent Santa Barbara at those and essentially I’m always telling people what’s
\nnew and what’s going on in Santa Barbara.<\/p>\n

Then we have press trips, so essentially I’ll work with the local community to set
\nup hotels and restaurants and whatever experiences or interviews they want to
\nget when they are here, and a lot of just meeting with the media and talking with
\nthem and being a resource and a fact checker. It’s a lot of coming up with the
\nstory ideas and what’s new. You’re a journalist so of course you know,
\nsometimes people will say, I’m looking for something on a romance theme or
\ngreen wineries or something like that.<\/p>\n

LD: So it’s a lot of knowing everything that’s going on.<\/p>\n

STB: Yes, keeping tabs on everything that’s going on and being creative and
\nalso coming up with new ways to sell the destination. Like one example, this year
\nmy big push in the winter was celebrate a century of cinema on the American
\nRiviera. … 2010 was the 100 year anniversary of filmmaking in Santa Barbara
\nand also at the same time “It’s Complicated” was going to be released Christmas
\nDay and then the film festival had its 25th anniversary, so I could package that as
\none story and get that out. That ended up generating a story that went out on the
\nAssociated Press Wire, the AP travel editor put that out and then “USA Today”
\nput a huge front of the travel section feature on that. I think we got over 100
\nplacements just from that kind of idea, sort of creating that and then we had our
\nmicro site where we put the content for that-people could go for itineraries and
\nthen we did “It’s complicated” hotel packages and it was kind of creating things
\nthat they can interact with, whether it’s the location they can go to or hotel
\npackages inspired by “It’s Complicated.”<\/p>\n

LD: So the people who wrote the story for the AP, did you bring them to Santa
\nBarbara and host them?<\/p>\n

STB: No. They don’t always do that. They didn’t come here for that. I’m trying to
\nthink of an example of something that we actually hosted. “Golf Digest” came
\nhere and they did this huge feature in the December issue and it was about wine
\nand golf so we used the “Sideways” story with that. We host about 70 travel
\nmedia every year. For the most part it’s print, although a lot of it is online now,
\nlike the international travel TV shows they come through. We recently had
\n“GMTV,” which is kind of the British equivalent of NBC’s “Today Show.” Two of
\ntheir hosts came through on a Thelma & Louise-style road trip, so we set them
\nup with paddle surfing with Blueline and they stayed at San Ysidro Ranch and we
\nwent to Alma Rosa Winery to kind of do the “Sideways” thing. It varies.<\/p>\n

LD: Do you ever get weird requests from people wanting to do things?<\/p>\n

STB: Occasionally there is an obscure request or I think sometimes a journalist
\nwill send out a note to all of their PR contacts saying I’m looking for x, y and z
\nand we don’t have anything. But mostly it’s the other way around, that they are
\nsurprised by certain aspects of Santa Barbara because a lot of people think of it
\nas kind of high end, luxury, celebrities and we have all these interesting aspects
\nto our culture, like I just did a promotion of the green environmental aspect and
\nthe food and wine has been really big lately. I think more often than not it is
\npleasantly surprising when people look at all that Santa Barbara has to offer.<\/p>\n

LD: How did you get into this kind of work?<\/p>\n

STB: I went to UC San Diego and I studied communications there and my last six
\nmonths there I had gotten an internship through school at a magazine. (After
\nthat) I moved to Santa Barbara because I grew up in Lompoc and I always loved
\nthe area … I had originally looked for jobs with magazines, in publishing, and as
\nyou know, it’s not a very big media market as I quickly discovered. I think it was
\nactually my mother who saw this ad for the visitor’s bureau. It was actually for an
\nadministrative assistant, so I probably wouldn’t have looked at it, but the
\ndescription of it was interesting with the travel and the marketing and the film, so
\nI applied for it. … It ended up being a marketing coordinator. … That was ten
\nyears ago in July that I’ve actually been with the visitor’s bureau fresh from
\ncollege.<\/p>\n

LD: Obviously your responsibilities have changed; do you think anything has
\nchanged significantly in terms of what’s going on in Santa Barbara in the last ten
\nyears?<\/p>\n

STB: It’s been interesting to see more of the changes of our product. We’re
\nalways looking for what’s new and so seeing the evolution as new businesses
\ncome up. Our wine industry has exploded. I think when I started we were at six
\nwineries and now it’s like 175. And I was really involved in the “Sideways”
\nmarketing campaign and that was really interesting to see the effect, which we
\nare still seeing people from the press that are interested in that angle.<\/p>\n

LD: What else do you do when you’re not working?<\/p>\n

STB: I do love to travel. I love travel and I always have to have a trip in my mind
\nwhether it is a weekend getaway to San Francisco or an international
\nadventure.<\/p>\n

LD: What’s on your mind right now?<\/p>\n

STB: Well I’m going to go to Treebones in Big Sur at the end of this month with
\nmy childhood friends. We have an annual get together and there are five of us six
\nof us.<\/p>\n

LD: Are you going to stay in the yurts?<\/p>\n

STB: We are actually upgrading to the yurts because typically we’ve gone
\ncamping and we’ve decided we’re grown up so yeah, we’re splurging on the
\nyurts. … I’m also going to North Carolina … and I’m going to Sardinia next May.<\/p>\n

… Then I love to eat and drink, of course. (Laughs)<\/p>\n

LD: You have a good job for that.<\/p>\n

STB: I get to do a lot of that for my job. Everything I know about wine I’ve learned
\nfrom my job, from just taking journalists out to the wineries and meeting with
\nwinemakers or working with them on our events. I really enjoy that part very
\nmuch. I’m very lucky to have the talented winemakers that we have. I just think
\nit’s so pretty to go up into the wine country.<\/p>\n

LD: So are you professionally obligated to try out any restaurant that opens
\nup?<\/p>\n

STB: I try to. (Laughs). We have a new blog actually, which has been fun. I’m
\ntrying to do a weekly post. That’s been nice to give me something else that’s a
\nway to talk about what’s new aside from just my newsletter that I do.<\/p>\n

LD: There’s such a high interest in that.<\/p>\n

STB: Santa Barbara is a small town but it’s very food-oriented, so anytime there
\nis something new it is very exciting. So yes, I try to keep up on that. I am a
\nvegetarian so sometimes I write about things that I don’t actually eat but I
\nappreciate all of the local sensibilities. I’m not a moral vegetarian so I think
\npeople should eat what their body tells them to eat. I like to do yoga, I love the
\nbeach, all the fun Santa Barbara things: hiking, beaches, yoga, seeing family and
\nfriends. There isn’t really time for much else. I do like to read and I read a
\nlot.<\/p>\n

LD: If you could pick three adjectives to describe yourself, what would they
\nbe?<\/p>\n

STB: Tall (Laughs), calm, I’m very calm and easygoing.<\/p>\n

LD: Do you have a favorite local spot?<\/p>\n

STB: I feel like with my job that’s a dangerous question politically. I don’t think
\nanyone to hold that against me. … I do think that Casa Del Hererro is
\nspectacular and I would like to live there. I love the old Santa Barbara vibe. San
\nYsidro Ranch is quite stunning as well. That’s another place I would like to live.
\nThe courthouse, the view from the clock tower, which is where I send all of our
\nvisitors and our media there and when I have friends come to town I usually take
\nthem there for the proper tourist photo. It’s special.<\/p>\n

LD: You probably get to do more of that kind of stuff than most people do.<\/p>\n

STB: That’s true. It’s a really cool part of my job taking people out, whether it’s for
\na travel TV show or just showing people around, it’s always nice to see things
\nthrough fresh eyes and how beautiful it is and how much they appreciate it. I
\ndon’t think I ever have gotten over how pretty Santa Barbara is, just what a
\nbeautiful place it is.<\/p>\n

Vital Stats: Shannon Turner Brooks<\/p>\n

Born: February 11, in San Francisco, CA. Grew up in Lompoc.<\/p>\n

Family: “I’m not married, my mom’s always looking for a husband for me.”
\nParents are retired teachers living in Lompoc (mom is county planning
\ncommissioner Marell Brooks), plus a brother, sister-in-law and nephew in Santa
\nBarbara and another brother in Monterey.<\/p>\n

Civic Involvement: Downtown Organization’s Cultural Committee, Board Member
\nof the Performing Arts League.<\/p>\n

Professional Accomplishments: “I appreciate being able to help all these different
\nlocal businesses promote their success … that’s really the point of our
\norganization is to promote the community and bring in tourism tax dollars. It’s
\nvery much a people-oriented job. We work with all of these local companies and
\nit’s great to be able to help them in any way that we can.”<\/p>\n

Best Book You’ve Read Recently: “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, “The
\nBone People” by Keri Hulme and “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” by Muriel
\nBarbery.<\/p>\n

Little-Known Fact: “I’m addicted to music. I really love music and all day long I
\nlisten to Pandora radio.”<\/p>\n

Originally published in Noozhawk<\/a>\u00a0on August 29, 2010. Click here<\/a> to read the story on that site.<\/h6>\n

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