Events
Overview: Back by popular demand! Join us for year five of the Holiday and Winter Activations webinar—because it’s never too early to start planning. Discover creative strategies to transform your downtown into a festive winter destination, attracting residents and visitors alike. Featuring Downtown Days of Wonder, a 2024 IDA Award of Excellence-winning project, you’ll learn how to maximize your winter activations to boost local businesses and foster a vibrant community spirit.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify and implement innovative strategies for holiday and winter activations that enhance the vibrancy and appeal of downtown.Â
- Develop creative placemaking and event planning techniques to create memorable winter experiences.Â
- Learn to maximize the economic impact of winter activations by attracting patrons to local businesses and fostering a strong community spirit. Â
Friday, July 18, 2025 | 12:00pm ET (9:00am PT)Â
Domain: Marketing, Communications and Events
Pricing: IDA Members: Free | Nonmembers: $40
Advancing Places is an online series aimed at empowering IDA members with the solutions needed to address the most critical urban issues of the day. This session will include a moderated Q&A and will be recorded for member and nonmember use in the future.
Speakers:
- Liz Burt, Director of Urban Activation + Play, Centro San Antonio (TX)Â
- Cassie Williams, Marketing and Communications Coordinator, Downtown Tulsa Partnership (OK)Â
- Gabriel Yeager, Director of Placemaking and Events, DTLA Alliance (Los Angeles, CA)Â
Moderator:
- Liz Burt, Director of Urban Activation + Play, Centro San Antonio (TX)Â
LPM | 1 – IDA LPM professionals can earn credit hours for this webinar. More information about IDA’s Leadership in Place Management certification program can be found here.Â
Speakers
Elizabeth Burt
Director of Urban Activation + Play, Centro San Antonio
Liz is a passionate underutilized space evangelist known for collaboration matchmaking + play based troublemaking (snow, pumpkins, and Parisian mimes included). She graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio College of Public Policy studying Public Administration. More recently, she oversaw the award winning Activate Houston Street Initiative, a placemaking action plan to reinvigorate the historic pedestrian corridor in the heart of Downtown, which is recognized as a Best Practice in Public Space Management by the International Downtown Association, for which she is also a proud Emerging Leader Fellow. 
Cassie Williams
Marketing and Communications Coordinator, Downtown Tulsa Partnership (OK)Â Cassie thrives on creativity and fun inside and outside of work. She loves getting friends together for a good themed party and is a playful aunt to 11 nieces and nephews. Her artistic talents shine through in her love for crochet, sewing, painting and drawing. Evenings are spent with her husband, Carson and their two dogs, Bennie and Roscoe, enjoying long walks and spoiling them with love.
Gabriel Yeager
Director of Placemaking and Events, DTLA Alliance (Los Angeles, CA)Â
Gabriel Yeager joined the DTLA Alliance as the organization’s first Director of Placemaking and Events in January 2024. Since assuming this position, Gabriel has led a series of placemaking initiatives to improve the quality of Downtown LA’s public realm, most recently launching "Big Art. Bigger Dreams," an outdoor mural museum curated by Street Art for Mankind. Additional accomplishments include restoring over a dozen blocks of street lighting, installing new festival lighting and launching the “Heart of Downtown” campaign. Gabriel oversees DTLA Alliance’s portfolio of signature events. Since 2024, Gabriel has facilitated $300,000+ in public/private funding to support placemaking in Downtown LA.Â
More Information
Registration information: When registering for a webinar, please complete the sign-up as yourself and not your organization. If additional staff would like to attend the same webinar, each individual must register as themselves to receive their unique login link. Questions? Email registration@downtown.org.
By registering for this webinar, you are agreeing to the Non-Discrimination, Anti-Harassment and Complaint Policy and IDA Event Agreement and Code of Conduct.
IDA is committed to making our educational sessions accessible to everyone, regardless of ability, and to reasonably accommodating the assistive needs of our members, attendees and partners. We are actively working to increase the accessibility of our offerings. In so doing, we strive to comply with the available standards and guidelines under the Americans with Disabilities Act and related laws to the greatest extent possible. If you are having trouble accessing an IDA offering, or have a question regarding session accessibility features, please contact IDA at registration@downtown.org for assistance.
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For registration assistance or further information, please contact IDA’s registration team.
