Stop By Locations are location types that are easily capturable during normal business hours and don’t require a scheduled appointment. Stop By Locations typically include these location types: outdoor areas like state or local parks, beach access points, trails, riverwalks, monuments, and indoor locations like restaurants, cafes, bars, and small retail shops.

<aside> 💡 Before starting on Stop By Locations, the DMO should have sent a Partnership Announcement Email to all of the locations you'll be stopping by. This gives the location a heads up and a time-frame of when you’ll be coming by to capture.

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  1. Create a Plan
    1. The capture time for each location will likely be between 15 - 30 minutes. Take a look at your full list and take a guess at the estimated capture time for each, or at least make note of the ones that might stand out (e.g. that state park is huge!).
    2. Depending on the travel time between locations, it’s possible to capture ~5 locations per day assuming that you’re dedicating multiple hours to that capture session. We don’t recommend planning on capturing more than that on a given day. If you’re able to, great!
    3. Section out your capture days by creating zones, or areas of the city that you’ll devote a capture session toward. Use tools like Google My Maps to create custom and editable maps. Here’s an example of a Google My Map where the Creator sectioned out San Francisco, CA by zip code and dropped their locations as pins. You can import a spreadsheet of your work order locations into My Maps and then draw sections, label them, and color code them. We recommend creating a My Map with sections for Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and so on. You can then put the Days, or sections, on your calendar to create a production schedule.
    4. Maximize your time by planning some stop-by locations in between or after your scheduled appointments if they're in close proximity to one another.
  2. Check the weather - Since many Stop By Locations are outdoor locations or restaurants where the virtual tours start outside, good weather is critical. We recommend that you check the weather at the beginning of the week and make adjustments if need be.
  3. Confirm your locations - The day you capture, be sure to confirm that the locations you are capturing that day are open and the address is valid. If you have the bandwidth, you can call ahead to let the location know that you plan to stop by that day, and they might suggest a timeframe to ensure they're prepared for you.

Collateral

Physical or visual assets can go a long way in making someone feel comfortable. To that end, we’ve developed the following to help your interactions, as you previously saw in the Capture Training Course. Feel free to mix and match these items.

  1. Creator Badge - Designed to help you establish legitimacy on-site, the badge includes a basic explanation of what a Creator does along with a URL and QR code that goes to the Threshold Map, full of example content.
  2. Leave Behind Cards - Designed for all location types and anyone interested in the who, what, and why of Threshold and our relationship with the DMO. Check out the Leave Behind Card here and request more if need be.
  3. Example Content -  map.threshold360.com is a great repository of content examples. Search the map for nearby locations so that the staff members can see a reference they know. You can also lookup the Google listing page of a location that you know has been captured, like this one.
  4. Materials from the DMO - Before you start on a list of Stop By locations, the DMO should have sent a Partnership Announcement Email to those locations. The DMO may have created a landing page on their website or they’ve sent other newsletters out regarding the program. It’s best to have all of these references at your disposal.