Selection of sites

The choice of the cities was based on several rules:
-    they had to be major for the respective region;
-    they had to be within a reasonable distance of two other ones, because of the need of dividing the country into two and arranging appropriate routes for the teams;
-    they had to have a certain record of being active and being interested to support initiatives like the roadshow.
The cities were discussed and approved by ProPager, France, which introduced several other criteria:
-    The capital (by default);
-    All cities with more than 80.000 inhabitants;
-    All cities should be in different provinces;
-    At least one city with a large (principle) population of each of the main minorities  (Roma and Turkish). These were Haskovo (Turkish or Bulgarian muslems) and Pazardjik, Vidin and Sliven (Roma).

Selection of places for the stands
    After the final list of cities was approved, the coordinator (Mr. Daniel Vankov) took immediate action to contact the cities’ authorities in order to obtain their agreement to support the action and to secure best possible locations and the accompanying logistics. This urgency of the issue was partly because of the slow administrative procedures in some of the local municipalities and partly because of the pressing deadlines for launching the campaign. The letter of support from DG JLS was extremely helpful in giving us credibility and shortening the time needed. We are also grateful to the Representation of the European Commission in Bulgaria for its readiness to help and their support in the obtaining authorizations from Plovdiv and the Traffic Police.
When the letters were sent, we took the initiative to call all city halls and look for the person responsible. In the letter we asked the municipality to offer the best possible place, given their experience and knowledge of the city. In the cases, where we also had experience in organizing similar actions, we proposed places which we believed will best suit our objectives.
By the time the Roadshow was about to start, we have secured 19 out of 20 permissions with concrete locations and, in most cases, arranged electricity. This showed the interest and the willingness for cooperation from the local authorities.  The last permit was obtained right in time to perform the action. It was in Plovdiv – the second largest city of Bulgaria.
Thanks to our efforts, timely reactions and the support, we were given, we managed to obtain the best possible location in most of the cities. They were situated usually on the main city squares, very close to the city hall or another very popular place for the local citizens.  This was one of the main reasons that the campaign achieved great success despite the unfavourable weather conditions.