Summer provides the public with a wealth of opportunities to explore their neighboring communities. Festivals, races, sidewalk sales and parades are as abundant as the warm sunshine. While these special events offer the chance to relax and have fun, they also create a lot of work for those who are charged with managing them. Fortunately, GIS provides staff members with an efficient way to track spatial data and customize it to meet the needs of multiple departments. As an example, the Village of Glencoe recently put GIS to use in its planning process for the Fourth of July parade. The Village Manager’s office requested an easy-to-understand map of the parade route to distribute to the participants. The GIS specialist also added it to MapOffice™ Advanced, which made the parade route available to any member of the Village staff. As shown in the snapshot, MapOffice™ Advanced allows users to view the parade route on a map or an aerial photo, depending upon their needs. When a Public Safety supervisor saw the map, he was inspired to request another special event map. This one displayed both courses and all of the stations in the Glencoe Grand Prix bike race. Since the parade route map met the size and design specifications of Public Safety, the GIS specialist was able to quickly meet this new request by switching out the necessary information. Finally, the Glencoe Grand Prix plan was added into MapOffice™ Advanced so that Dispatch had a visual reference to enhance its ability to communicate with people in the field. Without GIS, the time and resources needed to create each of these custom maps would have been cost-prohibitive.