Last week, all metros combined had 436K sessions to their sites. Last year at this time? We were barely breaking 250K sessions. With my apologies for a delayed weekly update aside, let's dive into what metros did to drive that sweeeet sweet growth in arguably the most robust Winner of the Week digest in DoStuff history:

• Do206: Seattle landed the highest week of traffic in 14 weeks thanks to the success of their editorial in email, led by their guide to brunch, outdoor bars, and Chris Cornell tribute. Those pieces combined accounted for 40% of their email traffic for the week, and were the main reason they had 39% more email traffic than the week prior. Combined with a couple of social programs that went live for Upstream Fest and their brunch guide, Do206 had a bright week in an otherwise dark week for the birthplace of grunge.
   
• Do250: Victoria is in the midst of their seasonal upswing in traffic as they play host to their annual "Play Tall Tree Fest" competition.The content launched at the start of the month, and has had solid support from the festival throughout (launch, finalists, etc.). The "play the fest" contest is nothing new at this point, but hats off to the BC boys for another year of successful partnerships with a festival that looks to be doing all the right things.
   
• Do312: Chicago took their email game to another level and increased their WoW newsletter traffic by more than 40% thanks to the success of two content pieces that accounted for nearly a third of their weekly email traffic. While the entirety of their city lost their shit for summer temperatures, Do312 served up a diet of rooftop bar content not once, but twice. And with that, they shattered the metaphorical traffic roof when those pages became their 5th and 6th most popular email content pieces for the year. Props to the team for their continued hard work on honing in on successful email strategy.
   
• Do503: Oh hey, another metro that went buck wild on email last week. Portland fired a non-stop stream of festival giveaways into their subscribers' inbox and were rewarded with 34% more opens and 193% (!) more traffic than the week prior. What fests, you kindly ask? Sasquatch Last Call, Taco Fest, and What The Fest. Together, they accounted for nearly half of their email traffic for the week, and a 133% increase in total traffic over last year.
   
• Do604: If you read Do250's bullet point, then you can basically play audience growth madlibs and swap "604" for "250" and "Red Truck" for "Tall Tree." The contest went live. A lot of people shared it on social. Some quintessentially Vancouverian photos were submitted. And now Do604 is paddling their way to 470% YoY traffic. Oh and while you were busy, I dunno, reading about sand, Do604 grew their total subscriber base by 4K in a week. If you're still debating about the effectiveness of these fest contests, Vancouver has 27% of their list that can explain the importance to you.
   
• doNYC: While we're measuring list sizes, doNYC joined the 200K subscriber club this week. And it's that kind of subscriber growth that let them notch a dang impressive 342% YoY growth in traffic. Most of that came from a wave of email traffic to their VIP gov ball partnership contest, with other spikes of traffic for their gov ball set times announce and Panorama coverage. That content alone equaled the entirety of all of their email traffic from the week prior. And then you add 8K sessions coming from user referrals on the splash page, and you've got all the makings of a magic week.
   
• DoLA: Not to be outdone, DoLA shot past their previous weekly traffic record (50K sessions, set a few weeks ago) when they hit a phenomenal 69K sessions last week. That marked the launch of their Twilight Concert Series, an annual mega-event series linking from the official site to the RSVPs on DoLA. Total RSVPs on launch day are already up over 40% from what they were last year, which bodes well for a strong season for DoLA.
   
• DTB: And FINALLY, we get to DoTheBay, which had their first week of over 40K sessions thanks to some more tour dates from The Llama. When combined with their email features on...uh...where to see and be seen, DTB had 50% more email traffic than last week, and 148% more total site traffic than last year at this time. 

And that's just one week! Review any stats you haven't already checked out, and we'll do it all over again next week after we get back from the long weekend. Mazeltov -