Federal varieties
The pattern
This still is filed under Event symbol poster.
Define
A symbol or allegory that makes an event feel like a destination. Not a timetable. A magnet.
Mechanism
Attraction by emblem. Date and venue ride under a picture that already means come.
Verdict
We are filling a room, a night, or a run of dates
Why it works
Every element is sized by how much it is expected to sell, not by hierarchy convention, which is why the numeral 40 is repeated on both ends of its line and RURAL FROLICS is set larger than the words that introduce it. The angled title slab breaks the grid of horizontal bands and gives a static layout motion. Qualifying the performers by medium, stage, radio and screen, does more work than the number alone because it tells the reader what kind of fame is on offer. It is worth studying against the New York sheets in the same collection as evidence that the WPA had no single house style: regional units printed in whatever local jobbing idiom was available.
Steal this when
Use this when you are selling a local, short-run event to a crowd that responds to abundance rather than taste. Lead with venue and dates, make the count the loudest number, and qualify the count so it means something.