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One of the curses of being a journalism major is that you learn a few rules in school that you then can't shake for the rest of your life. One that I've always remembered is this: "Something can't be annual until it's happened twice." Therefore, you can never call something "the first annual..."
I see this all the time when I travel to campuses. It's on a ton of t-shirts. Student leaders get so jazzed by an event they are planning, they just assume that it will be huge, and generations of leaders who follow them will want to make the event a regular thing. Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't.
And when it doesn't, you have all these t-shirts that say "First Annual Pickle Tickle" and there is never a second one.
Here's what you do. When you have a new event and you're very excited about it, just call it "The First..." Drop the "annual." We are proud to announce The First-Ever Pickle Tickle! Then, when your successors do it again, they can call it "The Second Annual Pickle Tickle: Same Dill, Twice the Thrill."
Again, I repeat, nothing is annual until it's happened twice. Got it? Good.
