Better Late than Never?

I always get a big kick out of looking at the metropolitan ads for events around town.  Each time I go to Milan, inevitably I run into a mega-concert or event in which the date is missing or the address, or both.  Near my little countryside town, tomorrow night is a Blues Concert - I have no idea where as the only visible address on the entire poster was the printer's.
A friend is always passing me brochures for events large and small - the last an international finance conference - that arrive in her mailbox a week after the event has already taken place.  No matter, the date wasn't posted nor the contact info so it's almost as if it hadn't taken place in the first place. 
And so,  I got a big kick out of seeing a 1/4 page ad in the Rome edition of Sunday's paper for the event of the summer:  the Palio delle Barche on Lake Trasimeno [let's hope it ends better than other Palio's...without having to sacrifice a rower at the end - see entry following].
This Palio is a magnificent display and race that commemorates an event in 1495; today it is a contest between four towns, each represented by a fish.  The event lasts 1 week, and I got a big chuckle that the ad stated, from 18 to 25 July.  I assumed they simply recycled the ad from the year before, and so it was to take place in August.  But logical reasoning will only go so far.
Checking their website, I clicked on the program.  Granted, it's not available in English (and I have no idea how I got there), this is what I found:

In lacinia, tortor at malesuada volutpat, turpis felis iaculis erat, quis laoreet est sapien nec lorem. Curabitur molestie hendrerit nisl sit amet porta. Mauris eleifend felis vitae elit tempor a vulputate risus imperdiet. Mauris vel porttitor ligula. Cras elit dolor, commodo in imperdiet id, malesuada sit amet tellus? Nunc et eros massa. Integer mi turpis; scelerisque sit amet sollicitudin metus.

I know we're marketing challenged here but, perhaps NOT AVAILABLE and a link to the Italian would have made more sense.  Digging further around, it turned out that the event had already taken place - last July!  Obviously, upholding traditions and using mass media do not go hand in hand.

Maybe it's because I grew up with all those birthday party invitations, that showed

WHO - WHAT - WHEN - WHERE - RSVP

Perhaps the entire country can do an Evite tutorial so people know in the future what information to include, and whether or not it's BYOB.  

Of course, it means you still have to remember to hit SEND prior to the date of your event.