Councils in Orange, Albury, Armidale, Bathurst, Dubbo, Tamworth and Wagga Wagga were expected to take a leap of faith, and hand over a large amount of cash, in order to participate in a marketing strategy they could never properly evaluate.

Designed to provide a joint promotion of these regional cities, membership to Evocities was always considered expensive and it was hard to see what that hefty membership levy actually provided.

With the organisation having been scrapped this month, in an effort to reflect and perhaps reinvent itself, Orange will now save around $80,000 a year having already spent more than $500,000 on Evocity membership since 2010.

Council will now use the cash to promote itself to prospective tree-changers who have had enough of the hassles of city living and are hoping for a better work/life balance.

Orange mayor Reg Kidd supports the move and said he thought Evocities had "run its race".

He told the Central Western Daily he thinks the city can better promote itself working with marketing body Orange360 as well as coming up with its own strategies.

According to Evocities it had attracted 3960 new households to regional areas and had about 681,000 visits to its main website and 2.5 millions visits to its site advertising jobs.

However Cr Kidd said Evocities had been unable to provide evidence of how many people had specifically moved to Orange through its campaigns.

According to Cr Kidd generic statements on billboards in Sydney had not been effective.

In fact it's very hard to judge whether they'd been effective or not, and that's precisely the problem.

Not only was the work Evocities did unable to be quantified, it was also confusing for the average person who had never heard of an Evocity and wondered what the term actually meant.

In the end only time will tell whether it was a good decision to leave Evocities or not but you can bet the pressure is on council, and perhaps Orange360, to be as innovative as it can be to promote Orange as a desirable regional location. We know Orange is a fantastic place to live with attractive housing options, career opportunities and top-notch amenities, let's see if we can spread the word without Evocities' help.