sponsers and guests

pign aint easy said:

what are some of yalls rules on this subject ? because i have come to learn that people will invite everybody they know to your cook if they are a sponsor

Click to expand...

That is exactly why I prefer not to have sponsors.

Tickets/Wristbands/Badges seem to work best IMHO. That way a sponsor has a gauge as to their involvement in the competition.

i.e. If I have 2 sponsors for an event, and one donates $1000, and another $500, I might give the first sponsor 40 tickets, and the other 20.

Having the doors wide open to a sponsor can be dangerous, depending on your guest rules. i.e. "Guests of guests".

Some sort of sign of admission keeps everything reasonable, without hurting peoples' feelings.

What sort of event or competition? A big comp like MIM with one time sponsorship...fundraiser...standard weekend comp with team sponsorship?

The rules must be set up front when you accept a sponsor as you would with any business contract. I also suggest you put everything in writing. Just remember, their money or supplies are not free. They expect something in return for sponsoring you and that is exactly what must be negociated up front. Also consider that you are entering into a legally binding contract which is enforcible in a court of law so dot your i's and cross your t's.

Funky D said:

Tickets/Wristbands/Badges seem to work best IMHO. That way a sponsor has a gauge as to their involvement in the competition.

i.e. If I have 2 sponsors for an event, and one donates $1000, and another $500, I might give the first sponsor 40 tickets, and the other 20.

Having the doors wide open to a sponsor can be dangerous, depending on your guest rules. i.e. "Guests of guests".

Some sort of sign of admission keeps everything reasonable, without hurting peoples' feelings.

Click to expand...

I totally agree with the Tickets/Wristbands/Badges. We use a lanyrad with a backtage pass sort of thing. This works great, then event to event year to year each one is different so they sort of make for cool souvenirs.

For sponsors we give them their alotment a few weeks in advance and let them take care of it. For some of our VIP guests we give hem theirs as they arived at the event.

We have also done it before where there was a dedicated area for our sponsors to be in, we took care of the food and drinks and we let them poluice themselves on who got into that section. That takes A LOT of planning to pull that off with no speed bumps.

***We have done this at an event with about 100 teams and anywhere between 8,000-15,000+ general public there on a given year***

I am going to keep an eye on this as I am also always looking for new ideas in this department.

We do a couple shows a year that we designate for entertaining sponsors, friends, family etc. Friday night of those events we put on a big spread, and typically host 40-50 people for three or four hours. This allows us to choose locations where we know we will have the space and time to cater properly without inconveniencing other teams, and it also enables us to set ground rules for visitors.

We let everybody know at the start of the season that they are welcome to stop by at any event on Fridays for a chat, but that we won't be set up to provide much more than a cold drink and a chair most of the time. Then we explain about our "fan appreciation" events and encourage folks to turn out then. Finally we warn that on contest Saturdays we are all business until after the last turn-in, softening the blow by advising that around 1:30pm is the time to drop by for a taste of what we turned in that day if we have extra meat left.

This has worked pretty well for us, but we are also quite selective about the sponsors we choose to associate with. Money is nice, but it hardly seems worth it if you have to endure people who interfere with your ability to compete or embarrass you at a contest.