I don’t wish to have the event overly commercial but the bills still need to be paid. I’m looking at various ways of getting sponsorship. One way is to have one overall sponsor to cover all costs, these would be: Pay for the room, MC, DJ, trophies, catering, printing, postage, advertising, web design, hotel accomodation, video intros. Given that, I will not allow it to be called “The Microoogle Irish Blog Awards” but what about “The Irish Blog Awards sponsored by Microoogle” if there was going to be just one sponsor?What are peoples opinion of that?
The other option like last year is to have sponsors for each category. Last year each category sponsor paid 50 euros and the money was handed directly to the category winner. It was said to me that people were really just interested in a trophy and the money did not matter as much. Were that the case then the money taken from each category sponsor could be used to pay all other costs. I would still like the Best Blog winner to get a trophy and also get a prize.
To run a good event will cost around €6k-7k and to run a great event would cost €9- €10k. Crazy money isn’t it? That’s a lot of money for a single sponsor who would naturally consider they have some input on how the show is run but they really won’t have much input at all. There’ll be around 20 categories this year so category sponsorship would range from €350 to €500. Would you think I’d get that many sponsors at that price?
The usual stuff comes into play with sponsorship in that sponsors want to get bang for their buck: I had one sponsor last year wanting posters, banners at the event and asking me to fill in a sheet outlining how many mentions on the night from the podium they’d get. Asking for way too much in my view.
I think that if you only get one overall sponsor for the whole thing that it would give them a lot more sway and they could really try to push banners etc onto you.
IMHO it might be better to have the category sponsors as that would mean you could keep the advertising more discrete, and if you have 20 categories at 350 for the lesser categories and 500 for the top one (best blog, best group blog etc) that could easily raise 8k… and it’s more affordable for the companies that way too – I’d say that there are plenty of companies that would like to get involved but they couldn’t afford 8k or more… whereas companies that are willing to spend more could sponsor multiple awards – i.e. you could try to sell off the top three awards as a package for some more visibility on the night…
As for the actual awards, I think trophies are the main thing, that give people something to display if they so choose and a ‘warm feeling inside’ for longer than €50 – I’d say most people would end up spending that on drinks/taxis on the night…
Best plan would be to lay out exactly what the sponsor would get for their and include that in a virtual press release to any prospective sponsors, that way they can’t really argue and say they weren’t told!
Spot prizes do give people that aren’t nominated a bit more reason to come along, after all if there are 10 spot prizes and 100 people there, then that’s a 1:10 chance of winning something – and that’s certainly better than the euromillions!!
I agree with the above and for me, if I got some PR with Trophy and no money I would be happy. Can’t buy alot of PR with €50.
Having small chunks of advertising does seem like a good idea, fair play on that.
I don’t think I’d sponsor a category at €500. I realise it isn’t a whole lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but personally I think people make events like this, not money, and pushing the boat out is akin to flushing. It’s your call, but my advice would be caution/frugality on the spending front where possible.
If you were going to give a prize out I’d confine it to the top awards; best blog being one, Best Contribution to the Irish Bloggersphere another.
At the same time, given the nature of blogging, I can’t see people being pissed off at getting kudos and some stage time for work they don’t get paid for anyway 😀
Not sure about the sponsorship pricing, as this kind of thing is out of my league (don’t know what a good price is)… I would think a single sponsor would push it too far into the realm of it being about the company and not the bloggers though, so a few sponsors would be best… that said I wouldn’t say no to someone willing to give 10k over, but as you know the terms are everything.
What about donations? Tell people to send in anon. contributions if they want to (anon because you don’t want people saying Blogger A gave 100 quid and coincidently won an award etc.)
Oooh I think a trophey would make me happy out! Although the thought of money might encourage the blogger to actually attend the ceromony!!