Florida Fair News
Fair Visits By Fran Crone, Manager, SW FL Fair and Lee County Fair
Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always wanted to meet Ronald McDon- ald. I often wondered if he was as happy and nice as the commercials portray e d. While visiting the Minnesota State Fair this year, I just happened to be standing in the direct route of which he was walking for the parade. Ronald was very happy to be part of the Fair, as like al- ways, he was strolling gleefully along smiling at everyone - and ready for every photo op standing in his way. Ronald, I am truly happy to say, was not the only congenial person we met during our 3 day extended visit to Minnesota. Eve- ry person we encountered was genuinely polite and friend- ly. They offered valid directions, many suggestions of food – since there was s
o mc ood, and even sent us to a uh f
fabulous little ice cream shop that’s worth another trip to Minnesota just to re-visit. When we began discussing the possibility of attending the Minnesota State Fair, I could not fathom that the gates really open as early as they do, and I remember asking Pam Simon “do you have enough people to warrant opening that early?” She was very kind and did not laugh at me. It was truly a sight to behold. We walked for two days, took a lot of pictures and soaked up every new idea we could. My hat’s off to the manage- ment, the staff, the many volunteers, and the hundreds of thousands of Fairgoers who make the Minnesota State Fair the “Minnesota State Fair.”
Sponsorship Ideas on a Budget By Dicky Brown, Pasco County Fair
Being a small Fair with less than 50,000 attendance, we are forced to look for innovative ways of recognizing and increasing our sponsorship dollars from within our commu- nity without spending a bundle of money. In 2013 we put together a plan to increase our sponsor recognition for our 2014 Fair. In the years past, our sponsorship revenue com- ing in has been pretty stable so with our new plan we had an adequate baseline to measure our success. This is a key component in order to measure your success. Our plan consists of several areas of improvement: (1) Produce a professional glossy sponsorship portfolio to give out to our potential sponsors. (2) Created a PowerPoint of all our sponsor’s logos and then save it as “WMF” Windows Media File. (3) The Fair purchased three 42 inch TV’s that are capable of reading “WMF” files via USB input. We mounted the three TV’s in our high traffic areas with a PowerPoint presentation running continually during the Fair. This form of advertising puts the sponsor’s name and logo in front of a lot of people. This was a very inexpensive way to recognize our sponsors as well as create a highly visible avenue for letting our folks know what is going on at the Fair. In addition, we added their logo to our web sponsor page. (4) We also created coupons called “Fair Bucks” to be part of the sponsorship package. These “Fair Bucks” could be used at any of our Independent food ven- dors. For example, these coupons would be worth one dol- lar so if an item cost $2.50 and the holder gave the vendor three “Fair Bucks” to pay for the item the vendor would give them no change. The vendor then would turn in all their “Fair Bucks” to the office to be redeemed in cash so the vendor
just made $.50 on that item. We only had
about 45% of the “Fair Bucks” we gave out to our spon- sors redeemed. With the above plan we spent about $1200.00 and we increased our sponsorship sales in 2014 over $10,000.00. This is an economy of scale so we are hoping to spend the same this coming year. So now you have an inside look as how we increased sponsorship money without spending a lot of money. Sometimes little things make a big differ- ence. Good luck!
Whoda
Thunk? While at- tending the Ohio State Fair this year, and talking with staff, while
coordinating our tour of the barns – when, what to my wondering eyes should appear but Mark Sparks – and his smile that is always bright and full of cheer. It’s always a pleasure Mark!
Kelly Palmer, Fran and Randy Crone, SW Florida Fair visiting the Minnesota State Fair
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