Episode 58: Derby Event Planning Update: 70 Days Out - Tickets, Auction Items, and Incentives

Jeff: Welcome to Elevate Your Event, your favorite podcast for transforming fundraising events. Join us weekly for expert tips and creative ideas to make your next event a standout success. In this episode, we catch up with our team from Handbid -- Jeff, Carrie, and Elise -- as they discuss the planning of their own annual fundraising event that benefits Prader-Willi Syndrome Association of Colorado. They have been organizing this event for 16 years and have some great insights into planning a great and successful fundraiser.

Jeff: All right, welcome back to the Elevate Your Event podcast. We talk about all the various ways you can make your next fundraising event better. And we're diving back into the derby. So we got Elise and Carrie here. Ladies, thanks for joining me in the conversation here. We're going to talk about a fundraiser that's obviously near and dear to our heart. It's one that, well, before it was a fundraiser, it was a party at the Porter's house. So it became a fundraiser. We talked about the history around that and not only where it came from but how it evolved over the years. And then we started talking about the early planning stages around budget and approvals and the beginnings of the whole ticket process. Well, we're here to give you guys an update on where we're at. We're about 70 days out from our event, and probably by the time this podcast airs, you'll see where we are, what we're doing, and what's next on the agenda. Now we do have the benefit of having done this 16 times before, so we understand how the event runs and we make little changes here or there. Obviously you want to keep it fresh in certain ways, but this one's going to feel a little fresh to us just because we didn't do it last year because we did Country for a Cure.

Carrie: Yes, we did.

Jeff: Yeah. That was a nice experiment into should we turn this into a fundraising concert. And we won't get into that -- that's a whole other podcast about what can go wrong at your event. I think we've shared that in the past. So anyway, let's dive in. Let's do a quick update on where we're at, and then we'll talk about where we're going over the next 70 days and what's on the list left to do. Does that sound good?

Carrie: Yeah.

Jeff: You should at this point have most, if not all, of your vendor agreements nailed down.

Carrie: Yeah, I think we're doing pretty good on that.

Jeff: Yeah, we're straggling a little bit with the caterer.

Carrie: But we always tend to.

Jeff: But everything else is good. I mean, the sound contract is done. The AV, which is not related to sound, by the way -- it's our giant LED video screen -- that contract is done. Entertainment. Both entertainment contracts are signed. Our event planner is on board and super excited. Venue.

Carrie: Venues. Like, yes, that's kind of where you should start.

Jeff: Wouldn't that be fun if we're like, hey, where do you want to do the derby this year? We're 70 days out from it.

Elise: We've had some people come to us at Handbid and say they need a venue. Or they've lost their venue. A lot of times it's because the venue double books. I mean, that's just tragic.

Jeff: But anyway, so we've got most of those contracts in place. I think we're in good shape there. And we are in full-on sales mode.

Carrie: Yeah. And auction items. Don't forget the auction items. Never forget the auction items.

Jeff: So yes, the team is out there with their donation letters, canvassing the area, asking for donations. We'll start to see those come in over the next couple of weeks. It's tricky because sometimes you've got to start early in the year. We have with certain vendors that we know have limited items that they give out, just to make sure we get on that list. You've got to be on that Q1 list sometimes. So if you have a Q3 or Q4 event and you know people are always telling you every year they run out, it's just a reminder for next year to ask earlier. So let's talk about the auction first, and then we can get into some of the other things, especially ticket prices. How are we going out and getting these items? What's the plan?

Carrie: Well, I think anymore a lot of stuff is online. We have a letter. I think that's usually the first place to start, or if you really frequent places or have a connection to somebody, that's another great place to start. So this is where Carrie Porter has a gigantic wad of these letters in her car, and everywhere she goes around town, she drops one off, right?

Jeff: Yeah.

Carrie: I do. And that used to be very successful. I'd say I've noticed recently a lot of times they just want to send them all to one person to review, and the person at the store usually will just take the information. But then there's still a follow-up call, so there's a little bit of sales effort. But it depends on the place and the organization, and it never hurts to be in person and make the first impression.

Jeff: Yes. Follow-up is key.

Carrie: Yeah, especially when we have a rare disorder.

Jeff: We do. And so there's a lot of explaining that has to happen unless they happen to know my daughter, and half of Denver knows my daughter -- good or bad, they do. And that can help. But I remember even when I was helping my son with the high school football team, that's easier. Like, hey, we're raising money for Thunder Ridge High School football -- oh, we know that. And we're a local business in the community. Those are a little easier, but rare disease is hard.

Carrie: Yep.

Jeff: And so for everybody out there who's raising money, I think your cause and how much people relate to it is obviously always a challenge. It could be really easy. You could be raising money for firefighters. First responders should be easy. Everybody should love them.

Carrie: Yeah. It's definitely easier.

Jeff: I know. You're married to one. You're like, sometimes I love them and sometimes I don't.

Carrie: I know that look, right?

Jeff: But anyway, the auction items -- we're going to start. What do we do? We took last year's list. We go through it. We say that's another good one to get, or...

Carrie: Yeah, and we always look at what sold well, which is trips, alcohol. Well, it depends on your audience. But in our audience, those tend to always be big sellers. So if something was a good seller, we try and go back and get it. Or if people have connections for something unique or different, those are also always hot topics. And some new stuff -- since we've taken a break here, we're kind of starting over. But a lot of times new, exciting events or places, hotels, things to do -- it's good to try.

Jeff: Well, and one thing we've done throughout the last six or nine months as we've been at various events around town is you see what people have in their auction. And it not only tells you what's popular, but it shows you also what businesses are willing to donate.

Carrie: That's right. Who's donating. Because they can change.

Jeff: Exactly. So yeah, we still have a ways to go, but it always manages to come together.

Carrie: Always manages to come together.

Jeff: The bigger thing for us -- let's shift over then. As we're out soliciting auction items, let's talk about ticket sales. I think we had a good conversation in our last meeting about this as a committee. It's interesting because we've had new people come onto the committee. And we have to be really careful because we've done this for 16 years. So sometimes maybe we get stuck in our ways, and it's nice to have somebody new come in and suggest something different. And other times, we don't do certain things just because we've learned they don't work. We don't want to come across as dismissive, but really the new committee member might be thinking we're just stubborn. So let's dive into this because we did have a good conversation. This is where we set ticket prices, specifically the low-end ticket price to get into the event. And we started at $250 a ticket and there was some concern that was too high.

Carrie: Yeah.

Jeff: And then we had some people chime in and said, hey, because this is an event supporting Prader-Willi Syndrome and families impacted by it, we should let those families in for a significantly reduced price.

Carrie: Yep.

Jeff: And I think generally we agree. Okay, but this begs the question -- if you have a limited room, say you're doing a gala event and you've got 300 seats, let's just say 30 tables of 10 -- do you want to fill some of those tables with your supporters or the people you support? And sometimes they can be both. But we've been to events where you're putting people in that room that you're honoring because you're supporting them, but they're not going to spend any money. They couldn't afford to come. There was no way they were spending $2,000 or $2,500 on a table. That's why we're raising money for them, right?

Carrie: Well, I think sometimes the people that are supporting you do like to see and meet who they are supporting as well. So I think there is some value to having some of those families there. But the other flip side is, again, oftentimes they don't -- you're then spending money for them to come. And once they come, they're not often going to spend a lot more when they get there. I think you need to figure out what's the core number of tables you have to reserve for your donors, your big supporters. And then can you fill in the room with the people you support? Because I do think it's beneficial for them to be there.

Jeff: I agree. It's just that when you have limited space, how do you deal with that? It's more about filling those empty spots. And trust me, we know -- we go to events where they calculate revenue per table and the bottom 20% every year get moved out because they're not raising enough money. Some of these events have gotten that sophisticated and that good. They are there to maximize every dollar in every seat. And remember, we used to work with Lynn at the Barn, and Lynn was always opposed to kids at events, because her point is kids don't raise their paddle. All they do is eat the food, but they're not really there to generate any revenue. It sounds insensitive, but I get her point, which -- she ran a venue that had very limited space. If I can only fit 100 people in there, I want 100 people in there that are all giving money. So there's no easy answer to this.

Carrie: No, there's not.

Jeff: Although we had a long conversation about it. And the irony is that was probably the 12th or 13th long conversation.

Carrie: It comes up every year. And it's also, people want -- I mean, it is a fun event. People want to come. And sometimes people want to bring friends or want friends to experience it and they don't necessarily feel they have the means to spend that much money.

Jeff: But I think you should talk a little bit about our pages. We have tried to make an avenue for people that can't afford it but still want to come to do a peer-to-peer fundraising page.

Carrie: Yeah, we have a peer-to-peer campaign connected to the gala auction event. And we encourage people to raise money through that. And we reward them with admission. And sometimes very generous admission. We've had people that have gone on there and they say they can't afford a $250 ticket. And then they go on and raise like $2,500 on their page. So we're happy to put them into the event if they're going to raise $2,500.

Jeff: And a lot of those -- we had one family who literally raised close to $2,000. And a majority of the donations were $10, $20, $30, maybe a few hundred. But just a lot of little donations that added up. We're all over that. So I think that's another way you can get some of your supporters or people that really like the cause but maybe can't afford the ticket price. They can create a page, raise money, and find a different way. So let's summarize this for folks. For the people you support, if you feel like you want to bring them to your event but you also realize they're not going to be able to pay what you're hoping to sell your tables for, give them some milestones or some bars to cross through a peer-to-peer campaign. If they raise a certain amount online, you can offer them that table. And in that case, you have additional spots where you can bring people and bring awareness, and their costs are covered.

Carrie: Yep. I think it's a great way to do it.

Jeff: So let's talk about the other part. The low end of the ticket pricing that isn't related to the people you support. It's just where do you set the low end? And again, this comes up in our event every year, and we have experimented with this and we have some data and then we just have a lot of opinions. So what should be the cheapest ticket price to get into our event? The question we always ask ourselves -- it's a derby event. Would we rather have a thousand people there that all paid $100, or would we rather have 300 people there that all paid $400 or $500 each? And there's not an easy answer to that question. It depends on what kind of event you want. What we've experienced in the past is when we lowered the ticket price considerably, we found we attracted a lot of people that paid the base ticket price, ate the food, drank the drinks, and didn't spend a dime. They didn't bid in the auction. They didn't donate. They didn't buy drawing tickets. They did nothing else. They were there for a derby event. So I think if you decide you want to go that route, you need to expect a good base of those people.

Carrie: Well, and yeah, and your ticket price better at least cover all of your costs.

Jeff: And so with our event, we include all the food and all the alcohol. So it's a little hard to make it too cheap or you end up losing money on those people. One year, we even advertised in a local newspaper, a very popular local newspaper. We put advertisements in there and we attracted definitely a lot of people, very young.

Elise: The party-goers.

Jeff: Who were all passed out in the bathroom at the end of the night and didn't donate any money. So it looked like an amazing party because we had all these people there, but they weren't really there for the fundraiser. They were there for the mint juleps and the race. And they didn't even bet in the race. And that's kind of a fun little thing that we have. So at the low end, I think our summary is you've got to be a little careful -- what type of person do you think is going to want that ticket? And if you do get them in there, how do you incentivize them to do something besides just eat and drink?

Carrie: Participate in the event.

Jeff: Right. So what we tend to do and what we decided to do is we're not selling a $100 ticket. We're going to sell a $200 ticket. We lowered it from $250 to $200, but we're going to give them what we call Prader-Willi dollars. Now, why do we have fake money? You want to explain it?

Carrie: Well, this goes back quite a ways, but we wanted to be able to let people bet on the horse race. With local gambling laws and different things like that, you have to get a little creative. So we actually print money. It looks like money. And we put different kids' faces on them and call them Prader-Willi dollars. It's fake money. You can use it in the auction. If we have cups and things like that, you can buy those, but you have to use it for the horse races. And then you get paid back in Prader-Willi money. Everyone's like, oh, can we bet? We want to bet. So what we've done is allowed you to bet and have this fake money that really is used for anything at the venue. But the money is worthless when you walk out.

Jeff: Or, yeah, you're done. And you can't bring it back next year if you don't spend it. We had that problem, so we had to print new designs every year. But the one thing about that -- it does inflate our auction a little bit. Because if you're the big winner in the race and you have lots of Prader-Willi dollars, you're now willing to bid up way higher than you would have on an auction item, because that money is useless when you leave. And sometimes if somebody else really wants it and they don't have as much Prader-Willi money, they might still be willing to go along with you. So it can inflate prices, but it also generates additional revenue. We're taking the ticket from $100 to $200 -- so we're going to get another $100 out of them -- and we're going to give them about $25 in Prader-Willi dollars.

Carrie: Yeah. $25 Prader-Willi dollars.

Jeff: So the thing is, a Prader-Willi dollar at the end of the day isn't necessarily worth a dollar. The day after the event it's worth nothing. At the event it's worth something, but that something really -- it doesn't guarantee you winning anything with it. You can't buy drinks with it. You can't buy food with it. You can only use it to lower your bill at the end of the night on the money you spend.

Carrie: Yep, exactly.

Jeff: Now, I think Elise -- you mentioned that having that money and just having something incentivized you to go spend it.

Elise: It did. It was my first real fundraising event, and I came because I know your daughter and she's near and dear to my heart. You were like, you should come. Okay, great, we did. I would not have done anything. I was intimidated by it initially. I'd never seen anything quite like this. And I think it was Nate -- he was there at the betting booth, or maybe it was Seth. But they're like, this is how this works, just give us your Prader-Willi dollars and pick some things. I'm like, okay, great. I'll pick these things. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Jeff: They were called horses. They're not things.

Elise: Okay, well, at the time they were things.

Jeff: These are million-dollar machines.

Elise: Now I do all my research beforehand. In the end, we didn't win a ton, but I was like, oh, I have all this money. Let me check out the silent auction. And it did -- it encouraged me to participate and then get involved in other aspects of it. We walked away spending a few hundred dollars. And I didn't walk in there thinking I'm going to go give money today. But I did.

Jeff: Well, and I think also sometimes you have the issue of how do you get people engaged in the silent auction, especially at a big venue when maybe the items aren't right there in your face. So having this extra money that you have to do something with gets people engaged in the auction. And one of the things that really helps is the fact that the derby race ends at around 5 o'clock while the auction continues.

Carrie: The race does. Not our party, by the way. Oh, yes. We party all night.

Jeff: So the race ends at 5 o'clock, and then you have two, three hours left. And that's really when that silent auction starts going because people are like, oh, now I've got all this money. The band kicks in, you're on your phone, you're bidding. The timing is really helpful. And this is a sad story -- Elise brought it up. As you're thinking about fake money, we loved this design that we made and we just reused it every year. And then finally I was like, I know some of our most esteemed guests are bringing that money back that they didn't spend the year before. So one year we changed it. We didn't tell anybody. And I want to say we made like $30,000 more.

Elise: Yeah. It was pretty significant.

Jeff: Oh, wow. So we change it every year now. But as awesome as your supporters are, they are sometimes also saving that money from previous years.

Carrie: That might be a good auction item, actually. Let's frame all the past designs we have.

Jeff: Oh, yeah. That would be a cool one. Our glasses are collector's items. We have people all the time asking us for one that they broke from a past year's collection. And we've done derby stuff like that before. But those are all fun. If you have an event that's had a long tradition and you've got swag from years past, it's kind of fun to put bundles together. People like it.

Carrie: But okay. So we have the $200 ticket with $25 in Prader-Willi dollars, and then we decided to make a couple's ticket.

Jeff: Yep. What's the couple's ticket going to be?

Carrie: $375. But you get $50.

Jeff: $50 in Prader-Willi dollars. There you go. And then we added a four-pack.

Carrie: The four-pack idea was to encourage people to invite somebody else. We know tables of eight and ten are tough. When I buy a table of eight in advance, I don't fill it for months because I don't know who's coming. That's a lot of people to invite. Six is a lot easier. And we saw when we did our fire pit tables of six the first year -- well, we raised the price -- but that year we sold the six-seat fire pit tables and they were gone within two weeks. I can get three couples. Not a problem.

Jeff: A four-pack, I think, is going to be -- outside of the table sales -- our number one seller over the single and the couples because you get a better deal. So what are we giving them in a four-pack? It's going to be $600, so it comes down to $150 a person. And everyone still gets the $25 Prader-Willi dollars.

Carrie: Each person in the four-pack. Yes.

Jeff: So really your ticket price is $125 if you spend your money.

Carrie: If you spend your money, yep.

Jeff: And I think going back to why we did that -- should we offer an incentive for someone to bring a friend or bring somebody new? We've done that in the past. And while that's a great incentive, it gets a little harder to track. And coupon codes -- how do you know they're new or who's going to use them? It just logistically gets a little bit harder. But for the four-pack, our thought was, if I want to bring a couple or friends, I could just split it. Hey, let's go in together. So we'll see how it works. I think it's going to be great.

Carrie: Well, we're going to always do the early bird. It doesn't tend to be too popular, but...

Jeff: Yeah, and I think there's two ways to do early bird. You either give a discount code and people see the original price and put their code in. I actually like better having two tickets, having one start and stop early. Because then they just see that price and they're not having to remember a code. You've got to make sure they really understand these prices are going up on April 15th or whatever it is. And just -- I know everybody wants to get people to their event, whatever it is. You have to trade that off with making sure you're making enough money as well.

Carrie: Yep.

Jeff: So what else?

Carrie: I think the incentives then -- obviously with our tables, because they're a higher per-person price, we're going to add a little more so you feel like you're getting value.

Jeff: Yeah, we have a $5,000 fire pit circular couch table that seats eight. We sold out of them last year for Country for a Cure. We're hoping to do that again. That's a great sponsorship-type item. We gave them a personal server last year, which they loved. Because this is an outdoor venue, they didn't want to keep running back to the food line and the bar. Those servers had private access to the bars, so they didn't have to wait in line. And this year we're giving them parking.

Carrie: Yeah. Yep. So that's going to be exciting.

Jeff: So I see Lori nodding her head. Lori's going to go after that $5,000 table. That should be good. Okay. Well, we may have another one of these updates. Things are moving along. We have some remaining things to negotiate with the caterer, but the menu looked amazing.

Jeff: Now, I do want to point out one thing that we didn't do that we always used to do in the past when we worked with other caterers -- we would have a tasting.

Carrie: Yes.

Jeff: And I will tell you, when I first went to the tasting -- actually, me and another male board member kept saying to ourselves, why are we never crazy about the appetizers or the food? And Carrie was like, well, you should come to the tasting because that's where we pick it all. That's where my eyes got opened up to why all of the food is the way it is -- because my wife and her sister were picking out the entire menu. So there's not going to be goat cheese. There's not going to be all this amazing stuff you want. And so Gary and I go, and this is like a five-course meal. They're serving drinks. This is lunch. I'm like, I don't think I should be drinking at lunch. But they're serving cocktails, the five-course meal. The chef is presenting each course. We have this menu and we're going to try this. And I look over at Gary, and I'm like, this thing is fantastic. We are turning this into an auction item. So we did turn it into "be on the tasting committee for the following year's derby event."

Carrie: It was one of the hottest sellers.

Jeff: And I think we should bring it back. I think what we need to do is talk to Brandon. Hey, Brandon, next year you've got to do a tasting. You're going to bring us something -- we can do it at his place, not super fancy, but we're going to turn this into a formal tasting event and then sell two spots on the tasting committee. What do you think?

Carrie: Yeah, we can talk to them about it.

Jeff: That's the fun stuff. All right, so we've got a couple of things to figure out -- videos and AV and MCs and stuff, but that's all kind of in the works. Right now it's heavy promotion.

Carrie: Yep. Ticket sales.

Jeff: Ticket sales and auction items.

Carrie: And sponsorships.

Jeff: Absolutely. Wish us luck, you guys. Anyway, this has been a pleasure talking about this event with you. And until next time, happy fundraising.

Jeff: A special thank you to Jeff, Carrie, and Elise for your willingness to share about the derby event. We hope you got some great ideas for your next event. If you enjoyed our show, please take a moment to leave us a review. You can find us on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Don't forget to subscribe for more great content. And if you're a fan of video, check us out on YouTube. Until next time, happy fundraising.