You will be getting a lot more letters headed “CHEQUE ENCLOSED” for your sporting club.

My name is Drew Blackman from *Yellow Brick Promotions and I am a Professional Trivia Master and can assist your club to raise amazing figures for very little effort.

In fact the only work you need to do is find a venue, get people to come along and organise prizes, (which most local businesses are more then happy to donate, and I’ll even write the letter for you to send out to get prizes), and I will guarantee you will raise over $1500 and in fact I’ll give you the ways to make even more than this…….In fact ill put my money where my mouth is, if we don’t raise over $1500….with my assistance and you following my fool proof steps I will not charge my usual fee of $250…how does that sound, can I be any fairer?

How it works, I will work with you to run a trivia night to raise much needed funds for your organisation. On the trivia night we will include games, lucky door prizes, Phantom race calls all which will raise you some serious coin and even better, we will have a whole lotta fun……

Here are 7 tips and tricks that we can use to make the trivia night an unbelievable success…..

1 – Make the ticket price attractive, but enough to ensure people think it is a good night…(make the price too cheap and people will think it will be a poor show) also make money on the ticket price. For example charge people $15, and include nibbles on the table, which will cost you roughly $5 per person. So with that theory you are making $10…..100 people = $1000 and you haven’t done anything yet……or even still charge them $20 and throw in a free beverage…they feel they are getting a bargain and you are making money

2 – And to get people there tell them what the night will be about, raising money for much need equipment or support a charity……also give away some prizes…..lucky door, best dressed, anything really….. you don’t want people putting their hand in their pocket for everything…but we do want them there  to spend money. And to advertise the night I will provide you with the template material that you can print out on your home computer that you can put up around the neighbourhood to get people to come along.

3 – What about if your sporting club has sponsors, give them 5 tickets each and ask them to sell another 5 for their table….you may not make as much money on this table, but it keeps your sponsors happy, and more people there to spend money on the raffle, auctions and games…..

4 – In the lead up to the event raffle a table of 10 off, sell 100 tickets at $2 each = $200…if the table was paying per person at $15 per person for a table of 10 it would cost them $150…so actually you are up $50 for a simple raffle…..and on top of that some people may even pay twice to come…$2 for the raffle ticket that they unfortunately don’t win and then $15 to come along anyway….

5 – The mini games in between trivia rounds will be a gold coin donation and a simple prize like a bottle of wine (depending on the age group), gift voucher or similar will raise in the vicinity of $80 for each round….. 3 mini games throughout the night = $240. Mini games can include mobile phone bingo, heads n tails, true or false, coin closest to the bottle.......

6 – We can even run a Phantom Race Call with the name of your association where we will sell horses to raise more money. In the race there are 15 horses which can sell for $20 each. This equates to $300, give the winner of the horse race $100, fairly enticing…. $20 outlay for a chance to win $100 and the club can keep the other $200…..On top of that print off your own money, people can purchase an amount and we can get a booking to allow people to bet on the race.

7 – Play Table Bingo. The way table bingo works is in the trivia packs each table gets an envelope, which the table put $20 dollars in, throughout the night, I will draw these envelopes out from a barrel. The last envelope left in the barrel wins half the pool. 15 tables x $20 = $300, the table gets $150, the club gets a $150…. Finalise the draw right before you begin the auctions as we have noticed that in 90% of occasions the winning table spends or donates back the winnings. This means the club/charity ends up collecting the full $300

So what are we up to about $1780 with hardly any work………Now on top of that we can run an auction with sporting and music memorabilia Which we provide free of charge, no upfront outlay). Recently for the East Maitland Lions Club we raised $755 in the auction alone (all up the Lions raised $3218), so put the $755 on top of your $1780 = $2535 PROFIT

Then what about running raffles throughout the night, even if you sell 100 tickets at $2 each we are now up to over two thousand seven hundred dollars. You can also run a 100 club, where you sell 100 numbers for $2 each and then draw a number out. The winner will get $100 and the club keeps $100…….

Do you believe how easy this will be for you…well you better cause that is what I am here to do….assist you raise unbelievable dollars for your organisation….we have all sold chocolates and the like and how hard is it to organise…? Why not take the headache out and make life easy so the committee can also enjoy the night.

There are also some mistakes that planners can make, and *Yellow Brick Promotions can help you avoid this….

5 of the Biggest Mistakes (and how to avoid them)

1. Not Promoting the Event Properly

- If run correctly, trivia events can be a fantastic night and a great way to add thousands to a club or charity coffers. If run incorrectly, they can be a financial nightmare with everyone pointing the finger looking for someone else to blame. Have a great night planned is a good start, but you have to promote it well to ensure that you really maximise your success. *Yellow Brick Promotions has been doing this for 15 years and in that time we’ve developed a completely fool proof system to ensure a great attendance, and a great result for your bank balance. Our service not only covers the trivia night, but a mentoring service to ensure that every step has been taken to ensure your group’s success. Once you book us consider *Yellow Brick Promotions a member of your event committee. Feel free to call us during your committee meetings and take advantage of our 15 years experience including over 100 shows and events.

Some of the fool proof systems we use include:

- Promotional material in the form of posters, flyers and show bill templates

- Function checklists

- “Big-ticket” Memorabilia to raise even more money

- Press releases to send to the local media

- Letters to local businesses requesting donations and attendance to the event

2. Going Through Unofficial Channels

- It’s unfortunate, but there are a lot of “backyard” people out there who just can’t provide the right service, or there is always a “bloke who knows a bloke, who knows someone”. At times they can be OK and deliver, however most won’t have a contingency plan for when things go wrong. Imagine being left with 100 paying guests in a room and no entertainment. As one of Australia’s leading trivia companies, we plan for these exact situations and have a back-up tactic in the unlikely event an emergency should occur. You can rest assure you won’t be left holding the microphone.

3. Selling Tickets at the Wrong Price

- Ticket pricing can be a double edge sword. Price the tickets too high, and turn customers off leaving your organisation struggling to break even. As mentioned before price tickets to low and you’ll struggle to make a profit or worse (and we’ve seen it happen) struggle to make up the numbers. A cheap ticket to a lot of people can mean a poor show. *Yellow Brick Promotions has the experience and advice that you are pricing your event for success and profit and getting the result you want.

4. Not Enough Lead Time for the Event

- It’s a fact that most not for profit clubs are run by volunteers, people with full-time jobs or businesses and they just don’t always have the time to properly prepare the function. Not giving yourself enough time will cost you in professionalism, attendance, and most importantly, dollars in the bank.

Book *Yellow Brick Promotions a minimum 3 months in advance to maximise your success, giving you sufficient time to promote your event and receive the money in the bank and the results you want and need.

5. Other Events on at the Same Time

- When booking your event make sure you know what other events may clash with your event. Things like school holidays, cultural events and sporting events always have a huge impact on attendance. Don’t have your event on the same night as the Grand Final.

Dramatically increase your profits for your event in 11 easy steps

1.      If your venue can provide the food, think about including this in your ticket price, as they can usually get it cheaper then you can.

2.      Run the function from 4pm to 8pm providing finger food to keep the cost of the ticket price down. E.g $20 tickets include trivia, finger food and one free drink. Ask the venue to donate a drink for each guest or at the very least at a reduced rate.

3.      Give 20 club members/players 5 tickets each to sell, or offer a discounted rate if they can sell a complete table. This will ensure the function is advertised by word of mouth more effectively. If you have teams in a club, tell them they need to at least have 1 table of 10 each. After all, the fundraiser is there to benefit all member of your club or organisation.

4.      Sell tickets prior to the event. Never rely on the “pay at the door” approach as this hardly ever works.

5.      Don’t forget to use local forms of advertising such as radio, TV and newspaper. Send out a reminder to your email and SMS database and direct mail your members. Also include ads on your website and in your newsletter.

6.      Place the A3 event posters in prime locations around the neighbourhood and shopping centres. Give all your sponsors advertising materials to put up in their windows.

7.      An auction should be have no more than 10 items as it loses its appeal and you’ll find the prices bid as large auctions are less per piece. With *Yellow Brick Promotions we can provide quality signed items free of charge. Once the item reaches the reserve price, you keep the profit.

8.      At the event have a last man standing Auction. Ask everyone who can afford $10 to stand up, then $20, then $30 ect. You’ll be surprised how many people are still standing after you get past $100. If you want you can give the winner a nice prize depending on the amount they are willing to pay.

9.      If you have an expensive price that has been donated (approximately $500) sell tickets to win one of 10 keys. Only one unlocks the prize. Sell the tickets at $50 and you have covered the cost of the prize. The prize doesn’t need to be a big ticket items just something people feel is worth it.

10. If you are a sporting club, contact other sporting clubs in your area to see if they would like to come along. It is amazing how many people play rugby league and cricket and support both. Just remember though if they ask they same the support should be returned.

11. Ensure you give tickets to your local ”well to do’s”. They are likely to spend money at the action and therefore help to raise money more than the cost of their ticket.

Why use *Yellow Brick Promotions?.... Amateur sport is exactly that, amateur. Unfortunately money is still needed to pay for equipment, fees, registration and so on. Many of the traditional fundraisers still work, and will do for a long time. I can imagine that in the year 2111 the meat tray will still be raffled!