Sponsorship

[jhaynes199]

I'm lighting designer for a charity Fashion Show at university. We want to do a big corporate spectacle, with a large budget in the region of £4-5000. What is the best way to go about getting sponsorship for this kind of thing? We have tried approaching hie companies in the hope they might give us very good deals but to no avail.

 

Any help greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks

[Ynot]

Not to pour cold water on yourplans, but you'll be very hard pressed to get sponsorship.

You MAY get small amounts from local businesses, IF it's a recognised charity but it'll likely be very small, I'm afraid.

 

Not at all surprised at the response from hire companies - if you used one regularly, they might have offered you a small discount, but remember it's their business, and you can only offset so much to tax write-off...!

[Stewart Newlands]

Try contacting other types of company, hire cos have little to gain from a fashion show, fashion retailers, or depending on the show jewellers, wedding suppliers and hotels may, a production co is not going to find many new clients from your show, but a ball / graduation hire shop might.

[StevieR]

As the owner of a hire company, I have to second the responses above. In this business we don't have large amounts of cash to spare to do a £1000 job for free let alone a £5000 one!. Yes, we often do discounts for charity events but at the end of the day services have to be paid for. I take the opinion that a well organised fundraiser should be able to raise money while still paying the costs to put on a professional event.

 

Sponsorship can always help but you need to be looking to bigger fish. Look for companies who are going to have disposable income and who have a high public visibility - e.g. banks, insurance companies, utilities, etc. These are the best people to get cash from but they will want publicity in return...

 

One other thing I would say. Although it is great that you want to put on a big technical show, remember it is for charity and it may be worth being a little more conservative on the tech budget.

 

Best thing to do is to come up with a realistic budget for the event and price tickets to ensure a profit for the charity then work your butts off to sell ALL of them! Then everybody wins!

 

Good luck with the event.

 

Steve

[Wilf dLampy]

Assuming it's a UK University, it also might be worth seeing what NUSSL can do for you. Many of the University approved retailers (esp. the food+bev market) may be able to help- even if they won't support the technical budget they may be able to provide/pay for other areas in the production, freeing up money for the tech side. If your Uni's in South East England, PM me and I might be able to point you in the direction of a potential equipment supplier.

[tanko]

Not to put a less than positive spin on things, but if you can get your hands on £5k, wouldn't it make more sense to give it to the charity in question rather than spending it on a massive LX rig, as surely the whole prupose of doing the fashion show is to raise money for a charity, I am sure kids in a war torn country aren't going to get to much out of a 5k LX rig!!!

 

If you think about it 60 par's at £5 per unit is £300 + vat, you could do loads with that for a small scale fashion show!

 

Ta

Tank

[jhaynes199]

Many thanks for all your comments, we are trying to put on a professional flagship show in order to maintain the show's high reputation and keep people coming back year on year. We are also trying to attract some big names who are willing to let us demo their clothes, and to do this we really need to put on a good show, which does cost money.

 

I'll get onto some of the companies you've mentioned, and will let you know how I get on!

[gnomatron]

have you tried your student union, assuming it's not where the fashion show is? they no doubt have a bunch of technical equipment and technical crew, all of which you could probably hire out for little or no money if it's charitable.

[mac.calder]

A few things to think about:

 

What type of numbers do you think your show will draw?

Is it a once off?

What sort of publicity can you offer?

What is the demographic of your audience?

 

Large companies want high numbers, large ammount of exposure and a demographic that is closely related to their target market. If this is a Uni. fashion show, and the main audience will be uni studets, then banks will probably not touch you with a barge pole. If however your demographic is the 25-40 year old they may be more interested. If your audience are going to be "fashion afficianados" within the 16-25 age bracket, try the makeup companies.

 

The sort of exposure you are would be looking at giving would be along the lines of a projected logo on the curtains, constant naming of the company, and maybe even some posters or banners along the sides of the auditorium, along with the logo on any printed material -at a minimum. Uni events are extreamly high risk ventures - because whilst they can go extreamly well, they can also flop extreamly easily.

[Roderick]

Another thing to remember about sponsorship is that the company wants to see a return on their investment. Sponsorship is just another business deal, nothing more. So when you approach companies, you need to have done your home work:

- As Mac said, know your audience and match that with companies who target the same demographic

- Clearly set out what they get for their money, with a monetary value, and package it up.

For example:

Gold Sponsor:

- Naming rights - 1000pound

- Logo on all printed materials and advertising - 400pound

- 20 tickets - 200pound

- Prominent display of the company logo at the entrance - 150pound

 

Silver sponsor:

- Logo on all printed materials and advertising - 300pound (cause it will be smaller)

- 20 tickets - 200pound

- Display of banners in the room - 100pound

 

Be creative in your packages, maybe add a few quirky things or value-ad to make it more interesting for them, things they can only get if they are a sponsor so they can take their clients and show off. That's what it is all about. If the CEO has a 15 year old daughter who always wanted to be a model, offer a spot on the catwalk, only has to be one garment they show... Things like that.

 

Hope this helps

[Suzette]

PM sent.......

[DaveyDaveDave]

Not an entirely useful post, I'm sure, but if you do end up going for the smaller scale idea it might be helpful:

 

A couple of years ago I lit a charity show - a brand new play written, rehearsed an performed in 24 hours. It was pretty small scale (all came about because we 'accidentally' wound up with a venue for a day, and nothing to do with it!) - the audience was only about 300, and I guess we had something in the region of 15-20 lights, plus manual desk, dimmers and cable, a couple of bog standard speakers and mixing desk for sound effects. We also had a VGA projector and screen (although I'm not certain that they came from the same source).

 

Anyway, I managed to get the whole lot for free (we had a budget of £24 for the whole show), by calling up a hire company we use occasionally (but never huge orders), and asking to just drive down on the morning of the show, and take anything that would otherwise be sitting on their shelves gathering dust, promising to have it back first thing the following day.

 

I did have to compromise a little, and wound up with a slightly temperamental (sp?) lighting desk, but it worked fantastically, we had a great show, and made plenty of cash for cheridee.

 

As I say, probably not that useful for your kind of scale, but seemed to be worth a mention.