From rmilliman at insightbb.com Wed Jun 6 13:12:39 2012 From: rmilliman at insightbb.com (Ronald E. Milliman) Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2012 12:12:39 -0500 Subject: [Triviafundraiser] Organizing a Trivia Night Fundraiser Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20120606121239.03da8c68@mail.insightbb.com> Organizing a Trivia Night Fundraiser Here are 10 steps to organizing a successful trivia fundraising event Below are 10 steps for holding a successful trivia fundraiser shared with me by a lady who has run over 20 successful trivia night fundraisers to raise money for everything from kids sporting clubs and schools to charities like Youth off the Streets and the Cancer council. Each of these events raised thousands of dollars for the causes and for the amount of money raised was relatively easy to organize. The key to running a great trivia night is to be really well prepared and plan ahead. It can be really fun and very profitable The following are the steps I drafted from the information she sent to me plus some additional notes of my own: Step 1- Choose a time that works for your audience, not the time that suits you best Make sure your event does not clash with a big sporting event, a holiday weekend or other local event. Try not to stage it too close to money hungry times of the year like Christmas, the start of the school year or tax time. Don't start too early or too late.... For a family event 6pm is probably best for a Saturday event, and for an adult's only night, 7.30pm works better. Avoid weeknights... they are usually less successful. Step 2 Decide on your audience: family friendly or adult's only event There are two schools of thought on this one. Do you have a family friendly event so that everyone, including the kids, can join in or do you plan an adult's only night where people can let their hair down and have a few drinks? Personally, I prefer the latter... people tend to spend more at these nights too. You really only need 10 to 20 families or groups in your trivia fundraiser to get involved. They will form a team of friends to have a very fun and successful event. Step 3 Find a suitable venue: ask around - it can be a case of whom not what you know The aim here is to raise funds so if you can manage to find a free venue. A school hall or community centre is your best bet for a cost free venue, but if this is not an option, approach some local clubs, e.g. the Knights of Columbus, Masons, or other social clubs that have their own facility for holding their meetings. If they have a bar, they will often work with you if they keep the bar proceeds. The typical trivia night attracts about 80 - 100 people; you can sell teams or tables of 6 - 10 (8 is a good number) at $10-$20 a person. You can charge $20 a ticket with a discount of $5 if paid in advance. Some trivia events charge as much as $25 per person; it depends largely on what you think your audience will pay. In most situations, it is best to attract a larger number of participants with a lower per person entry charge, e.g. $10 or $15. Once you get them to your event, they will all spend a little more, especially if you hold some additional fundraisers between rounds, as described in a later step. Step 4 - Organize a prize committee or a donations coordinator You are going to need prizes, the more, the better. Maybe some of your members have some business connections they can solicit prizes from, gift cards from restaurants are always excellent and fairly easily obtained. You can usually obtain gift cards from your local Wal-Mart quite easily too. Such items from these types of places are great prizes or auction items. It's good to give prizes for first, second and third or last place. They don't have to be expensive. For instance, you could obtain and give away a few bottles of good wine, or some movie passes, etc. Second and third can be table prizes to share, e.g. chocolates. Last prize can be silly like a lollipop or a wooden nickel. **Prize and auction ideas These are some of the ways you might find some good, suitable prizes for your trivia night event. *Solicit businesses in your local community Design a sign or poster advertising your trivia night event, and then, visit all the local businesses in your local community, asking them to display your poster in their businesses' windows. While you are there you should asked if they would contribute something, e.g. gift card, one or more inexpensive items, to the event in return for your recognizing their support and placing a sign up at your trivia night event and even including an announcement of their contribution and support in your next newsletter. This is an excellent way of getting gift cards or gift certificates from local restaurants. This works best if you get someone who is well-known in town to do this job or share it among your group with people who are regular customers doing the soliciting. *Write a good donation request letter Give a copy of the letter to all of your members and have them send it to everyone they know. This works extremely well if members who use computers will send the letter to everyone in their email address book, post it to their friends on facebook, tweet it, etc. You never know who your cause might strike a chord with and what type of connections your members have. (Note: if you have any vendors in your organization, they may be willing to contribute something, but they also have contacts with their suppliers, who may very well contribute something too.) *Ask friends and relatives to donate something Donated items don't have to be new. They can be previously owned CDs or books. Such items can be given as prizes or contributions in a simple silent auction. *Theme gift baskets You can create gift baskets around various themes to either give away as prizes or as auction items. Theme baskets such as chocolate indulgence basket, a body pampers basket, a baby basket, a picnic basket, a car cleaning and accessories basket, a family fun basket, a golf basket, arts and craft basket, a chef's basket and a makeup basket. There is no limit to what you could come up with. Items can be donated for your baskets by local businesses, or you can solicit cash contributions from the letters mention above, and the money can be used to purchase items to go in the theme baskets. *Signed items are great for silent auctions. If one or more members of your group have any connections with a university or pro sports team, you might be able to get a hold of some signed jerseys or footballs, baseballs, etc. Even if you don't have any connections, often the sports director or coach will work with you. Step 5 - Find a charismatic host or two While some people hire a professional trivia company and host to run their nights you can do it yourself quite successfully. Most community groups and schools have people who are capable and suited to doing the job. Perhaps there is a popular radio or TV personality, a coach or teacher who everyone knows and loves that would be happy to help out. Sometimes getting 2 people to co-host the event works well. It's less pressure, especially if they are new to the task and can divide the hosting time. If you are going to hold a really large trivia night fundraiser, it might be worth the investment to simply find someone who has experience hosting such events and is very comfortable with public speaking. A great host can be the difference between a fun night and highly profitable night and a boring, tedious drawn out event. If needed, you can even give them the questions a few days before and include pronunciation guides if there are any difficult words. Step 6 - Select/appoint a committee of competent question choosers Having a small committee of 2 or 3 highly competent people responsible for the questions seems to work best. Then hopefully, you can get these people to work as the graders and judges for the trivia night event. The answers to the questions should all be verified; nothing causes more grief at a trivia night than incorrect answers, ambiguously worded, or controversial questions. Try to include some cross generational stuff to - don't leave out the older or younger players. It is also a good idea to mix the questions, rather than make the entire round on the same topic or theme. A good rule of thumb for your questions is every team should be able to get 60 to 75% of the questions right. No one should go home feeling stupid. Again, it is also preferred to have mixed rounds to themed rounds so people do not feel left out of whole sets of questions if they know nothing about that particular topic. Step 7 - Make a timetable for the night: it's important to keep the pace up Working out timing of the event is probably one of the hardest things to do if you have not been to a successful trivia night yourself. The most important thing is to keep things moving; no big lags in-between rounds. You need quick grading and reporting of results. The questions should be repeated only 2 or 3 times, which seems to work best; not half a dozen times. If it is possible, and you have the technology and expertise to do it, putting the questions up on a large projection screen in the front of the room or where everyone can see it also helps to keep things moving and minimize having to read each question over and over. Alternatively, some trivia night events place copies of each round of questions out on the tables so the participants can read them, but this is not recommended, especially if you ever plan to use some of the same questions again. Question sheets tend to mysteriously disappear sometimes! You should also have a set break about half way through for people to get up and mingle, smoke, stretch their legs and get any refreshments and/or drinks you have available. A good trivia night usually runs between 2 and three hours. While some people might be happy to play all night, most people are ready to go home after 2 or 3 hours. Step 8 - Plan some fun mini-games to keep things moving and to boost your revenues Mini-games are a good way to give your judges some time for grading the score sheets and get everyone up out of their chairs for a little break. They are also an opportunity to raise some more money. The most common way to do this is charge everyone $1 to join in the mini-game. They can sit it out if they choose, but most people usually will participate. If you have 50 to 100 people at your trivia night event, you can raise considerable additional funds this way. The most common game is a simple Heads or Tails, but here are some other simple mini-games you can use for more fun and profits! **5 Games to add some fun to your event Break up the questions and keep it fun 1. The Elimination Game In this game, everyone who wants to play puts up $1, which is collected by your helpers. Each participant stands up. A series of statements is read and if the statement applies to you then you sit down. This game can be lots of fun and you can shape the questions to your crowd. For example, if you have ever gone 'skinny dipping,' sit down, or if you have ever kissed a real dog, not a human dog, sit down until only one person is left standing or you can call it a tie if two or three remain standing after several elimination rounds and award the people still standing all a prize. 2. Heads or Tails Participants put up one dollar; have someone go around and collect the dollars. Then, each participant places their hand on either their head or their ass; flip a coin; if it comes up heads, all those who have their hand on their head, sits down; those who have their hand on their ass remain standing. Continue until only one person remains standing; the winner gets a prize. 3. True or False Just like is says... get together a group of interesting statements and pose them to the crowd.... are they true or false? If you think they are true - hands on your head. If you think they are false - hands on your rear. Keep going to you have only 1 person standing. This mini-game works the same way as heads or tails, but some think it is a bit more fun. 4. Paper Airplane race Each team purchases a sheet of paper for $1 per person per table to construct a plane. They need to put their table number on their plane to be able to identify whose plane is whose. You need to limit it to one plane a team so the game does not take too long. Then, everyone goes outside and launches their plane. The one the flies the furthest wins. 5. Target practice Also called a coin toss, this game involved people throwing coins (that you get to keep) at an attractive prize, usually a bottle of wine or bourbon. This works particularly well after people have had a few drinks. There are always one or two very competitive players who throw coin after coin at the item to come out victorious. The target needs to be far enough away so it is difficult to hit with a coin but still close enough to make it possible to hit. Step 9 - Make a time sequenced plan for your event It's extremely easy for the timing of your activities, like the mini-games between trivia rounds to get totally out of control when you are not following some kind of time sequenced plan. You need to have someone in charge of overseeing the event plan. That someone, however, should not be the MC. It is important that your activities follow at least an approximate time sequenced plan; though, you cannot possibly keep it on a really strict time limit; you can keep your activities, e.g. mini-games on some approximate time schedule. You should list the various things you need to do in preparation for and during the event; include things like: Printing handouts and answer sheets Having a supply of pens for marking the answers to the questions by the participants (Note: pens personalized with your organization's name and contact information that the participants can take with them serves to also help further promote your organization. For obtaining a good, inexpensive source for purchasing these advertising specialty, personalized pens, contact Ron Milliman, 270-782-9325 or rmilliman at insightbb.com.) Provide a facility to allow participants to pay their registration by credit card and for making change. (Note: it is possible now to use an app for your cell phone that allows you to process credit cards through PayPal.) Prizes must be obtained and delivered to your event's venue A team of enthusiastic volunteers to help run your event, collect money for the mini-games, handle refreshment sales, keep scores, hand out prizes, etc. and generally keep everything moving smoothly (note: if you have any blind vendors in your organization, they should be able to assist with the refreshment sales.) A list of people and businesses you need to thank during the evening for their support Thank all participants for their participation Be sure to obtain all participants' contact information, including email addresses, before they leave to be used to invite them to future trivia night events Step 10 - Publicize your event: posters, facebook, newsletters... This is actually one of the first steps to holding a really successful trivia night. Precisely how you spread the word about and promote your event varies depending on whether the event is open to the general public; whether you hold it on a university campus; whether you hold it as an activity in conjunction with a retirement facility, etc. If it is open to the general public, obviously, you will need to promote the event using all available sources and methods, e.g. media releases, PSAs, posters on bulletin boards and in windows of local businesses, announcements on community calendars, on your website and Facebook pages, using twitter, personal appearances on your local radio and TV stations, etc. If your event is going to be held on or near a university where you are targeting students, fraternities and sororities to participate, then, your promotional efforts can be focused on the university's campus and surrounding businesses, the university newspaper, radio station, and TV station. If your venue is in a retirement village, you can focus your promotional efforts primarily around the retirement facility, placing posters on bulletin boards, placing flyers on peoples' apartment doors, etc. You should begin to promote details about your trivia night event about 6 weeks before the actual date. Then, about 4 weeks from the event, you should send another wave of promotional information. You need to send reminders out 1 week before the event to anyone who has pre-registered to attend. Your media releases should be sent out two to three days before the event. Media releases sent out too far before the event will never be aired. Also, if you use Facebook, create an event on your page or even your own profile. It's surprising how many people will come to such an event because they see it mentioned on facebook. ***** If you have any questions or comments, please post them here on our trivia fundraiser list. Someone is sure to have an answer, and it might be a question that several other people have too. If we share and work together, we can make this project a win/win fundraiser for everyone! Ron M. Chair, Trivia Night Fundraising Committee, a Sub-committee of the RDC From semien at sbcglobal.net Wed Jun 6 14:45:43 2012 From: semien at sbcglobal.net (Kenneth Semien, Sr.) Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2012 13:45:43 -0500 Subject: [Triviafundraiser] Organizing a Trivia Night Fundraiser References: <3.0.5.32.20120606121239.03da8c68@mail.insightbb.com> Message-ID: <010301cd4414$94d67610$4201a8c0@USEREYCFM3DEOF> Ron, These are great tips to ponder over and really support the production of a successful Trivia Night Fundraiser. Kind Regards, Kenneth Semien, Sr. Second Vice President American Council of the Blind of Texas, Inc. "Discovering Innovation" Website: http://www.acbtexas.org Phone: (409) 866-5838 Fax: (409) 866-5830 E-mail: semien at sbcglobal.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ronald E. Milliman" To: Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 12:12 PM Subject: [Triviafundraiser] Organizing a Trivia Night Fundraiser Organizing a Trivia Night Fundraiser Here are 10 steps to organizing a successful trivia fundraising event Below are 10 steps for holding a successful trivia fundraiser shared with me by a lady who has run over 20 successful trivia night fundraisers to raise money for everything from kids sporting clubs and schools to charities like Youth off the Streets and the Cancer council. Each of these events raised thousands of dollars for the causes and for the amount of money raised was relatively easy to organize. The key to running a great trivia night is to be really well prepared and plan ahead. It can be really fun and very profitable The following are the steps I drafted from the information she sent to me plus some additional notes of my own: Step 1- Choose a time that works for your audience, not the time that suits you best Make sure your event does not clash with a big sporting event, a holiday weekend or other local event. Try not to stage it too close to money hungry times of the year like Christmas, the start of the school year or tax time. Don't start too early or too late.... For a family event 6pm is probably best for a Saturday event, and for an adult's only night, 7.30pm works better. Avoid weeknights... they are usually less successful. Step 2 Decide on your audience: family friendly or adult's only event There are two schools of thought on this one. Do you have a family friendly event so that everyone, including the kids, can join in or do you plan an adult's only night where people can let their hair down and have a few drinks? Personally, I prefer the latter... people tend to spend more at these nights too. You really only need 10 to 20 families or groups in your trivia fundraiser to get involved. They will form a team of friends to have a very fun and successful event. Step 3 Find a suitable venue: ask around - it can be a case of whom not what you know The aim here is to raise funds so if you can manage to find a free venue. A school hall or community centre is your best bet for a cost free venue, but if this is not an option, approach some local clubs, e.g. the Knights of Columbus, Masons, or other social clubs that have their own facility for holding their meetings. If they have a bar, they will often work with you if they keep the bar proceeds. The typical trivia night attracts about 80 - 100 people; you can sell teams or tables of 6 - 10 (8 is a good number) at $10-$20 a person. You can charge $20 a ticket with a discount of $5 if paid in advance. Some trivia events charge as much as $25 per person; it depends largely on what you think your audience will pay. In most situations, it is best to attract a larger number of participants with a lower per person entry charge, e.g. $10 or $15. Once you get them to your event, they will all spend a little more, especially if you hold some additional fundraisers between rounds, as described in a later step. Step 4 - Organize a prize committee or a donations coordinator You are going to need prizes, the more, the better. Maybe some of your members have some business connections they can solicit prizes from, gift cards from restaurants are always excellent and fairly easily obtained. You can usually obtain gift cards from your local Wal-Mart quite easily too. Such items from these types of places are great prizes or auction items. It's good to give prizes for first, second and third or last place. They don't have to be expensive. For instance, you could obtain and give away a few bottles of good wine, or some movie passes, etc. Second and third can be table prizes to share, e.g. chocolates. Last prize can be silly like a lollipop or a wooden nickel. **Prize and auction ideas These are some of the ways you might find some good, suitable prizes for your trivia night event. *Solicit businesses in your local community Design a sign or poster advertising your trivia night event, and then, visit all the local businesses in your local community, asking them to display your poster in their businesses' windows. While you are there you should asked if they would contribute something, e.g. gift card, one or more inexpensive items, to the event in return for your recognizing their support and placing a sign up at your trivia night event and even including an announcement of their contribution and support in your next newsletter. This is an excellent way of getting gift cards or gift certificates from local restaurants. This works best if you get someone who is well-known in town to do this job or share it among your group with people who are regular customers doing the soliciting. *Write a good donation request letter Give a copy of the letter to all of your members and have them send it to everyone they know. This works extremely well if members who use computers will send the letter to everyone in their email address book, post it to their friends on facebook, tweet it, etc. You never know who your cause might strike a chord with and what type of connections your members have. (Note: if you have any vendors in your organization, they may be willing to contribute something, but they also have contacts with their suppliers, who may very well contribute something too.) *Ask friends and relatives to donate something Donated items don't have to be new. They can be previously owned CDs or books. Such items can be given as prizes or contributions in a simple silent auction. *Theme gift baskets You can create gift baskets around various themes to either give away as prizes or as auction items. Theme baskets such as chocolate indulgence basket, a body pampers basket, a baby basket, a picnic basket, a car cleaning and accessories basket, a family fun basket, a golf basket, arts and craft basket, a chef's basket and a makeup basket. There is no limit to what you could come up with. Items can be donated for your baskets by local businesses, or you can solicit cash contributions from the letters mention above, and the money can be used to purchase items to go in the theme baskets. *Signed items are great for silent auctions. If one or more members of your group have any connections with a university or pro sports team, you might be able to get a hold of some signed jerseys or footballs, baseballs, etc. Even if you don't have any connections, often the sports director or coach will work with you. Step 5 - Find a charismatic host or two While some people hire a professional trivia company and host to run their nights you can do it yourself quite successfully. Most community groups and schools have people who are capable and suited to doing the job. Perhaps there is a popular radio or TV personality, a coach or teacher who everyone knows and loves that would be happy to help out. Sometimes getting 2 people to co-host the event works well. It's less pressure, especially if they are new to the task and can divide the hosting time. If you are going to hold a really large trivia night fundraiser, it might be worth the investment to simply find someone who has experience hosting such events and is very comfortable with public speaking. A great host can be the difference between a fun night and highly profitable night and a boring, tedious drawn out event. If needed, you can even give them the questions a few days before and include pronunciation guides if there are any difficult words. Step 6 - Select/appoint a committee of competent question choosers Having a small committee of 2 or 3 highly competent people responsible for the questions seems to work best. Then hopefully, you can get these people to work as the graders and judges for the trivia night event. The answers to the questions should all be verified; nothing causes more grief at a trivia night than incorrect answers, ambiguously worded, or controversial questions. Try to include some cross generational stuff to - don't leave out the older or younger players. It is also a good idea to mix the questions, rather than make the entire round on the same topic or theme. A good rule of thumb for your questions is every team should be able to get 60 to 75% of the questions right. No one should go home feeling stupid. Again, it is also preferred to have mixed rounds to themed rounds so people do not feel left out of whole sets of questions if they know nothing about that particular topic. Step 7 - Make a timetable for the night: it's important to keep the pace up Working out timing of the event is probably one of the hardest things to do if you have not been to a successful trivia night yourself. The most important thing is to keep things moving; no big lags in-between rounds. You need quick grading and reporting of results. The questions should be repeated only 2 or 3 times, which seems to work best; not half a dozen times. If it is possible, and you have the technology and expertise to do it, putting the questions up on a large projection screen in the front of the room or where everyone can see it also helps to keep things moving and minimize having to read each question over and over. Alternatively, some trivia night events place copies of each round of questions out on the tables so the participants can read them, but this is not recommended, especially if you ever plan to use some of the same questions again. Question sheets tend to mysteriously disappear sometimes! You should also have a set break about half way through for people to get up and mingle, smoke, stretch their legs and get any refreshments and/or drinks you have available. A good trivia night usually runs between 2 and three hours. While some people might be happy to play all night, most people are ready to go home after 2 or 3 hours. Step 8 - Plan some fun mini-games to keep things moving and to boost your revenues Mini-games are a good way to give your judges some time for grading the score sheets and get everyone up out of their chairs for a little break. They are also an opportunity to raise some more money. The most common way to do this is charge everyone $1 to join in the mini-game. They can sit it out if they choose, but most people usually will participate. If you have 50 to 100 people at your trivia night event, you can raise considerable additional funds this way. The most common game is a simple Heads or Tails, but here are some other simple mini-games you can use for more fun and profits! **5 Games to add some fun to your event Break up the questions and keep it fun 1. The Elimination Game In this game, everyone who wants to play puts up $1, which is collected by your helpers. Each participant stands up. A series of statements is read and if the statement applies to you then you sit down. This game can be lots of fun and you can shape the questions to your crowd. For example, if you have ever gone 'skinny dipping,' sit down, or if you have ever kissed a real dog, not a human dog, sit down. until only one person is left standing or you can call it a tie if two or three remain standing after several elimination rounds and award the people still standing all a prize. 2. Heads or Tails Participants put up one dollar; have someone go around and collect the dollars. Then, each participant places their hand on either their head or their ass; flip a coin; if it comes up heads, all those who have their hand on their head, sits down; those who have their hand on their ass remain standing. Continue until only one person remains standing; the winner gets a prize. 3. True or False Just like is says... get together a group of interesting statements and pose them to the crowd.... are they true or false? If you think they are true - hands on your head. If you think they are false - hands on your rear. Keep going to you have only 1 person standing. This mini-game works the same way as heads or tails, but some think it is a bit more fun. 4. Paper Airplane race Each team purchases a sheet of paper for $1 per person per table to construct a plane. They need to put their table number on their plane to be able to identify whose plane is whose. You need to limit it to one plane a team so the game does not take too long. Then, everyone goes outside and launches their plane. The one the flies the furthest wins. 5. Target practice Also called a coin toss, this game involved people throwing coins (that you get to keep) at an attractive prize, usually a bottle of wine or bourbon. This works particularly well after people have had a few drinks. There are always one or two very competitive players who throw coin after coin at the item to come out victorious. The target needs to be far enough away so it is difficult to hit with a coin but still close enough to make it possible to hit. Step 9 - Make a time sequenced plan for your event It's extremely easy for the timing of your activities, like the mini-games between trivia rounds to get totally out of control when you are not following some kind of time sequenced plan. You need to have someone in charge of overseeing the event plan. That someone, however, should not be the MC. It is important that your activities follow at least an approximate time sequenced plan; though, you cannot possibly keep it on a really strict time limit; you can keep your activities, e.g. mini-games on some approximate time schedule. You should list the various things you need to do in preparation for and during the event; include things like: Printing handouts and answer sheets Having a supply of pens for marking the answers to the questions by the participants (Note: pens personalized with your organization's name and contact information that the participants can take with them serves to also help further promote your organization. For obtaining a good, inexpensive source for purchasing these advertising specialty, personalized pens, contact Ron Milliman, 270-782-9325 or rmilliman at insightbb.com.) Provide a facility to allow participants to pay their registration by credit card and for making change. (Note: it is possible now to use an app for your cell phone that allows you to process credit cards through PayPal.) Prizes must be obtained and delivered to your event's venue A team of enthusiastic volunteers to help run your event, collect money for the mini-games, handle refreshment sales, keep scores, hand out prizes, etc. and generally keep everything moving smoothly (note: if you have any blind vendors in your organization, they should be able to assist with the refreshment sales.) A list of people and businesses you need to thank during the evening for their support Thank all participants for their participation Be sure to obtain all participants' contact information, including email addresses, before they leave to be used to invite them to future trivia night events Step 10 - Publicize your event: posters, facebook, newsletters... This is actually one of the first steps to holding a really successful trivia night. Precisely how you spread the word about and promote your event varies depending on whether the event is open to the general public; whether you hold it on a university campus; whether you hold it as an activity in conjunction with a retirement facility, etc. If it is open to the general public, obviously, you will need to promote the event using all available sources and methods, e.g. media releases, PSAs, posters on bulletin boards and in windows of local businesses, announcements on community calendars, on your website and Facebook pages, using twitter, personal appearances on your local radio and TV stations, etc. If your event is going to be held on or near a university where you are targeting students, fraternities and sororities to participate, then, your promotional efforts can be focused on the university's campus and surrounding businesses, the university newspaper, radio station, and TV station. If your venue is in a retirement village, you can focus your promotional efforts primarily around the retirement facility, placing posters on bulletin boards, placing flyers on peoples' apartment doors, etc. You should begin to promote details about your trivia night event about 6 weeks before the actual date. Then, about 4 weeks from the event, you should send another wave of promotional information. You need to send reminders out 1 week before the event to anyone who has pre-registered to attend. Your media releases should be sent out two to three days before the event. Media releases sent out too far before the event will never be aired. Also, if you use Facebook, create an event on your page or even your own profile. It's surprising how many people will come to such an event because they see it mentioned on facebook. ***** If you have any questions or comments, please post them here on our trivia fundraiser list. Someone is sure to have an answer, and it might be a question that several other people have too. If we share and work together, we can make this project a win/win fundraiser for everyone! Ron M. Chair, Trivia Night Fundraising Committee, a Sub-committee of the RDC _______________________________________________ Triviafundraiser mailing list Triviafundraiser at acb.org http://www.acb.org/mailman/listinfo/triviafundraiser