Re: Prizes and promotion

["James Purchase" <jpurch@interlog.com>]

Justin wrote:
"I think that prizes could be a really great thing, as long as the emphasis
stayed on this event being for fun.  OTOH, I may simply be obsessing :-)."

How would awarding prizes other than certificates and ribbons detract from
the enjoyment of the event? As I have said before, if someone doesn't like
competition, they merely have to tick off a check box on the entry form and
their aquascape is shown in the Showcase but not judged in the Contest.

"I'm not sure what you meant by folks liking satin, and I'm not sure I want
to, but I agree with the first part, as long as we realize we may only get
15 entrants.  If we think small, this will stay small.  Unfortunately, the
reverse isn't true."

What I "meant" was that some people have expressed a preference to receive a
ribbon which they could display in their fish-room and show to their friends
(bragging rights, I guess), rather than an item of merchandise which they
may have no use for.

I see nothing wrong with us designing a Certificate which can go out to
people, nor do I have anything against satin ribbons - we can do both if
there is sufficient support for it.

But neither is there anything wrong with awarding high quality merchandise
as prizes for the top categories. If they don't want the prize they can give
it away or sell it.

As for thinking small - I haven't been right from the start - I am not now,
and I'm unlikely to start anytime soon. This will be as big as we choose to
make it. It is NOT a "little local show" - it is taking place on the
Internet and we have the ability to make it accessible to people from all
over the world. How big it becomes is purely a function of how creative and
hard working we are in publicizing it. There ARE hobbyists in places other
than North America - our biggest job once we obtain AGA approval, will be to
inform as many hobbyists, in as many places, as possible.

Yes, we _could_ get only 15 entrants. But we could just as easily get 150,
or 1500. How well it goes over depends entirely on how professionally it
gets promoted. I don't intend to say much of anything about this publicly (I
mean off this list) until we have our publicity plan and materials in place
and ready to go. Remember that magazine announcements (via their editorial
content, not as paid advertising) have approximately a four month lead time.
We shall have plenty of time to get our act together regarding promotion.

One reason (perhaps) why a lot of "other" shows didn't get a bigger
reception was the fact that either the organizers "thought small" or weren't
very skilled in promotion. They also didn't take place in a venue which is
accessible to as many people from as wide a geographical area.

James Purchase
Toronto




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