When an event organisation wants a free show from a magician one way for the magician to get paid is for the organisation to get sponsorship and thus pay the magician for his entertaining.
So, a magician can suggest the organisation look for sponsorship. It will help if he can give a web-site as a starter for ideas of how to call for sponsorship. This site page is for a Gala Day and they have suggestions on the page calling for sponsors. If a magician can supply such a site as a starter for an organisation, it should make it that much easier for them to call for sponsors, and so help to raise money to pay the magician for his entertaining services.
So, here's the web-site. After a year or so, the page may be taken down so the link may not work in later years.
http://sites.google.com/site/mangawhaido......d-donors

Thank you MagiCol.

I've suggested events should seek sponsorship for my services but it has not worked out for me. This may help.

- Mary Mowder

Thanks, Mary. Kyle Peron - a magician like us - has often written that we should offer ourselves as entertainers who are providers of solutions for our clients, and prospective clients. So, it makes sense to help the client/prospective client get sponsors to help us get paid for our entertainment services.

In my opinion, the truly enterprising performer lines up his own sponsors for such events. I have a list of dentists, orthodontists, and dental specialists that I've developed through networking that are more than happy to sponsor school and family benefit appearances. One pediatric dentist has happily sponsored my children's stage at a local festival for the past fifteen years. A local family medical center has sponsored another for the past nine years. A local milk company sponsors my daycare shows in their region.

I've had restaurants, a book store, a supermarket chain and manufacturing companies that have sponsored appearances at my request and will consider future requests. I even have one international bank and a local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police that have sponsored me in the past and have agreed to sponsor future events for the right venue.

I solicited these donations on behalf of the benefits. As you said, be a problem solver. Respectfully, suggesting that you'll grace their event if they do all the work of finding your sponsor is not being much of a problem solver. Show an event planner a performer with a "Guide for Finding Sponsors" and one with his sponsor in hand - guess which one he's more likely to book.

Consistent and professional networking through local professional groups and your Chambers of Commerce and providing targeted, positive brand recognition for the sponsors are the keys.

That Gala Day site looks like a it may be a Phisher site. Mis-spelled words and something called mangawhaidomain, gala day is very strange. This could just go against a performer, creating dis-trust of the performer. It might be better to create you own web page suggesting how charity organizations can obtain your services.

They suggest getting items from so called sponsors, which most charity organizations already do on a daily basis. It is when it comes to money, cash, mulla, that charites do not want to pay a performer. As stated on another thread, they pay for water, food, halls, and rent, but when it comes to a magician, they have no respect.

Burling Hull gave the best advice, just suggest they have one of their members donate your fee for recognization. You can always call them back and follow-up if you are really interested in doing a show.

I have found most organizations want your services for free. They usually, just hang up if you do not cooperate to their request.

If your fee is only $25 a show and they refuse to pay that, then I would not bother with them further. If your fee is $500 then Burling Hull it is better to take Burling Hull's advice.

Magicol: thanks for the kind words. I do appreciate it.

Kyle

Sponsorship is the rule for me. It is the only way I have ever done school or library shows.

Good sponsors are loyal, pay better and make sure there is plenty of publicity.

I'm a firm believer that you can't build much of a career in the world of professional entertainment catering to one-time talent buyers. Sponsors get you around that.

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

Well where was this information when I started performing? Well, now I know....thank goodness. It makes complete sense!

I agree, getting your own sponsors is the key to several things - making assured I get money before I even get to the event (this helps with travel expenses), offers several streams of income and profit opportunities, allows me to appear in markets that could not normally afford my shows or presentations, and often provides me with premiums as giveaways. It is my assurance that I will make dependable, solid income.

This is one of the things that I am covering extensively in my upcoming project (entertainment business resource). I've seen several posts here on "doing free, charity or fundraising events where I'm asked to donate my services for free". I often have responded to these posters by saying you can still profit greatly from free shows when the deal is arranged and put together properly. Actually there are quite a few (more than several) ways to assure decent income (in many cases better income that if you received your regular asking price for the performance) for these or any types of events, and securing sponsorships in one of my favorite methods. This offers so many benefits that the average performer doesn't even think about or realize. Good topic and some good advice so far. Stay tuned...

Al wrote me a PM that asked for a little more about finding sponsors. Of course, getting to the right person is important. However, there is a lot in the process of understanding who is the "right person". I rarely find an entertainer who has a merchantable grasp of that. Here is some of what I passed on to Al.

Prospecting and getting to the right person is the key. Remember that your real talent buyer is not in the audience. In most cases, their customer isn't there either!

Publicity is more credible than advertising. Your capacity to create an opportunity for publicity is what is your real product offering. Don't get bogged down in magic as an art or in educational themes. Real marketing people see both as pure crap. (True business people will actively avoid any association with any government sponsored program for which grants are available. The age of profitably cultivating welfare recipients is over.)

The difference is that your show is being sponsored by an outside entity for the benefit of those unprepared (or unwilling) to pay is newsworthy. It is local and community news. It is even good for company morale. It can also be to let employees, members and benefactors see community involvement and support. It may be totally unrelated to the sponsors' products. Yet they can support another's cause. (It can be as simple as causing traffic to the new facility.)

(This is also critical to the budget! They can buy advertising but not publicity. They are perfectly willing to pay the same for what they cannot buy.) You are not a magic show. You are a Newsworthy Publicity Opportunity! And it is cheaper than putting a new roof on the school gym for the publicity. Plus, you can do it repeatedly.

This should go a long ways in helping realize who the people are you that are trying to reach. They are seeking publicity and not compliance with government themes or audience business. However, they do have an agenda.

Often success is measured in column inches of news coverage.

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

Sponsorships are essential to the over-all success picture in a long-term business success mix as far as I’m concerned.

The Real Trick is knowing not only the HOW, but knowing the WHAT!

You can have the “HOW” down pat but if you miss the “WHAT” all the HOW in the world won’t get you the results you are looking for and deserve to help the people you hope to help…

Sorry if that sound confusing… let me try and explain super simply:
=> “YOU MUST KNOW TO GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT!”

There… how’s that? (Hehehehe!)

* Here is another real example:
I was able to earn a amazing high-end sponsor (that others had tried to win) for some fair events BECAUSE I simply “ASKED them what THEY wanted from a sponsor relationship and outcome…”

Simple… yes?

Interestingly enough; What THEY wanted was far from what everyone was/is suggesting… they did NOT want press, no advertising, no sampling, NONE Of That Stuff everyone tries to “sell” them on in all those ‘sponsor packages’ we are taught to sell!

NO WAY! - They VERY SPACIFICALLY DID NOT Want Public Recognition at all… as a mater of fact, it had been the ‘deal-breaker’ in every other sponsor proposal they had received.

They WANTED to help and support the community (with-out recognition) AND they wanted their core message promoted, BUT “With-Out” anyone knowing they were investing any sponsorship dollars at all! – They did NOT want to be associated with giving-away any money at all! (BUT they wanted to give money away!)

REALLY? - - YES!

Here is the thing; because I knew to simply “ASK”, they were very forthcoming with the fact that they had a ‘public image’ to uphold and their customer base would be outraged if they though they were giving away monies so freely cuz the customers though that was ‘their money’ the sponsor was spending, even though their rates (for their widely used and recognized product… sorry can’t say what it is. Part of the deal) was in no-way impacted by the sponsorship. Yet the public would THINK that ‘they’ (as customers) were paying for it all by-way of increased rates, which, as stated, was NOT the case, but ‘perception’ is everything regardless of the facts.

EVERYONE ELSE pitched lots of press, banners everywhere, displays in stores, their business promoted on every promotion and marketing piece… etc - - Again, ‘for them’ all that was a ‘deal breaker’.

We simple “ASKED What THEY Wanted” and delivered accordingly. - - Simple.

The same is true for several of our food and beverage sponsors… simply ASKING THEM what “THEY” want helped us help them waaaay more effectively than other who offered the ‘canned’ sponsor package.

For instance, most of our beverage sponsors relationships wanted more ‘sampling & couponing’ and cared less about all the so-called promotions that everyone had listed in their generic ‘sponsor packages’. They simply wanted people to CONSUME the products. - - Oh sure, some of the other perks (Banners, PR, Products Mentions… etc) were ok, but not all that important to THEM based on what THEY WANTED!

THEY simply wanted people to “Try It, So They’ll Buy It!” That was their desired outcome. - - EASY once you know what they want, eh’?

So, here are just SOME of the things sponsored want… so ASK what they want and if you can deliver, you have a Win/Win/Win!

= Couponing
= Sampling
= Exposure
= Press
= Advertizing
= Direct Sales
= Image
= Public Perception
= Philanthropy
= Brand Message
= Caring Community Awareness
…and yes, even ‘invisibility’ are just SOME of the things sponsored want.

The Super Simple KEY is to ASK and then DELIVER (if You Can) based on what THEY Want, Need, Desire and Deserve.

Assuming we already know what they want and what is best for them is success suicide! Too often the way that 99% of sponsors are approached with little care or attention to what THEY want and need from a fruitful sponsorship relationship.

You’d think I’d be obvious and too often this is the MOST mission-critical relationship detail and how it is overlooked and millions are lost in sponsorships every year. Sad, cuz no-one wins there!

Simply “ASK…” they just may surprise you with how simple and easy this all really is.

Back To Basics 101. - - Whoo Hoo!

Hope that adds a little something to the mix and conversation.

I am, as always, at your service and in HIS Service,
Dean
<><

PS
This is the exact same principle I apply to 99% of my success… ASK and Deliver if I can and it is a match. Virtually zero ‘selling’ involved! – Now THAT is MAGIC!

Pssss... there was a guy
I think his name was Mark Wilson
who got a TV show that ran for a little while by lining up sponsors

Yeah, he was doing shows in malls and grocery stores before that TV show thing for sponsors

So does anyone have any examples of proposals they would be willing to share? Numbers blocked out of course, but to share the info would be great.

I have had little luck doing this. I have found that most public venues (festivals and the like) do NOT want outside sponsorship because they have their own sponsors. They are not interested in someone else coming in with a sponsor and wanting to do a show. As far as I can tell, they solicit sponsors and then match them with acts they hire. For example, they might have the "Starrpower Family Stage" (the sponsor) on which Neale Bacon, Al Agnello, and Bob Sanders perform three times daily.

It's a tough nut to crack and I salute those of you who have found the secret, because it has alluded me.