First time prize director

[de03x7]

The Prizes at USPSA majors thread brought this to mind and I figure there is no better place for feedback than here. If anyone has other suggestions I am open to ideas.

My wife and I took on the job of doing a prize table for our state championship steel match this summer. First off I had no idea how much work it was going to be. I just hope to hear someone complain about it so I can hand it off to them next year. This is our third year shooting this match and neither one of us has been to a match with a prize table so we are kind of winging it. The first year we shot the match there were trophies and guns given to the division winners and several guns given by random drawing. Last year was a trophy only match and the Match Director asked for help if anyone wanted a prize table this year. Of course everyone scattered like roaches when the lights came on.

We have had several prizes donated that are in the $150-$200 range that we plan to give out by random drawing. Everything else is packaged in $20 to $125 groups and will be on the table for selection by order of finish. We have enough prizes for every shooter entered in the match and if anything is left after everyone gets a trip to the table we will go back to random draw until everything is gone. An issue that I saw the past two years was that if people didn’t place in their division for a trophy or make the top 16 man on man shoot off many would leave and not hang around for the awards. I hope that the chance to get a prize will keep people around to help reset the shoot off.

We plan to have thank you cards at the match for people to sign so we know that the sponsors get them. We also plan to send major sponsors a certificate of apparition along with a copy of the match book so they can see what they received for their donations. The match is limited to 60 shooters and we are going to send the match book out after the match with final results and pictures from the match in it so it is more of a souvenir book than just an advertisement which no one looks at after match day.

Some sponsors sent banners which we will display at the range on match day and for the ones who didn’t we made posters which will be up. The posters are just black and white pictures of their logos along with their web site but at least they will get something displayed.

Thanks for any feedback.

[Chuck Anderson]

Sounds like you've done a great job. The one thing I would recommend on random prizes. Make the order to the prizes random and let the person pick what they get. It's really rough when you award specific prizes that the person can't use, or can't get home. We've done it before where we gave out steel targets to the guy who flew to the match, or the box of bullets for the gun he doesn't own. I'd much rather let someone come and pick their goodie. It makes for a lot less sales on the classified page.

[Toolguy]

I've been to a lot of matches that had a prize table. Over the years I've gotten 15 guns either by winning or in a drawing and a huge amount of other merchandise and cash. What I've seen that works the best is to award a trophy and/or good prize/cash to the winners, then random drawing for everyone. One state match I went to for years had 8 guns + prize table. There were 6 guns for class and overall winners with big trophy and 2 guns and prize table in the drawing. The rule was no one who won a gun could get another one in the drawing. The rest of the prize table was up for grabs. They had shooter numbers on poker chips in a coffee can that got randomly drawn. Once the winners had got their trophy and gun, the drawings started. Everyone got 3 or 4 trips to the prize table and got to choose what they wanted. It speeds things up a lot if everyone gets to look over the prize table while scores are being counted.The end result was that the people who shot well were rewarded for a good performance and the people who would otherwise never get anything or someone who had bad luck shooting still got something good and everyone felt it was a good deal.

Edited June 4, 2012 by Toolguy

[de03x7]

I've been to a lot of matches that had a prize table. Over the years I've gotten 15 guns either by winning or in a drawing and a huge amount of other merchandise and cash. What I've seen that works the best is to award a trophy and/or good prize/cash to the winners, then random drawing for everyone. One state match I went to for years had 8 guns + prize table. There were 6 guns for class and overall winners with big trophy and 2 guns and prize table in the drawing. The rule was no one who won a gun could get another one in the drawing. The rest of the prize table was up for grabs. They had shooter numbers on poker chips in a coffee can that got randomly drawn. Once the winners had got their trophy and gun, the drawings started. Everyone got 3 or 4 trips to the prize table and got to choose what they wanted. It speeds things up a lot if everyone gets to look over the prize table while scores are being counted.The end result was that the people who shot well were rewarded for a good performance and the people who would otherwise never get anything or someone who had bad luck shooting still got something good and everyone felt it was a good deal.

We are meeting with the Match Director tomorrow and should come away with a final plan. A while back he was talking about trophies for 1st- 3rd in divisions with 10+ shooters and 1st place in divisions with less than 10. He was also considering a cash prize to division winners. If he does give a cash prize in addition to the trophy, random draw, seems would be the better way to go for the rest of the prizes. It doesn’t seem right to have them win cash and have first crack at the table.

We are planning to have the table set up and covered with clear plastic to keep anything from walking off during the day. We will have a list of prizes available posted so people can get an idea of what they want. We were considering a 30 second time limit then calling the next person. If they take something the prior person wanted, too bad, they should have decided in the time limit.

At this time we have two guns available. One is going to be given in a drawing for all shooters and one will be a drawing for staff only. The Director wants to make sure that someone on staff wins one of them and maybe others will step up to help next year if they want the extra shot at winning something.

Thanks for the ideas. Keep them coming.