All prizes for the Photo Contest have been sent

[MesquiteMan]

Just wanted to let Todd, Mike, and anyone else who cares or needs to know that all of the prizes for the Photo Contest have been delivered to the respective winners via their e-mail address as entered on the entry form.

Now I just need the e-mail addresses for the donation drawing winners so I can get that taken care of.

 

[MesquiteMan]

One observation on my donations...

The fellow who won the chamber in the donation drawing also won second place in the photo contest so he is going to be sick of me! Then, the same fellow won 2nd place in both the Shop/Shop Life as well as the NO Rules category in the photo contest so he is getting two $60 certificates.

I think we need to re-think the way the sponsorship prizes are handled in the future. The main reason to sponsor a contest as a vendor, is not only for the marketing aspect on IAP but also to get your stuff in as many different hands as possible. With a contest such as the photo contest with 3 different categories and not a whole lot of participation from good photographers, this is likely to happen again in the future. I am sure the person who won 2 certificates from me would have been happier winning prizes from someone other than just me. I know as the vendor, I would rather have had 9 unique winners rather than 8.

He won 2 different categories last year as well.

Just some rambling thoughts late at night!

 

[mbroberg]

I've heard a suggestion in the past about having some sort of post bash prize swap. If I recall correctly the idea came about because of the number of prizes Constant donated last year. Quite a few winners were not in to doing laser kits and really didn't want them as prizes. An after bash prize exchange would be easy enough to organize but I worry about offending donors. I would think that a vendor would want their prize in the hands of someone who actually wanted it but there is a possibility that a vendor could be offended if he got the impression that no one wanted what he donated.

Thought?

 

[Brooks803]

I like Curtis' idea of not having the sponser of the contest be the only prize doner for the contest. Instead maybe break them down into the rest of the contests.

 

[toddlajoie]

Curtis, thanks for getting this out so quickly!!! I did struggle with having someone winning 2 prizes, but there was really no way around it, as the contests were separated, and the judges did not have any of the entrants information. To be honest, with some of the upper end photos,I'm surprised there was only one duplicate.

Maybe have the possibility of swapping out prizes in the event that that happens again (having a pool of alternate prized from vendors not locked to a single contest) would help spread the vendors around, as well as give the people who won multiples some variety. This may conflict with the posting of prizes for the contest unless it is spelled out clearly...

People winning for multiple contests is a difficult one to plan for, but I'm going to be thinking about ways to get the photo contest more user friendly and maybe avoid the possibility or likelyhood of multiple wins...

 

[maxwell_smart007]

Interesting concept...

Thinking out loud:

Prize swap would have to occur before the distribution - so we'd have to have a three day 'bazaar' in which people could post swaps in a special section and trade at will...

Delay all vendor contacts until March 7th, or so, to allow it - give Ed a heap of helpers to take care of it...one person in charge of official swaps - done deals to be PM'd to him...then all vendors contacted that week with the addresses...

That way, the vendor gets the prize to someone who wants it, they get their name out there one more time, and everyone's happy...except maybe Ed!

The other option is to let people swap in Deals, but that would require shipping twice..

 

[maxwell_smart007]

ANother option - instead of a dedicated list of prizes for each contest, list prizes by category based on value.

Tier one contests get tier 1 prizes, etc..

List all prizes on a public, assign by random number generator...alterations allowed by prize manager in the case of duplicate prize issues, etc...

Change the sponsorships to naming rights only, with cash donation to the IAP to buy donation drawing prizes, to allow these prizes to be spread out.

That would also get people to look at hte prizes and maybe discuss them...always good for vendors!