Now that you are officially the director of a Beauty Pageant you have to arrange for awards and prizes for your contestants.
Awards and prizes are the physical objects that remind beauty pageant contestants of their night in the spot light.
Sponsors are important contributors to the prizes you can offer contestants.
Pick someone on your staff who is outgoing and good with people. Give them the title of “Promotions Manager”. Send them out to local businesses to seek donations of gift certificates or the products they sell.
Good examples are makeup, skin care, flowers, jewelry, and gift baskets. Show the sponsor a dummy Program Book of the event and tell they will receive sponsorship credit in the Program Book, and verbal mentions at the event.
Remind the sponsor that pageants are positive events that help enhance individuals self worth and their participation will reflect their contribution to the community. Plus the people who participate and attend pageants are a good fit for their products.
A large selection of sponsor donated products enhances your “Prize Package”, and will attract more contestants.
Awards are another opportunity for exercising your creativity. They can be trophies, toys, knick knacks, and even t-shirts. Figure out what you need for each group. For example in the Baby Miss you’ll need a Queen, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place award. Give the biggest or fanciest toy to the Queen and smaller toys for the others.
Get a label maker and place the name of the division and placing on each award to make it easy and simple for staff to have it ready for presentation.
Also prepare additional awards so that everyone leaves the place with something. Side awards allow the director to spread the awards out to everyone who participated. Everyone is a winner. Of course only one will win the crown.
Examples of side awards for the Baby Miss:
Prettiest Eyes
Best Hair
Best Smile
Most Photogenic
Best Fashion
Hospitality awards can be given to the contestant who brings the most people to the pageant, or to the contestants who sell the most ads in the Program Book.
The Program Book has the schedule of events, photo galleries and contestants names and pictures. These are also the main value for sponsors who donate prizes. You can also sell advertisements to business that do not contribute prizes.
Encourage your contestants to help sell the ads through their network of family, friends and co-workers by telling them the Hospitality title gets a big Prize Package.
Really load it down with sponsor provided gifts to motivate them to sell.
Some directors order special trophies from a trophy shop for the winners of different divisions. This can become quite expensive and put a big drain on your budget. I produce my own awards using fairly inexpensive items that are classy and appropriate. One award that is well received is a metal serving platter that only cost a few dollars. I personalize it with either an engraving tool of a nice label. Labels are easiest. If you go the other route, make sure someone with a steady hand and good penmanship, or better yet a calligrapher, does the engraving.
You’ll have to purchase a nice crown for your winner, or winners. There are many whole sale shops on the internet, just do a search for “Beauty Contest Crowns”.
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