The Corporate Dinner or Banquet or Sportsman’s Dinner has become an increasingly common way for clubs and counties to generate reasonably large amounts of cash. Here are a few pointers for success based on our own experiences in organising these for clubs and county celebrations and attending events up and down the country.
The key to a successful event is to give yourself plenty of time to work on a corporate event. Your objective will be to raise cash and as much of it as you can. The target market therefore is business, gaa people with money, and passionate fans. The best time of the year is probably between October and February i.e. outside the playing season. Six months in advance is not to far ahead of the ‘do’ to start making preparations. Get a small group of people who are hardworking, have an idea with what they are doing, are prepared to be part of a team and hopefully have good ideas and initiative. Try and avoid the person who will suggest ‘what about auctioning a Brazil jersey’ or some other unlikely bit of merchandise. That is, unless he/she can deliver.
It is a good idea to get a ballpark figure for how much you are prepared to spend on an event and also how much you might hope to raise. Tickets would normally be a around £750 for a table (round) of ten people. Less than that and the profit becomes tighter. For a one off event £75 a head isn’t unacceptable. From experience running Club Tyrone events are priced at £1K a table for ten people. These are top of the range events, aimed at fairly fanatical Tyrone heads mostly business types. The events are among the best you will attend but Clubs may not have the resource or customer base to support that. Therefore you need to scale your event to the number of tables you can realistically hope to sell.
To leverage money out of people at an event there are a few success factors. You want to demonstrate you are a serious well organised outfit that is professional (in all but name). You need a venue that looks classy, has a room that can accommodate the numbers your are targeting, serves good food - the biggest gripe among GAA people at dinners is crap food and if you are catering for large numbers some things don’t keep well – duck for example. You need to scout out a few venues close to your club or county. Note that for these events people will travel and will stay over if necessary. Forty, fifty even sixty miles isn’t unheard from the parish to the trough. Build a rapport with the venue’s function manager and find out who will be working on the night of your event. This is an important working relationship. Oh and if the venue doesn’t look the part and doesn’t strike you as a prestige venue, strike it off your list. If the vibe isn’t good, not matter how hard they try they won’t be able to change that.
Sad to say for the teetotal brigade but in our experience a few jars is the key to loosening the wallet and getting the craic going during the meal and particularly during the auction. A drinks reception (sponsored if at all possible) is a must for guests. This should run for between half and hour and an hour before the formal start time. Be careful what start time you tell people. If your drinks reception is at 7.15 and the function begins at 8.00 you don’t want people turning up at 8.00 so make that clear in invitations etc. Get them there for the drinks reception. A traditional group or a harpist or non obtrusive musician can help enhance the atmosphere for such a reception.
Wine – red and white – is perfectly acceptable in a reception. So is sparkling wine although it can be more expensive and it is not to everyone’s taste. The alternative is a free bar. This normally is OK unless you have a load of drink starved lunatics who sink about eight pints each before the proceedings get under way. Remember too soft drinks for the non-drinkers and drivers. People tend to provide waters or pure orange. I have been to posh do’s in the US where they cater for non-drinkers by providing excellent fruit punches or sparkling waters flavoured. Again, talk to the hotel and ask them what they can do.
Bottles of wine on the table again are a must – I would say two red and two white for a table of ten people. A cash/credit card waiter service is also a must – the key here is to ensure the venue provides enough waiting staff. Again, talk to the hotel manager. During speeches punters will not want to get up and leave to go to the bar (unless they have been insulted by Joe Brolly!). If you can, get a sponsor or drinks supplier to help you out with the wine – either provide it or pay for it (all or in part). Note that if you get wine from a third party the hotel will probably charge you corkage. This is to encourage you to drink their house wine. If you do the maths your sponsored drink plus corkage may still be a better option than taking your chances and going with a gut rot red that will make the next day a write off. If you are going with the house wine option, ask can you try a bottle as it may not always be something you can get in your local off licence.
You will require a decent MC who can link the evening together and tell a few jokes along the way. There are some excellent MC’s - they will charge you a fee but it is worth it for a good event. You will require two possibly three after dinner speakers. Some are serious, others earnest, some think they are giving a team talk, others have you rolling in the aisle or worse rolling your eyes. Ask around, go to other functions. Find out how much people cost and how funny they are. At these events people want to have a night’s fun so listening to a former Uachtarain droning on about the health of the association can ruin a perectly good night. Gauge the sort of audience you have a place the speakers accordingly. Also check out from other clubs how much speakers cost. Usually it will be a cash in hand job. Enough said.
If you have a raffle it is a good opportunity to touch local business for things to include so flat screen TVs, a tank of heating oil, case of wine, treatment in a Spa for the WAGs, O’Neill’s voucher, etc etc. The way to proceed on the raffle is to ask each punter on the night to stick £10 or £20 in an envelope with their name on it – envelopes to be provided on the tables by you. You then draw each item and allocate to the prizes. Hopefully most of your prizes will be donations but you may have to splash out one say a holiday voucher with a travel company if you want to push the boat out.
The key to a good auction is ensuring that there are people in the room with (a) sufficient money to pay large (even exorbitant and sometimes ridiculous) sums for auction items (b) ensuring that everyone is well tanked up (c) having a few punters who will bid the whole thing up and won’t mind if they get stuck with an item they don’t want. These people are very important to a successful auction and can literally add thousands on to a night. Big wallets, balls and nerves of steel are critical success factors.
You also need decent items that are relevant to people in the room, so an Armagh jersey auctioned at a Tyrone function will not do too well but at the right Armagh do could be a great hit. Likewise a signed hurley at a football do will mean the only hurling fan in the room will go home with a nice memento that didn’t cost a lot – simply because no-one bid against him. Aim for around ten items. The following are options:
Signed county jerseys by all Ireland winners are a good item in an auction. Also are unusual signed county jersies. I have a Derry jersey signed by the Derry squad that beat Tyrone in Omagh in 2006. Now some bitter Oakleafer will pay through the nose for that I am sure when I auction it. When you are sourcing these check out how the County concerned deal with these requests. Some teams have a guy who ‘is the man’ for this sort of thing and he will get the shirt signed by all the players. Note that if you give it to a player it may not come back with all the names you want. This is worth checking out as part of your preparation as a punter may bid for the shirt and then complain if certain names are missing. Ring the county secretary or ask a player what the arrangements are. Note make sure you tell them what the item will be used for as well. This is good manners.
Other items to consider include signed hurleys, footballs, sliotars (not a brilliant item), rugby shirts or balls, one off paintings – get the local artists to throw something together like a picture of a high profile Tyrone player for example. Sculpture, tickets to All Ireland Finals, Six Nations Rugby Matches, trips to see Man Utd, Celtic, Arsenal, Rangers etc. Make sure however that the punter knows exactly what they are bidding on and more importantly if you are auctioning two nights in Dublin and two All Ireland Hurling Final Tickets, makes sure you can guarantee a decent hotel and decent tickets. (Hill 16 tickets wouldn’t loosen too many wallets.)
Unusual signed jersies might include an all star shirt signed by the year’s selection or the touring squad. I have a shirt with the late great Cormac McAnallen’s signature. I would never sell it but the fact his name is there adds to its value.
After the auction make sure you either get the amount of money of the successful bidder or get a deposit. AT the very least get their contact details. You don’t wish to get left with an expensive item that someone bids on when they are loaded and then promptly has second thoughts and does a runner.
The Squareball team have been involved in some of the most successful GAA dinners in the country. If you have a specific question e-mail us at events@squareball.com
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