Good Ideas For an event?

[+dctalk007]

Me and my brother are putting on an indoor event with about 40-50 cachers attending. And besides a raffle are there any other cool ideas for an event?

[AZcachemeister]

A trivia quiz about the older caches/cachers in your area could prove amusing.

How many people know the real details about the pioneers in your neck of the woods?

[WashoeZephyr]

Me and my brother are putting on an indoor event with about 40-50 cachers attending. And besides a raffle are there any other cool ideas for an event?

We stole "geobingo" from another event. That was fun and it gets people to interact. Make up about three different bingo sheets though. In each square you put some specific info to a cacher (like what cacher has under 100 finds) (What cacher has cached in Canada?) and that cacher has to sign the square. The first person(s) to black out the sheet win.

[+Snoogans]

40-50 cachers attending. And besides a raffle are there any other cool ideas for an event?

 

Here's a lesson I and others have learned the hard way: Don't raffle of TOO MANY items. Less than 10 is a good rule of thumb. Folks lose interest after a few items and you'll find yourself shouting over the din.

 

I also do a dollar draw quite often. It goes like this: ONE dollar per person ONLY so no one buys the pot. Each person that enters puts their name on a single bill and puts it in the pot. No making change from the pot duh.

 

Mix the pot before the draw and get the youngest kid in the room to pull a bill from the pot. The name on the bill gets the pot. I've never had a pot under $35 and that buys about 9 gallons of gas these days.

 

Here's a lesson I learned the hard way. Don't enter your OWN dollar draw. Bad juju if you win. I won once, felt weird and had another draw right away to take the pot.

[+Isonzo Karst]

I totally agree with Snoogans on "keep the raffle short" - indeed, a single item donated by yourself is my idea of perfect (geocoin, ammo can) . Just something to draw the room together for a BRIEF moment.

 

GeoBingo is a good mixer. Generally I see it run where the first person to get all the squares filled wins something, but I like it better done slowly, and a winner drawn from all the filled sheets later in the event. Indeed, I'd do this instead of a raffle.

If it's first cacher will filled sheet, that person is running around quickly getting sigs, and not really meet and greeting folks so much.

 

Food - potluck, is always good.

 

Here are some GeoBingo square ideas: owns an earthcache, has logged a locationless, fewer than 100 finds,

caches with a Garmin, caches with a Magellan, has used a boat to find a cache, has DNFed the same cache twice, caches with a dog, has attended a Mega Event.....and so on, until you've created a grid of say 5x5 squares. Some easy, some harder. Enough to get people wandering around and talking to one another

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

I totally agree with Snoogans on "keep the raffle short" - indeed, a single item donated by yourself is my idea of perfect (geocoin, ammo can) . Just something to draw the room together for a BRIEF moment.

 

GeoBingo is a good mixer. Generally I see it run where the first person to get all the squares filled wins something, but I like it better done slowly, and a winner drawn from all the filled sheets later in the event. Indeed, I'd do this instead of a raffle.

If it's first cacher will filled sheet, that person is running around quickly getting sigs, and not really meet and greeting folks so much.

 

Food - potluck, is always good.

 

Here are some GeoBingo square ideas: owns an earthcache, has logged a locationless, fewer than 100 finds,

caches with a Garmin, caches with a Magellan, has used a boat to find a cache, has DNFed the same cache twice, caches with a dog, has attended a Mega Event.....and so on, until you've created a grid of say 5x5 squares. Some easy, some harder. Enough to get people wandering around and talking to one another

Ditto all of the above. I have found that stocked caches are great prizes, with the benefit that when they are hidden you have something nice to hunt!

 

I've done this a good bit and found that folks who have never hidden a cache win one in a game or drawing, hide it, enjoy the experience and hide more.

 

In fact I have hosted several events in cache-poor areas and given away four or five stocked ammo cans... not long after (within six months) each of the areas had noticeable increases in both cache count and new players. It's a great way to 'seed' a new area. But, you get what you give! Give out nicely stocked ammo cans and folks will really think about where will make a good hide, take pride in maintaining it, and their next caches will likely be good ones. Give out a handful of film cans and you'll get new hides, but they'll be exactly what you would expect... Walmart LPCs!

[+whistler & co.]

You can also hide one (or two or three) new caches for the event attendees to grab on the way home. Ideally, these should not be incredibly long hikes or multis, because anyone attending from afar will probably have their caching agenda all planned out already. If they are quick finds within a mile or two of the event, and if you have sheets with the cache name, gc #, and coords for everyone to grab as they head home, people will appreciate it. You can get them pre-approved by the reviewer, then have them published after the event has ended.

 

Alternatively, you can hide one good, long multi or an extremely tricky hide, and then people could team up afterwards for a group hunt. That's fun too!

 

Edited to add: don't forget to have a sign-in table with the "official logbook" and with nametags and pens so everyone will know who's who!

Edited August 12, 2008 by whistler & co.

[+dctalk007]

Thanks for all the cool ideas. I've been to five events and i like the raffles so i'll try that and the bingo game that sounds fun as well