NADLP - Program Books & Banner for the AOTC Line-up

Let's use this thread to discuss ideas & progress related to the program books and our ticket line banner. Note: All constructive suggestions and comments are welcome

Program Books: LordINVAR is currently working on a design for our program books for opening night. These program books are what will generate donations for our charity, the NDRF. The preliminary concept is that with a minimum $3 donation a person will get a complimentary program book. You might be asking WHY would someone donate at least $3 to get one of these program books:

1) They will have valuable coupons in them for restaurants and stores around the area. This is where are sponsorship is mandatory. No sponsorship, no program books. We will get this sponshorship by selling advertising space in the programs. However, I don't believe this will be a problem, especially after we tell them not only how many people these will reach, but also that the proceeds will benefit charity. However, it is the most important step in getting these program books made and raising a good deal of donations for the NDRF.

2) It's for a good cause. $3 is a pretty small donation, especially when people will be benefitting from the coupons they contain. It all adds up though. I'm thinking along the lines of printing at least 500 of these. There will probably be at least 2 theaters showing Episode II opening night. The two largest ones which are 400-450 seaters. That's between 800-900 people. I think its a pretty safe bet that at least 60% of the people will want one of these especially if its going to a good cause. Stacy from the NDRF has even volunteered to either be there or have someone be there representing the NDRF.

3) Giveaways & prizes . We are going to put a number on the inside back cover of each of these and have a drawing for prizes. I'm thinking of several things like action figures, mugs, T-shirts perhaps even an Episode II poster signed by C-3PO (I've already decided to contribute this). And anything else our group wants to contribute or the merchants want to donate.

4) Memorabilia. To simply have something to remember the event by. I've been looking for something inexpensive to laminate the ticket stub to the inside cover of the program or a transparent case. Maybe we could even use the little stamp envelopes they sell at collectors shops. Any suggestions on these are welcome.

After LordINVAR sends me a format, (sometime early next week) I'll display it here, get printing costs, and we can discuss it at our next meeting. I'll hopefully have maybe 5 prototypes for people to take with them to show merchants. I'll try to have this for our April 6th meeting if I can. I will also have copies of a letter the NDRF is sending me to show legitimate proof of our intent to merchants.

As far as the banner goes, I love the Yoda idea, "BEGUN THIS STAR WARS (or ticket line) LINE HAS." I got an estimate at a local printer today. When I told the manager what it was for and that we would be raising money for charity, she knocked of 20%. It comes to $350 for a 4' x 12' Banner. This money will come out of what we raise from merchants for advertising space in the flyers. If by chance we don't sell the minimum amount of advertising space, we don't do the banner. No biggy, but it would look mighty cool hanging above the doors to the Thoroughbred! I'll factor this in to our total price as well as some costs for compensating people in our group for giveaway prizes. The printers need at least three days to print this banner. I will be creating the vector image they need to work with. I'll post it as a Jpeg image in this thread when I have a final done. We can discuss all this at the meeting on April 6th.

It's gonna be awesome baby!!! yah!

For sponsers should we just stick to businesses near the Thoroughbred or include others?

kanos -

On the banner - don't run away with that to the printer yet. Let me check my sources on the cost of printing a banner in full color before you start plunking down change.

Is this signshop going to do the banner in vinyl lettering off your vector art or are they going to 4 color print on vinyl or banner material?

I may have a source that can 4-color print a 15' banner with any Photoshop art we create for about the same amount of money you are talking about.

I also have contacts up in Chicago I may be able to use that could beat the prices we are finding down here - as they have much stiffer competition.

So hang a moment before running off and getting a banner made. If it's just vinyl lettering on a banner - let's price shop. We may be able to put the program cover graphic in blazing color with a bunch of other stuff on a banner for nearly the same price.

Will be working on the Program book cover art and mock-up later this week - I will try to have something up to you guys by the weekend. My buddy Keith is going to help us out with this putting the final piece together. He basically runs the local Thrifty Nickel franchise from sales to circulation (But he's the Art Director/Production King actually) - and has a skiffload of ideas to maximize this effort into a succesful venture for us. He knows the region very well and understands what it takes to close a print ad from an advertiser. He will be able to answer any questions we run into regarding sales and such. He will be joining us as a Jedi Tusken Raider - wait'll you hear him roar! Someone will be looking for gaffi sticks to shove in his maw to quiet the brute.

I wasn't going to put an order for this banner in until the last week of April AND only if we had enough money from selling advertising space to more than cover the cost of it. I just got a quote to see what kind of change we were looking at to get one made. For the cost, what we would be getting is a dark blue vinyl background with a digital image of Yoda and lettering that would be stuck to the background. 300 dpi is the best they can print. The machine would cut around the letters and image so that its not too obvious that it is stuck on there. They were also going to stick a star field in the background. I also thought of getting those glowing stars and sticking them on it sporadically. To have them print the entire banner digitally it was going to cost us more than double the price of going this route. Go ahead and get us some alternate pricing if you can.

As far as proximatey of businesses go, with the exception of 107.5 the River, I think we may want to try to stay in the Cool Springs area for starters. If we don't get the minimum amount of merchants purchasing advertising space from the Cool Springs area, we can try elsewhere. I guess it all depends. If you have a place of business in mind that you think would be interested, or you know of someone that would have some pull with management in getting them to buy advertising space, then go for it . When I mentioned store chains like Chik-fil-A, Subway, Papa Johns, and the like, I'm talking specifically the Cool Springs area. They have more to gain from this than say a Chik-fil-A up in Antioch. These coupons will probably be good only in the specific local store or restaurant anyway. It has to be that way because other store will probably not recognize them for redemtion. We are going to scan these in and put them in the books. They are going to look kind of like the ones in those coupon books that different organizations sell every year. Either black & white or one color, unless if the merchants want a color add, which will cost extra.

Here is the latest rendition for the proposed Banner for our line-up:

[image=http://scottjohnstonart.com/sys-tmpl/nss-folder/scrapbook/bannersmall.jpg]

This banner is contingent on two factors:

1) The Thoroughbred is cool with us putting one up above the theater marquee

2) We generate the sponsorships/ add space dollars to pay for this. (I think we should have no problems doing that as long as we get some more volunteers to talk to businesses that is )

Awesome. How big is it again?

5' x 13'