Bags & Brew Cornhole Tournament

About the Event:

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Louisiana launched a new fundraiser for 2021 to directly support their youth mentoring programs.

Hosted by Crying Eagle Brewing, Bags & Brew was an outdoor double-elimination cornhole tournament that included VIP and general team registration as well as spectator passes. We set a goal of 100 teams with a maximum of 150 teams and we reached 44 VIP teams and 60 regular teams.

We recruited food trucks and local vendors to promote their businesses and sell products. 

Planning:

My marketing assistant and I worked collaboratively on all aspects of event planning, from creating the event logo to scoring logistics.

Event registration was through an online platform called Engaging Networks. I directly worked on the design, functionality, maintenance, troubleshooting, and assistance for team registration for this platform.

I led the event promotions which included social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, paid ads, media interviews (live and pre-recorded) done by myself, radio station interviews done by the executive director, digital billboard advertising, public speaking engagements carried out by myself and the executive director with local organizations or businesses, hanging flyers and posters around the city and in local establishments, and involvement of the BBBS Board of Directors to help recruit teams.

I designed the t-shirts for the fundraiser to be sold leading up to and during the event. We then partnered with a local printer to have them printed.

I coordinated a photoshoot for video content and photography to promote t-shirt sales and team registration. I also designed the wristbands and plastic event cups. These were included in VIP registration and the event cups were sold at the event as a way to raise additional dollars. With the help of our executive director, my assistant and I cultivated 20 sets of cornhole boards donated by locals in the community to be used during the tournament.

Throughout the planning process, we coordinated with vendors, Crying Eagle Brewery, food trucks, and sponsors to create an efficient layout for the event which I designed in Adobe Illustrator. This layout was provided to the brewery, vendors, and everyone involved during the setup process.

We planned to use a platform called SimpleTexting to communicate with each cornhole team but the platform crashed right as our tournament was taking off. Luckily, we were able to wrangle a team of amazing individuals who volunteered their time during the tournament to track everything on paper brackets.

The tournament did NOT go off without a hitch but we were able to tackle each obstacle that came our way. By the end of the night, we announced the winners and packed up. Attendees were very pleased with the event and are looking forward to next year.