Bobcats Athletic Auction Pitch 2010

Tuesday of last week each of 3 groups had the opportunity of making a pitch to the athletics department. Each pitch was allowed to be 15 minutes and had to present not only our theme choice for the athletic auction, but also a budget, invitation sample, decoration scheme, "swag" basket sample, table decoration sample, floor plan, etc. I was the A.E. of my group, the originators of "Tropical Thunder," a play off of tropic thunder. We chose the name because Thunder is the name of the mascot here at GC&SU. Tropical thunder conveyed our idea of a tropical island theme. The two wonderful group members I had the pleasure of working alongside were Lindsey Roberts and Ben Owens. I couldn't have picked a better group.
Anyways, our theme tropical thunder seemed to work really well. We envisioned our event looking very tropical, like a vacation. WHICH was also one of our slogan ideas. "Come take a vacation with Bobcat Athletics." The event pitch took a whole lot of planning; more than I imagined. We took shopping trips to places like the dollar store and shopped online at oriental trading and other party planning sites. We ended up being about $100 under budget once we factored in shipping and tax. I was impressed by that considering our budget was $1000.
As for the pitch itself, standing in front of a panel of judges who ARE the deciding factors, is difficult and scary. I'm a nervous person to begin with but knowing that they are taking every word you are saying and in their mind building the event in their head, makes picking the perfect words and ways to describe things really meticulous. We, Tropical Thunder, had prepared a powerpoint presentation prior to the pitch, so we had something a bit more eye-catching and solid for the judges to go off of(it doesn't hurt that we have a wonderful graphic designer, Ben Owens). Our pitch went fairly well. We were able to paint a picture in the judges minds as far as I could tell. Once our pitch was over and it was time for the judges to make their selection, all of the PR students headed out the door. We waited in the hall as the judges deliberated. All of the other students kept saying they thought tropic thunder was going to win and I really thought it would have too. I was disappointed to learn that we didn't win, the group that presented the Hollywood theme did. I really do believe that had there not been a similar theme in years past, that Tropic Thunder would have won, however I congratulate the group that did win and I'm excited to see their theme come to life.

GG