Week 9

Event sponsorship.
The important goal to achieve with any sort of sponsorship arrangement is mutual benefit. An event that is suffocated in a sponsor's self promotion may lead to the organiser terminating the arrangement because the money gained is not worth the cost to the atmosphere or independence of the event. Likewise, a sponsor may part with large amounts of money to no appreciable effect and come to the conclusion that the costs are too high compared to the benefits, and feel they are not receiving adequate credit for their support.
Sponsorship must play upon some relevance, foremost a sponsor's relevance to the nature of the event, like a fertilizer company sponsoring a flower show, etc. Another similarity can be support for local events, however unrelated, simply exploiting the fact that they share and take part in a local community. A final factor that can be pointed out is philanthropic support for a small organisation by a large and generous benefactor, with no apparent connection other than the obvious one of sponsorship.
The reason they are covered in the same chapter of the book, is because a PR-actitioner will only find themselves organising an event as a result of representing the interests of a sponsor ie; many events are run without official sponsorship, but in the course of PR duties, it will only be seen in the prism of what added value can be derived from the event because they are never organised just for their own sake. As usual money, other resources, time and venues are all at a premium, but with the added unpredictable element of people to manage and weather to anticipate.
The major benefits to be derived from corporate or sponsored events will be due to skillful media relations management and making sure that important guests are properly catered to. A PR-actitioner must at such times multi task, overseeing attendance and staff, and do their best to outshine meagre resources.
What do I hope to learn? The art of the 'booze and schmooze'...Unfortunately the phrases 'Murphy's law' and 'herding cats' spring to mind...