What are the motivations for hosting a dragon boat festival? I’m referring to smaller festivals like Milton, Waterloo, Woodstock etc. Are these profitable ventures for festival organizers or is more a labour of love like (kinda like Dragon Boat World Magazine was)? What kinda of profit would a festival pull in?

Money!!!!

Uusally its fundraising for a local rotary club. But once a festival gets past a number like 16-20, its in the money if it uses an outfit like Lively. GWN events probably require minimum 40 team events (total guess at the numbers).


Economics runs the world.

Re: hosting a Festival. This will be our 13th festival in Stratford. We started with 35 teams all local in year one and by year three we were up to 96 teams and two days thanks mostly to Kevin McCann who knew everybody. By year 7 we went back to a one day affair as local interest wained. We have consistently been able to attract lots of out of town teams so we have held steady at about 64 teams.
This is pretty common with Festivals as local interest diminishes after a few years in most areas. This is due to a number of factors such as losing the main organizer of a team,newness wears off,factories close etc. To be successful you need to attract out of town teams. First an d foremost the Festival has to be well organized and well officiated. A good venue is important with relatively fair lanes. At Stratford we had to adjust the lanes to make them fair as lane four was brutal. By adjusting lengths of lanes we accomplished that. Good sight lines for paddlers and fans is a positive. Entertainment and food are also important. The rotary club here is large and provides lots of volunteers and steers persons. This cuts down costs. This a major fundraiser for our club but you have to work for it and listen to the paddler's needs.

We ran a festival that attracted 24 teams last year. GWN was our service provider. Our key revenue generators were reg. fees, sponsorship and fundraising dollars. We were profitable in 07 and hope to grow again this year. The budget was tight, but with a little community support it can be done. We looked at different service providers and in the end the cost was not all that different. There are the upfront costs and the additional costs. Some are cheaper, but don't do as much. Others cost more upfront, but we didn't need to out-source other services. My feeling is you get what you pay for. A few more teams in 08 and it will be well worth our while.

if you are going to host an event, get as many sponsor as you can, and make sure there are things to do for the non racers... as kids and wives or husbands who arent waiting can get bored really easily an may not want to come back again next year...

Throw in a MoFos pushup competition for good measure.

All kidding aside, Dragonboat can be like watching paint dry for those who arent accustomed to this sporting format. (Track and Field and Swimming are pretty much the same.) Such displays of make for good fun.

For you purists trolls, (yes me being one of them.) dont shoot the messenger. I'm only talking of ways to fill in the voids between races.

"This is pretty common with Festivals as local interest diminishes after a few years in most areas. This is due to a number of factors such as losing the main organizer of a team,newness wears off,factories close etc. To be successful you need to attract out of town teams. "

Explain to me this - Peterborough runs its 8th festival, gets around 150 boats with a 30 boat waiting list, but doesn't allow out of town teams? How come they can do it?

Albeit you may not want to follow the same format, it is interesting to see what they do differently than most local festivals:

1. Steers person and coach is always provided - including race day (i.e. to enter a team you just need 21 bodies, don't need any experience = anyone can do it).
2. Perfectly fair starts - drummer grabs a small floating ball, hangs on, lets go on the gun and the team paddles over it = no frustrations on the line. Also means the festival is so on time they usually have to be careful not to go too fast. Course measured with GPS.
3. Lots of divisional racing, eduction, health,...
4. Local radio DJ announces the races on site, super entertaining, tunes all day + extra publicity
5. Practices limited to 2 for all boats - don't get a big gap in competativeness between crews because no one is that good, often new winners each year = anyones race. Also means people don't get burnt out or bored with it - 2 practices and a festival is low commitment
6. Strongly tied to Breast Cancer cause - lots of connections, lots of media, gets a lot of people out
7. Large number of boats entering = lower price of admision

Not a recipe for developing competative crews, but a good recipe for getting lots of teams out and creating a very sustainable local festival. You want to make it really easy for people to keep coming back. With the choice of festivals out there, out of town teams may come for a year or two, but are not as dependable an entry as a local team.

That's like having a hockey tournament and not letting anybody haves skates until the games

It's like having a spelling bee with a group of ppl that cant read

or

Who the tallest midget is.