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Oasis
Concert Room
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| The
Challenge: Find a way
to raise awareness of Casino San Pablo among general public
in the San Francisco metropolitan area.
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The
Big Idea: Develop
an entertainment venue featuring headline and ethnic entertainment
utilizing 7,000 sq ft Casino banquet room. After studying
the highly competitive entertainment offering in the San Francisco
Bay Area, we discovered a gaping hole for acts targeting the
largest demographic in the East Bay - African Americans (who
made up xx% of the population in the 15 square miles around
the Casino and had a high propensity to gamble.) To leverage
the high costs of the venue, we partnered with an Asian booking
agent to use the room for Asian superstar concert tours that
produced huge profits.
Some
performers who played to sold out audiences at the venue were
R&B Artist Eric Benet (husband of hottie Halle Berry),
Comedian Damon Wayans, R&B Classic's The Temptations;
and '70s Rockers The Guess Who.
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(R&B
artist Eric Benet sold out 6 shows)
(Comedian
Damon Wayans gets the crowd laughing)
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| The
Results: Events
at venue generated an estimated $100,000 worth of event publicity
and over $20,000 worth of co-op advertising funds within one
year of operation. Additionally, the Oasis room was successful
in bringing in over 20,000 concert-going bodies through the
casino doors in its first six months! |
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World
Championship Kickboxing
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| The
Challenge: Create
an entertainment attraction that could create news value to
generate extensive publicity from main stream media as well
as draw a demographic with a high propensity to gamble. |
| The
Big Idea: Produce
a world-class kickboxing event showcasing Asian fighters to
help draw a targeted demographic who would actually hit the
tables. In order to help introduce spectators to California
gaming, admission tickets included a free $10 for $5 betting
coupon and instruction tables were set up around the boxing
ring to teach spectators the basics of the game. Spectators
also received a sweepstakes entry for a chance to win a big-screen
TV attached to their admission ticket. |
(Promo
poster distributed by co-sponsor
Budweiser in local liquor stores)
(The
main bout featured two kick-ass chicks!)
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The
Results: On
top of having a sold-out event with spectators enjoying 9
bouts of bone-crushing action, we received featured articles
in the San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune and West County
Times. The main bout fighter -- Bridget Riley, a former Power
Ranger, -- captured some live TV time teaching kickboxing
moves to the local morning news-anchors. The big success?
The event was broadcast (tape delay) on the Prime Ticket cable
network!
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Raiders
Reunion Collector's Show
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| The
Challenge: Introduce
our gaming product to the large market of males between the
ages of 21 and 49 and get their butts into the Casino! |
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The
Big Idea: Since
the Casino was only 17 miles from the Oakland Coliseum and
football season was right around the corner, we decided to
hold a Sports Memorabilia show featuring the '76 Super Bowl
Champion Oakland Raiders team. We were able to recruit 23
members of the world championsip team including stars such
as Kenny Stabler, Ray Guy, Lester Hayes and Fred Bilitnikoff
along with others. Since all the players created a big nut
to crack, we ended up splitting the players into a morning
session and afternoon session with customers having to pay
two fees.
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(Ken
"The Snake" Stabler - TV interview)
(vendors
selling Raiders merchandise)
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| The
Results:
Hey...I had to throw one failure on the site! Unfortunately,
this event got ugly fast. Since we had to provide transportation
for so many players from all over the country on top of their
appearance fee, the costs shot through the roof practically
the day after we signed the contracts. Plus, with ticket sales
extremely sluggish, we ended up throwing in an additional $15,000
of radio advertising to try and help salvage the event. The
results: a staggering loss of $38,000! Adding insult to injury,
the football players ran up an alcohol tab of $1,900 at the
bar during the five hour event! |
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Casino
Grand Opening Party
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| The
Challenge: Introduce
a brand new $35 million property and its purpose to 1,000 of
the Corporate owner’s closest friends. |
| The
Big Idea: A
project like this has party written all over it. We decided
to host an extravaganza party featuring belly dancers, stilt
entertainers, live music and a exquisite menu with delicacies
from around the world. To help introduce the games to the guests,
we decided to turn the gaming tables into dining tables and
include a dealer at every table. The dealers brought up interesting
facts about the Casino and the history of gambling in California
and assisted guests with any questions they had. After dinner,
we held a charity poker tournament to raise funds for local
charities and to help give guests a real-life feeling of what
it was like to gamble at the new casino. As an added bonus ,
special commemorative $20 chips were hidden at every tournament
table as an added prize for entrants. (Ladbroke’s gave
me a whopping budget of $105,000!!!) |
(belly
dancer entertains the crowd)
(mad
scientist on stilts)
(roses
for all of the ladies)
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The
Results: The
charity poker tournament raised $7,800 for local charities.
But the biggest score of the night was a big pat on the back
from the big bosses (all 15 of them)!!!
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9th
Annual CSP Golf Fundraiser
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| The
Challenge: After
the local hospital was taken over by a for-profit corporation,
the City of San Pablo suddenly found itself without an organization
to sponsor and operate its annual hospital fund-raising golf
tournament. |
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The
Big Idea: While
the Casino already contributed over $200,000 annually to city-operated
programs, our CEO decided to not only underwrite the costs
of the golf tournament but also turn it into the largest charity
golf tournament in the East Bay. To do that, we realized we
had to aggressively go after corporate sponsorship as well
as the hospital's doctors with an unbelieveable package.
On
top of the standard green fees, course lunch and polo shirt
that corporate sponsorship includes, we also added a 10 unit
ad in the West County Times, a cocktail hour and awards banquet
at the Casino with 6 course meal, a two-color event program
with sponsor ads, and a $500 certificate to Don Sherwood Golf
Shops. We also were able to get over 50 prizes from local
business owners to raffle off to golfers.
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(Invitation
sent to local
medical professionals) |
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The
Results: This
was an easy sell! The corporate execs signed on the dotted
line as soon as they saw the $500 certificate for golf goodies!
Of course knowing their sponsorship funds were going to a
worthy cause and was tax deductable also helped. The whole
program helped the hospital raise over $66,000 - a 214% increase
in revenue from the prior year!
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