Making It Better: Seven Marketing Ideas for Gymnastics Meets

Very Important Gear

As a parent of a competitive gymnast, I've spent many hours at my daughter's meets over the past three years. If you've never had the pleasure, let me describe how this works. You pay to place your kid in a class. You pay to have her on a team, complete with the shockingly expensive team leotard that she'll be constantly pulling at. You pay to get into the actual meet itself. And then you duck hours of lame lottery pitches, cold concessions, and candygrams and stuffed animals that you can give to buttress the confidence of your athlete. All while spending four to five hours of stress, waiting to watch your kid perform for less than ten minutes, on four different pieces of apparatus.

Needless to say, there's a lot of dead time. And more than enough time for me to think about ways to make it better. Let's go to the list!

1) Computers and projection systems exist. Use them. Every meet I've ever been to has come down to people with clipboards writing down scores, and way too much time waiting around at the end of the meet so that someone can do math, badly and slowly, before handing out awards. All of which is very exciting to the kid for her first meet, but after about two or three times through the ringer, they are pretty much done on wanting to wait around. Have the awards ready to go as soon as the last kid performs, because every parent alive will adore you for this. Failing that, mail 'em.

2) Set up your gym for prime photography and video. With everyone having the ability to get performances on video, and professionals in short supply or need, there should be a simple and defined place for people to shuffle in and out and get their video done. Enough with having the heads and bodies of other people getting in and out of shots. Just set up walkways and defined spaces. This shouldn't be hard, and we've never seen it.

3) Go beyond 50-50 tickets. Honestly, from the folks I've seen at these events, scratcher tickets would sell. So would video poker in the lobby. We've got a lot of time to kill here, people. If you gave a concession split to a vendor on this, you'd make a mint, and add a little more poignancy and tragedy to someone's losing day. Why is Daddy crying? Because he's so proud of you. So much that he's going on a diet for a few months.

4) Actually make Wifi work. I know, I know, I'm asking for the world here, but this never works, and drives everyone insane the entire time they are trapped in your gym.

5) Premium seating. I'm not talking about actual front row stuff, because to be honest, you should move around during the meet as your kid goes to various apparatus. But if someone wants to rent seat cushions to supplement those terrible folding chairs? Ca-ching.

6) More freedom with the candygrams. Why limit messages to how proud you are of your kid, or how much you love them? Let's hear some options like how much the other teams stink, how in a world where death and taxes are the only constant, her beam routine is the reason for hope, and that life itself is very much like the vault. Let's add some head scratchers to these, please.

7) Juke box heroism. Sure, you can do your floor exercise to your preferred music, but can you do it to music that's been chosen at random, with special challenge tracks brought in to see if you can avoid laughing? Add some drama to this. And if the kid can hit her spots to Barney the Dinosaur or Metallica, I'm even more impressed.

Bonus - Liquor license. And maybe vendors. Beer Me!

Got any others to add to the mix? Feel free to add them in the comments. I've got many more meets before the season is over...

                                        * * * * *

Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.