NYC Worldcup- fencing friends letter

[fencerontheline]

I've attached a letter that was supposed to be sent only to NYFC members(or so it seems at least), that leaked out onto the Met Division Website. Any opinons on the letter, or Grand Prix in general?

[fencerontheline]

May 12, 2004

Dear Friend of the Fencers Club,

The 2004 NYC Grand Prix of Fencing marks the third year in a row that the Fencers Club has been awarded the honor of hosting this prestigious World Cup event. Since this is an Olympic Year, our event will enjoy the added distinction of being designated the World Team Championships for Women's Foil and Women's Saber. As in the past, we need your help to make our World Cup another glorious success for American fencing.

The preliminaries and most finals of the 2004 NYC Grand Prix of Fencing will be held June 10-13 at Hunter College. With great support from our sponsors, we have secured the elegant Cipriani 42nd Street as our showcase venue for the Friday night, June 11 finals of the two World Championship events.

Last year, the Fencers Club proved its generosity in staging a terrific World Cup in Grand Central Terminal and setting a new standard of excellence for our sport. Based on that success, this year's Grand Prix will again feature more than 300 of the world's best fencers as they compete in this pivotal Olympic seeding event. We are writing to invite your personal and financial participation and support. We hope we can count on your enthusiastic involvement to help us raise the bar even higher.

The success of the 2004 NYC Grand Prix of Fencing is critical to spring boarding American fencing on to the center stage of U.S. and international sports. It is a pivotal moment for our sport and our club. American fencers and coaches, many of them from the Fencers Club, are achieving unprecedented heights of success in international competition. The media's attention to our sport is building rapidly. The widespread publicity we expect to generate for the 2004 NYC Grand Prix of Fencing will result in a quantum leap in our print and TV coverage this year. And this will be a vital and necessary boost to the future of our sport as an Olympic event and the continued development of fencing in America.

So, my dear Friend of Fencing, these are a number of ways you can help:

1) Please Donate Funds to the Event:

a) $2,000 for a Strip Sponsorship- this is a great way to honor your coach, or fencer. This level of sponsorship entitles you to two tickets to the World Championship finals at Cipriani 42nd Street on June 11th, as well as your chosen name on one of the strips at the event, as well as a program listing.

b) $500 for a program listing and two tickets to the World Championship finals at Cipriani 42nd Street on June 11th.

c) $300 for two tickets to the World Championships finals at Cipriani 42nd Street on June 11th

Please Note: The Fencers Club is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3), so all donations are
tax deductible.


2) Please Volunteer:

Because of the size of the event we will need as many volunteers as possible
We need volunteers to help with event staging, athlete hosting, drug testing,
transportation, traffic management, food sales, and ticket control. Mrs. Diane Reckling has graciously agreed to once again coordinate all volunteer efforts and she will assign roles accordingly. Please contact her at- nanuk923@aol.com.

Please Note: Admission to the World Championships at Cipriani 42 is extremely limited. With only 650 seats and over 400 athletes, coaches and officials expected; tickets to the finals are at a premium. For each sixteen hours worked, there will be one ticket available to the World Championship Finals.

If you can help through volunteering, please let Diane Reckling know as soon as possible. Again, her email is nanuk923@aol.com

If you can help financially, please write your check today payable to the Fencers Club.

The 2004 NYC Grand Prix of Fencing promises to be a fabulous event and a wonderful experience for the athletes, our sport and our club. We know we can count on the members of Fencers Club to step up for our sport and we want to thank you in advance for your support.



Best regards,



Rita Finkel
Executive Director

[Epee_Pox]

Don't know what kind of comments you're looking for. This seems pretty standard to me. FC is hosting a big, expensive event, and is doing some routine fundraising to pay for it.

[nahouw]

I'm attaching a letter that was supposed to be sent only to NYFC members(or so it seems at least), that leaked out onto the Met Division Website. Any opinons on the letter, or Grand Prix in general?

I think that it is a very well crafted and effective fund raising letter for this event by the LOC targeted to its members. Hopefully, the USFA with a much larger target audience and as the NGB for this event, was also able to send out a fund raising letter to the larger community. I hope that both the NYFC and the USFA, through corporate sponsorship and individual donations can defray the cost of holding this prestigious event.

[MikeHarm]

Whats surprising to me is they charging so much for people to watch. Are they getting a lot of spectators who aren't fencers buying the tickets up at those prices?

[Craig]

Whats surprising to me is they charging so much for people to watch. Are they getting a lot of spectators who aren't fencers buying the tickets up at those prices?

Charging money for the tickets is good. If nothing else, it creates a value. If it's free to watch, it must not be that good, right?

We've covered the topic in various threads dealing with clubs, lesson fees, etc.

Putting out a price for the tickets is one form of marketing. They are recouping some of the cost of putting on the event, as well as assigning a non-$0 value to the event. These are the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS for team WS and WF! The best of the best - got to be worth some money to see world class athletes.

Craig

Craig

[Rolls]

Charging money for the tickets is good. If nothing else, it creates a value. If it's free to watch, it must not be that good, right?

We've covered the topic in various threads dealing with clubs, lesson fees, etc.

Putting out a price for the tickets is one form of marketing. They are recouping some of the cost of putting on the event, as well as assigning a non-$0 value to the event. These are the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS for team WS and WF! The best of the best - got to be worth some money to see world class athletes.

Craig

Craig

I have to agree. It seemed to me that they had little doubt that the tickets would sell out. If tickets do sell out, then obviously the price they are asking is appropirate.

I know, if i had the money and the time, I would definitely shell out the cash to be there.

Rolls.

[fencerontheline]

In Europe- most World Cups are free to watch....

[Gav]

Whilst I agree that by charging value is being added, I disagree with the amounts. In UK pounds that is about £150 or the same for a seasonal ticket to some of the small-medium sized football clubs. As that is the case these clubs can expect to get somewhere in the region of 30-500 supporters turning up regularly. In the case of this event, how many people are going to turn up for that amount? How many of them are disinterested or casually interested bystanders rather than hardcore fencing geeks [if such things exist]?

If I was a potential casual spectator, for $300 I would expect much more than just see some team events. I would expect dinner or some other gala event, knowledge that any excess cash was going to a cause I cared in rather than a fencing club [that I probably don't care about] or something that gives me the sense of being a valued customer. So I don't see $300 doing anything to improve or attract additional people to the sport (as spectators or competitors).

Additionally, charges such as these do not do anything but propogate the idea that Fencing is an Upper Middle class sport for the well off.

I see they are also looking at $2000 to sponsor a piste! Now that I think about it, if I was a businessman with an interest in Fencing then I don't see that as too much to pay provided that the case for my advertisement (sorry sponsorship) could be made. Fencing's worth, as a brand for business, shouldn't be underestimated.

To summarise:

$300 for a seat to watch some fencing is too much. I wouldn't pay that and I consider myself a proper Fencing geek.
$2000 although a bit steep for me wouldn't nescessarily be too steep to average businessman providing the case for advertising could be made.

[Schiavona]

$150 per ticket, $300 for two. This is NYC after all............often in national advertisements giving special prices the fine print says prices higher in Alaska, Hawaii and Metro NY. I find this very funny. ROFLMAO

[oiuyt]

In point of fact they probably AREN'T setting a value on the tickets. If they did then the $300 wouldn't be a tax deductible donation. If the ticket has any value that value has to come out of what is paid and only the remainder is tax deductible.

For what it's worth, the portion of the event that the tickets get you into is just the gold medal team bouts and the awards ceremony. Everything else (all individual fencing, all earlier team rounds including bronze medal bouts) is held at Hunter College where tickets are $5/day or $10/4-day.

$5 is enough that it might deter me if I were a marginally interested party, say someone who happened to be on the campus, hear that something was happening in the gym, and drifted over to check it out. Is turning away this level of spectator worth either the slight income generated through ticket sales or the value added by being not-free? Arguable (reasonably on either side).

Given that the vast majority of the fencing is significantly cheaper, why would someone choose to spend $150/person to watch 2 team matches? So they're the best two teams in the world. A couple of hours earlier I could watch the same teams (granted not against each other) for a small fraction of the cost.

-B :)

[Gav]

$150 per ticket, $300 for two. This is NYC after all............often in national advertisements giving special prices the fine print says prices higher in Alaska, Hawaii and Metro NY. I find this very funny. ROFLMAO

Oops, misread the pricing structre. Thanks for pointing out. £75 is much more bearable but I still wouldn't pay it. That's the same:

• as 2 (maybe 3) decent local gigs.
• as a new LP maraging Epee [with change]
• as a 2 course meal for 2 at a renowned Edinburgh restruant.

[fencerontheline]

Gav and Brad- I agree with you guys entirely. Coming from a middle class family, I can't afford tickets at the going rate. In addition- the part I disagreed with the most- is that the opppurtunity to view the finals was initially offered exclusively to FC members and parents, untill this letter leaked. I thought that to be detrimental to the sport as a whole- as non-fencers, and fencers from other clubs would have no chance at viewing such a great event. I still don't know if I will have a chance to view the finals- as I offered to volunteer- and have recieved no reply yet.

[edew]

As oiuyt pointed out, the $300 is not the price of the tickets. That's a donation level that in return gives the donor two tickets. It's like $200 to your local PBS station for a coffee mug. For $400, you get a mug and a t-shirt.

Here, for $300, you get two tickets to the gold medal bouts. Well, that's not so bad. I'm guessing the gold medal bouts at the Roosevelt Hotel (or wherever it's at) are probably $10-15 for regular spectators. $10-15 is a reasonable amount to show that the event has some value, and not be so burdensome (especially in NY where $10-15 might get you from SoHo to central park south by taxi).

[incider]

1. Re: the availability to view the finals
a. all bronze and silver medal bouts will be held at Hunter
b. three of the five gold medal bouts will be held at Hunter
c. $10 buys you four days of admission to all preliminaries, all bronze
and silver bouts and all but two of the five gold medal bouts
d. accentuate the postive

2. Re: the sold out status of the Gold Medal Women's Team bouts
a. the venue only holds 600 seats
b. 400 seats are reserved for athletes, coaches and trainers
c. 100 seats are reserved for FIE, USFA and event officials and press
d. 100 seats are reserved for sponsors
e. accentuate the positive

3. Re: the goals of this event
a. host a world class tournament for the athletes
b. host a great event for interested spectators
c. help fencing in the US gain increased recognition from the media
and from corporate sponsors
d. accentuate the positive

[fencerontheline]

As oiuyt pointed out, the $300 is not the price of the tickets. That's a donation level that in return gives the donor two tickets. It's like $200 to your local PBS station for a coffee mug. For $400, you get a mug and a t-shirt.

Here, for $300, you get two tickets to the gold medal bouts. Well, that's not so bad. I'm guessing the gold medal bouts at the Roosevelt Hotel (or wherever it's at) are probably $10-15 for regular spectators. $10-15 is a reasonable amount to show that the event has some value, and not be so burdensome (especially in NY where $10-15 might get you from SoHo to central park south by taxi).

Eric- you couldn't buy tickets as a 'regular spectator'. The only one's available were the donation tickets (which sold out).

[fencerontheline]

1. Re: the availability to view the finals
a. all bronze and silver medal bouts will be held at Hunter
b. three of the five gold medal bouts will be held at Hunter
c. $10 buys you four days of admission to all preliminaries, all bronze
and silver bouts and all but two of the five gold medal bouts
d. accentuate the postive

2. Re: the sold out status of the Gold Medal Women's Team bouts
a. the venue only holds 600 seats
b. 400 seats are reserved for athletes, coaches and trainers
c. 100 seats are reserved for FIE, USFA and event officials and press
d. 100 seats are reserved for sponsors
e. accentuate the positive

3. Re: the goals of this event
a. host a world class tournament for the athletes
b. host a great event for interested spectators
c. help fencing in the US gain increased recognition from the media
and from corporate sponsors
d. accentuate the positive

I absolutely agree with the goals of the event- but the fact still remains that the actualization of these goals, and the wording of the letter, suggest that the event will isolate interested spectators. Both give off an air of elitism- undermining public interest in the sport. An obscure sport, where the price to watch an event is $300 a ticket will doubtlessly scare off many potential spectators, and as a consequent- scare off many potential fencers- young and old. Rather than fostering a public interest in the sport, events run like this one will serve to drive people away from the sport. A great example of this is the World Cup finals in Grand Central Station last year. Instead of bringing fencing to the public- it served to keep everyone(non-athletes) outside of a certain club from viewing the finals. In this case (This Grand Prix)- it is a great improvement- tickets are not doled out according to whim- but the price is too high, and the outreach- seemingly not far enough.

[edew]

Please note to whom this letter was addressed to. It wasn't sent out to your average Schmoe living in Manhattan. It was sent to Friends of Fencers Club. That's a select group of fencers, parents, and donors and such. People like the Crosses, the Meyers, and so forth.

I don't exactly like the idea that no off-the-street spectators can see the Grand Prix gold medal bouts at the Roosevelt venue. But that's just me. Maybe Rita has some idea for doing that.

[Craig]

Eric- you couldn't buy tickets as a 'regular spectator'. The only one's available were the donation tickets (which sold out).

Which sort of proves the market, so to speak.

[incider]

I guess the bluesman had it right - "One man's ceiling is another man's floor."

IMHP, if fencing is going to rise above its present status as an obscure sport (and insure its survival as an Olympic sport - and don't think that's not at risk) it needs to attract greater media attention (i.e. TV coverage) and greater corporate sponsorship. These two dual edged swords (media attention and corporate sponsorship) are inextricably linked. You need one to get the other and both want the other to go first.

Build it and they will come works in a field of dreams. In real life, it's not so simple.

Corporate sponsors want to see TV coverage before they commit. TV coverage want to see a great event in an exciting venue before they commit. A lot of money (corporate sponsorship levels of money) is required to stage a great event in an exciting venue.

The choice of staging of last year's high profile gold medal bouts at Grand Central Terminal and this year's high profile gold medal bouts in the Grand Ballroom were not made to exude elitism or exclude interested spectators.

The choice was made to create a succesion of great events (this is a multi year process) in exciting (albeit smaller) venues to cut through the clutter and secure greater media and corporate recognition for our sport.

By most accounts, last year's event at Grand Central was hugely successful. It was a great showcase for our sport and garnered more attention in the national media than any previous, non-Olympic tournament. The staging of the event at Grand Central attracted twice the audience of the year before and ten times more press coverage.

Hopefully, this year's event will be equally exciting and will build on last year's success and will help fencing move past the tipping point where we can capture some real TV coverage and some real corporate sponsorship. We all (well, most) want to see our events held in larger venues with greater access to a growing group of interested spectators.

So please, stop looking down at the floor and start looking up to the ceiling and enjoy your time at Hunter and root for our sport and your favorite fencers.