Your first event: a sponsorship guide with no fantasy numbers
18 June 2026 · 2 min read · Simple Sponsors team
Every guide says show sponsors your past results. Useful, unless this is your first event and there are no past results.
First-time organizers close sponsors every week anyway. They do it by selling what they do have: a specific audience, a credible plan, and low-risk ways for a brand to say yes.
Sell the plan, not the history
You cannot show last year’s photos, so show this year’s work: the venue booked, the speakers or artists confirmed, the registration count so far, the communities promoting it. A pitch that says two hundred registered, three weeks out, venue confirmed carries real evidence, just of a different kind.
Price for a fast yes
Your first sponsors are buying a bet on you. Keep the bet small. An entry tier a local business can approve without a committee gets you logos on the poster, and each logo makes the next conversation easier. You are building the track record you will sell next time.
Offer a performance-flavoured deal
If a sponsor hesitates on price, offer structure instead of discount: a base amount now, a top-up if attendance crosses your target. It shows confidence, caps their risk, and gives you a reason to report real numbers afterwards. Keep it simple enough to settle in one message.
Do not fake it
No invented footfall, no borrowed photos, no implied endorsements. Sponsors talk to each other, and a first edition caught inflating numbers has no second edition. If a number is a projection, label it a projection. Credibility is the only compounding asset a new organizer has.
Get the operational basics visible
A named contact, a real phone number, packages with prices, and payment details a sponsor can act on. Half of sponsorship trust is just looking organized. Publishing your event on Simple Sponsors gives you that structure out of the box: a checked listing, clear packages, applications in one queue, and direct payment to you. It is free for your first event, and during our launch every organizer gets all Pro features free until 31 July 2026.