Original Message:
Sent: 07-23-2024 05:58 AM
From: Erin Dams
Subject: Pet Costume Contest --- Need Info
We host/sponsor the annual Pet Costume Contest at our town's Christmas event and typically have 20-30 entries (usually 40+ pets since some register all their pets as one entry). For our event, I recruit 3-5 judges from our Board of Directors, Staff, Volunteers, and Community Partners/significant Donors.
The people sign up for the event from 4:30pm-6:00pm the day of, at the event site. Then it starts at 6:30pm and usually wraps up by 9:00pm. We collect people and pets' names and assign them a number. They are called up in order of their number and have 1-2 minutes to "share." Some people share their pet's story, personality, or show off tricks. They can have their multiple pets as one entry if they want. One year, a group of 4 elderly small dogs in a wagon won Funniest as "Santa's Lunchbox." The dogs were each dressed ina food costume and the wagon was decorated as the lunchbox!
Our judges rate them between 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) in four categories: Best Holiday Theme, Crowd Favorite, Most Creative, and Funniest Costume. At the end, we tally up all the totals and pull our four winners. I don't let anyone win 2 categories; if someone already won one and technically wins another, I'll give that prize to the 2nd place person as the winner. I make the prize baskets that the winners are awarded.
Here's the event page from last year: https://www.downtownroanoke.org/do/delta-dental-dickens-of-a-christmas-night-3-featuring-roanoke-valley-spca-pet-costume-contest
And last year's news story: https://www.wdbj7.com/video/2023/12/16/dickens-pet-costume-contest/
------------------------------
Erin Dams
Community Relations Coordinator
Roanoke Valley SPCA
Roanoke VA
Original Message:
Sent: 07-22-2024 04:04 PM
From: Karen Kirsch
Subject: Pet Costume Contest --- Need Info
We are going to hold a pet costume contest. Have others held these? Can I get some tips -- logistic info -- ideas -- etc, etc? Happy to share what we come up with after I've put in place.
#FundraisingandDevelopment
------------------------------
Karen Kirsch
Founder
Spayed and Aid
KY
------------------------------