How and what did you pay for at NPS?

[JeFFStumpo]

Team Bryan put on two fundraising shows (relatively successful - raised a couple hundred bucks) and tried to get sponsorship from local businesses (only successful in two instances - much love to our home venue, Revolution Cafe and owner Rola Cerone, for a hundred dollars and to Brazos Natural Foods for some food and cash). We found our biggest assets to be quasi-financial: had a room to practice in and crash on Monday night provided by Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, a relative of a teammate got us a good rate at a hotel in Austin for the other nights, and Bryan is only an hour and a half to two hour drive from Austin, meaning our travel costs were minimal. Food was catch-as-catch-can during the daytime, with my parents cooking two nights and my wife cooking for a third night (we've been hosting dinners at our house regularly over the summer).

[johnmiller37]

Killeen beat the concrete all year and barely raised hotel money. Poetry on this scale is new...plus our venue didnt let us charge to get in(it took away from money that could be spent on drinks) so we worked for tips. So a couple of us paid out of pocket for most of the  cost...and we asked team members for 100 total to make up the rest. I think we spent about 2200 on NPS this year

     PS this year we moved from the bar that wouldnt let us charge. I could vent allot about that.

[brucine]

Kind benefactors that see the need for poetry, particularly poetry from natives, are difficult to find here.  So we paid for everything ourselves. 

[Tim Stafford]

Chicago Mental Graffiti mainly pays its own way. We made a couple hundred off of our Finals event, and a couple more from featuring at local spots. We managed to pay for half of the hotel but paid all the travel ourselves.

That's why we can't wait for NPS to be in Madison.

[Scott Woods]

Columbus - Writers' Block raises funds with the "multiple streams of income" school of finance.
We sold raffle tickets (team individuals ands at the night), donations, online donations, door takes, team gigs...everything.
I make up a budget each year and set an amount per poet to cover the budget.  Then, when we take money in as a team or individually, I deduct from the per poet cost.

This year the per poet cost was initially something like $500.  By the time we got in the van, I was giving the poets money back.  This is, however, only the second year we were completely covered.

[simone]

We don't do a lot of fundraising for Boston-Cantab: most of our funding comes from door money at our show. On team slam nights and for the team features, we increase our door cost to $5 (from our usual $3), plus we sell chapbooks and book other local shows.

This year, we paid for NPS registration, DIPS registration airfare, 7 nights of hotels, team shirts, and a rental car. We came up about $400 short and the team absorbed the cost.

--simone

[puroshaggy]

San Antonio's PuroSlam:

Door-$3- pays for everything.  Hotel, travel, $150 spending money, registration, PSI memberships, etc.....we try to throw a BBQ or two during the summer also.....

[rcw]

Vancouver pays for travel, accomodation, PSI registration and a per diem for the poets and slammaster.  Almost all of our money comes from door sales at our regular slams.  This year we had some extra cash available because of IWPS in February.

Occasionally we will do specific fundraisers to boost the bank account but for the most part it's through the door.  In the past we have put together a CD from our finals to get some cash flowing.

[Dasha Kelly]

milwaukee lines up team features throughout the summer, sells CDs from the season finals and holds one signature event:  showcase and auction where guests get to preview our NPS-ready work, provide feedback (he's too loud, she should do something with her hands, this piece is great, that piece is weird, etc.) and bid for future performances by individual members and/or team.

Total effort usually cuts the hotel bill in half.  Purt'near paid for accommodations in full last year ...

dnk