Most first-time dance event organizers think about sponsors the wrong way. They send a PDF with their logo, where the sponsor can place theirs and send it to fifty companies. That is basically asking for a donation, and most companies are not into it. To secure a real sponsorship for your event, you want to offer a partnership. That means, you want to offer something that is a real win-win situation.
I recently ran a 90-minute online workshop on exactly this topic: securing event sponsors. This article is the essence of the content, condensed for reading. It works for dance events, and any small event where an audience meets in a real place.
A sponsorship is a deal, not a donation
Before anything else, we need to get our words and mindset right, because they decide how we think:
- A donation is support without equivalent commercial benefits.
- A grant is funding awarded against criteria and conditions.
- A sponsorship is support in exchange for agreed benefits.
I’m only talking about the third one here. A sponsorship connects two objectives, from different parties. Our event needs money, products, services or promo. The sponsor needs awareness, product trial, sales, consented leads, client experiences, recruitment or community involvement.
The whole method is about one sincere question: “What could we help this organization achieve?“
If you cannot finish that sentence for a potential sponsor, don’t contact them. Research further.
Know what you need before you ask
Most sponsorship requests fail way before they are sent. They fail because the organizer does not know what they are asking for. To avoid that, we answer four things, in writing, before looking for sponsors:
- What do we need. Cash, products, services or promotion? In-kind support, meaning a product contribution, only saves you money if it can replace an expense you would otherwise have. Free drinks, you would never have bought, do nothing to help your budget.
- How much. What contribution would actually be useful?
- By when. What is your decision deadline? Means “when do you need to know if it works to make the event happen.”
- Net benefit. What will it cost you to deliver the benefits you will agree on? Factor in staff time, space, production. For example, a €1,000 sponsorship that costs you €800 to fulfil is only a €200 sponsorship.
Facts first, forecasts labelled
Your credibility is your most important asset. Protect it.
Document every number you use. Jot down its source and date. Label forecasts as forecasts. And never mix up different measures. Example: followers, reach, impressions and attendees are not the same thing. If your last edition had 180 paid attendees, say that. If you are targeting 220 next time, say you are targeting it.
The moment a skilled marketing person finds one inflated number, every number you said becomes worthless.
The right sponsor is rarely a global brand
Small events chase Red Bull or Nike, while ignoring the shop around the corner. Not a smart move. Your most plausible sponsors are usually:
- Existing suppliers and business relationships you already have
- Local employers and community businesses
- Businesses that serve or want to serve your attendees (dancewear, physio, fitness studios, local food)
- Brands that already support similar events
- Introductions through your own professional network
Before you pitch to anyone, run them through four checks: fit (is your audience relevant to their business goals?), access (can you actually talk to person who is calling the shots?), capacity (is your request plausible for a company of that size?) and timing (can they make a decision before your deadlines?). If a sponsor fails more than one of these, get them off your list, because going for them will only distract you from contacting someone who might be a better fit.
One sponsor, one objective, one clear offer
The most common pitch mistake is a generic offer, sent to everyone. That’s spam with a logo. It makes everyone who reads it put you in the “no serious business” basket.
Instead, build one offer per company, using this formula:
For [brand], we could help achieve [objective] by providing [activity or benefit] to [relevant audience]. We would deliver [specific outputs], measure [appropriate indicator], and request [cash or in-kind contribution].
This is your idea to discuss. It gets your foot in the door. An example from my workshop: a fictional event pairs with a local fitting service. The organizer offers a foyer station, one event-email placement and two social posts. The retailers staff would man the station and bring a trackable booking offer. Both sides measure interactions and bookings. That is specific, small, and easy to check.
Price the value, not your follower count
In most cases, a sponsorship price is not a formula with your follower count in it. It should be based on four things:
- your direct delivery costs and staff time (what does it cost you to make that happen)
- the rights and access you offer (and how scarce they are)
- sponsor relevance and market comparisons
- and whether the net contribution to your event is worthwhile (does the money actually help you or nah)
Run a quick viability check: if you propose €900 and it costs you €250 to deliver, the contribution is only €650. That checks if that deal works for you. Also clarify who pays for activation, and check the tax treatment before you promise numbers. If you have not done your basic business math yet, I wrote about calculating your real expenses and about pricing your dance classes. The same discipline applies here.
Outreach: short, relevant, easy to answer
We have to find the right person first. In small businesses that is the owner. In larger organizations the departments are called the marketing, brand, partnerships or community team. A warm introduction (meaning someone you already know introduces you) beats everything, but a general inbox can work too if you ask one simple question: “Who is the best person to speak with about local event partnerships?”
The first message has one job: earn the conversation, that makes all the difference. Keep it to roughly 80–120 words. Include one relevant observation about them (one, and make it real, not a generic compliment), one honest fact about your event, one possible idea, and one easy next step. Something like:
“Hi Terry, I noticed you offer fittings for adult dancers. I organize a local dance workshop and social. Our last edition welcomed 180 paid attendees, 70% of them from within 40 km. Could an optional fitting-information station with a trackable booking offer be relevant to your team? Would you be open to a 15-minute call next week?“
Then follow up. No reply is not a complete answer. Send the message, follow up after about a week with one useful extra detail, send one final brief follow-up, then pause and respect the answer. Track every contact: status, last contact, next action, date.
An important note on Austrian laws – just because I live there: In Austria, cold outreach (means simply contacting people out of the blue) is strictly regulated and generally prohibited without prior consent, especially for commercial emails and phone calls under the Austrian Telecommunications Act (TKG 2021), which does not provide a general B2B exemption. Your exemption is traditional postal mail.
The conversation informs the proposal
When they reply, your job changes: Listen closely and ask the following questions if you didn’t get an answer from listening:
- What would you want a partnership to achieve?
- Which audience matters most to you?
- What has worked, or not worked, before?
- How are budget and approval decisions handled in your company?
- What would success look like to you?
Then change your offer based on what you heard. If the sponsor says they have no staff for an event station but want more in-store appointments, your foyer station dies and a booking campaign is born.
When objections come, negotiate scope, instead of price. Turn “your event is too small” into a discussion about if your specific local audience fits their objective. “We have less budget” turns into a smaller scope. “Can you guarantee sales?” needs an honest no. We need to commit to agreed deliverables and reporting. And it is acceptable to conclude there is no fit. Not taking a bad deal is a good result.
Deliver, report, renew
Get the important details in writing:
- who delivers what and when
- the fee and payment dates
- permissions and approvals
- exclusivity (define category, duration and rights before pricing it)
- cancellation arrangements
- reporting.
Assign someone on your team to be responsible for fulfilment. That’s the person who will have the stuff for this sponsor on their personal to-do list.
Decide how success will be assessed before the event, and separate what you delivered from what resulted. Number of logos seen is awareness, but rarely a good metric for local sponsors. Completed demonstrations of a product or service are trials. Booked dates or sales are more likely to move the needle for local businesses.
After the event, collect the numbers and send a report. What your promised, what you delivered. Present your results with evidence and mention limitations. Also add what you would improve. A sponsor who gets an honest report, with a plan, has a reason to say yes next year. A sponsor who gets silence will ignore your next mail.
All of this gets better with repetition. The first sponsor is hard. The tenth sponsor will be easier.
Frequently asked questions about finding event sponsors
How do I find sponsors for a dance event?
Start with businesses that already serve your audience. Check fit, access, capacity and timing before pitching, and build one tailored offer per company instead of a generic deck.
How much should I charge for event sponsorship?
Price from your delivery costs, the rights and access you offer, market comparisons and the net contribution to your event.
What should a sponsorship pitch email include?
80–120 words: one relevant observation about the company, one honest fact about your event, one possible partnership idea, and one easy next step: a short phone call or meeting to talk it through.
AI-assisted
I created this post with the assistance of AI. It analyzed my original idea, and pointed out topics that I had missed in my original draft. This way of use is what I describe in my article about responsible AI use in rule 3, when I talk about using it as an adversary, not as an author. It also worked as an editor, pointing out when I explained things in a complicated way, so I can rewrite it to be more easily comprehensible.