We are hosting a seminar this weekend (10/15 and 10/16) here in Omaha Nebraska with American Kenpo Professor Ron Chapel. Sing-ups have not been what we expected... I setup a web site to promote it (chapelomaha.tk) I sent out flyers (snail mail) to 60 schools, I e-mailed 200 more addresses, walked into a dozen more dojos inteh area... but we still only have about 35 people registered. It's going to be really something, Prof. Chapel was a personal student of Ed Parker for over 20 years... some of you here on MAP know who he is. What can I do to get more people to attend? Can I expect that there will be people who show up on the day of the seminar without talking to us first (which is OK but makes it hard to plan haha). Is $120 dollars too much for 12 hours of training with a man who might be the top Kenpo Instructor in the world??? Any advice is appreciated. -David
$120 isn't entirely out of line, but it is enough that most people will have to seriously consider if they can afford it or not. With everyone feeling the crunch right now from increased fule prices, and the attendant increases in other cost of living areas, I think many have simply decided that $120 isn't realistic to their budget for something that is in effect strictly a luxury/entertainment. It's not part of their core training they already pay for (that would cover at least a months dues at most clubs, two at some), and though they may enjoy going, most probably reason they won't be set back in any serious way by not. Perhaps doing a second round of advertising with reduced rates for groups will make the propsition more realistic for more people. Perhaps something like three people for the price of one and a half? Sounds like you're crunched for time though, so in person and phone may be the best way to go. Good luck, and be well.
i don't know anything about that prof guy, so my first question would if people want to train with him. second of all, money. how much money is that in euros? ufortunately i had to miss a tkd seminar in germany with top tkd practitioners and coaches. friday evening, saturday all day long and sunday the first half of the day. the price was 60 euros. they stopped signing up at 355 members. also how popular is that martial art in your area?
Thanks for the advice... we do have a group discount, 5th person free in every group. Also we had an early registration discount and got a few in on that. There isn't a lot of kempo around here, mostly TKD and HKD, but we tried to make the point in our adverts that the material was NOT specific to Kempo and could benefit any striking style. We also included free dinner on Saturday at a lcoal Chinese place I'm not sure what the cost in euros is.. I think a euro is slightly higher than a dollar now... so somewhere near 150 euros maybe?
I will say this, I wish I had the time to get down there for it. I will also say this, seminar seem to be tricky to pull off lately, I have seen a couple up here cancelled due to lack of registrations...I think the availablity of MA gyms/dojos may have decreased the interest in seminars from the big name people. I wish you luck in pulling it off, it's sure to be a great seminar, I did list it on my web sites calendar of events, it's brand new, not getting much traffic yet, but it's about the best I can do to help...
If the guy is already teaching, than more students will not hurt, even for less pay. So every fifth is free as suggested earlier may be a good thing.
it definitely is a good thing. don't forget to advertise the seminar. put up the posters around the town, near schools and martial arts schools. why not a commercial on the local radio?! no matter how many people show up, it would definitely be good to hold the seminar. let people know that you're serious about it. don't forget to advertise the seminar afterwards. send an article to the local papers. send it to news pages online...
120 is a decent price for the length of training. Perhaps the people won't attend because of "big heads". I've seen it in other systems. Sometimes the instructor has a great deal of influence. If the teacher of these schools says something slightly negative about it ... more chance you'll have nil from that club there. Just try to promote the <profanity removed> outta it. The next time your gearing up for a seminar ... talk and get to know some of the other teachers in your area. Support their seminars and events and they will usually return the favor. good luck eric <sarge>
Fifth free is a start, but I would consider going a bit deeper than that. Let's face it, every working class person here (many of whom populate the ranks of most MA schools) is feeling the crunch of increased living costs. You could probably get some good results by calling every person who has registered and telling them if they get a friend to sign up you'd let the friend in for $90, and return $30 to them. This would both incentivise the people already attending to become active recruiters for you and would conquer the $100 psychological barrier for those who are on the fence about signing up. This really isn't too large a discount and with the event comming up fast it behoves you to be flexible. The fact is you could only make more money with this strategy as those getting the discount would have to bring another paying attendee with them. Whatever you do, don't expect a large last minute at-the-door turnout. I've organzied a good number of such events and found them to be the type of thing people plan for rather than do spur of the moment. Expect them to account for less than 5% of the total showing. Good luck and be well.
Wow. Ron Chapel is an amazing teacher. He taught at Cliff Stewart's gathering last year and was very impressive.
Have you or your school supported anybody else's seminars or tournaments? Getting some face time at other people events accomplishs two things. The first is of course reciprical (one hand always washs the other), and two shows what your guys might know that other schools don't
That's all excellent advice! I think we did suffer form the "big head" syndrom a bit... there's a big school in the same style only a few hours away, and only the owner and head instructor are coming. not one student. that was disappointing. And yes we go to other school's seminars and open house too. For a while I had a "meetup.com" group for martial arts here in town, and met a few teachers there. Those guys have been a big help. I didn't do muc pubic advertising, although I did distribute flyers to lots of schools and on campus of the 2 universities here in town. Next time I will be hanging flyers in grocery stores, sporting goods stores... anywhere.
I think promoting Mr. Chapel would help. I've not heard of him but that doesn't mean anything. And $120 is pretty stiff for anyone to come from very far away. If its an overnight thing then you have hotels, food....
I actually should have said it was a lot for someone you weren't familiar with. I've been to some also and they were in that price range.
On the website I built for the seminar, I included links to Prof. Chapel's website. Also on the flyers and covers letters I sent out I covered a brief history of his time with Ed Parker. Also, I arranged for a nearby hotel to offer discounts to seminar attendees. What I'm trying to say is, yes those are good ideas
Ask your local news station if they are interested in recording a demo of you guys and putting it on air. We did this before our school's seminar. Free advertising, and the newspeople are happy because they don't have to work hard to find a "story" that day.
