Big Cat Rescue Fur Ball 1999-2009
The 2009 Fur Ball is less than a week away and Jamie and I were reminiscing on the Fur Ball days of old...
The very first big event that we had was a cookout at the sanctuary in 1999 and we called it the Safari Benefit. In those days children under the age of 10 were not allowed to visit the sanctuary. Our Education Department had not yet been launched so once a year we began something we called Family Day. At this writing I don't know how far back that practice went, but it was always well attended. Our first benefit was styled after the way we did Family Days.
We had a very small parking area, so we had to limit Family Days and our first on site events to 100 people. The first Safari Benefit was on May 5, 1999 from 4PM till 9PM. We charged 25.00 per person for the hamburgers and hot dogs, which were prepared by our volunteers, and we had entertainment that included belly dancers, fire spinners and Indian story tellers. Our major sponsor was Carpet Max. I think they donated a free carpet shampoo to the auction. Our other silent auction items were things like Meade notebooks and plastic pens as well as a few pieces of art that we hung up on the inside of an empty cage. This event netted $6,348.71 and let me tell you, we were excited about every single cent of it.
Until then our biggest Family Days only brought in around $1,800.00 on really good days. We knew we were on to something good here. The next year we decided to try it again so in June of 2000 we reported that we had raised over $2,000.00 from our Safari Benefit. Neither of us remembers why the net dropped so much the following year, other than the fact that the first year had been something so new for us that all of us were really pumped up and did a lot more one on one marketing of the event to everyone who would listen. This was also just after the Y2K scare and a lot of people were still thinking the world was coming to an end.
The 2000 event was a progressive dinner where guests paid $25.00 to walk around the sanctuary grounds and sample foods brought by our volunteers, but thanks to Publix, Chik-Fil-a, Polar Cup and Einstein Bagels we could offer a lot more food. We tried running our silent auction online as well as live, which turned out to be a nightmare of Siberian Tiger proportions. Our office was in one room of the tiny trailer we now call the E-Center and as the bidding came down to the last few minutes I was racing back and forth from my computer to the bid sheets to try and make it fair for our on site and off site bidders. This was in the era of dial up.
The entertainment included more belly dancers, Indian flute players and fire spinners on the beach. The festivities lasted until 9PM.
We don't have much information on the 2001 Safari Benefit but I know that we never were able to get good enough participation from food vendors to pursue that route again and there was no way we were ever going to try and do the silent auction on the Internet and at the event simultaneously again. We charged $25.00 per person and the event was held in March from 4PM until 6PM and my guess was that we just couldn't deal with another late night of cleaning up after everyone left. The event raised over $5,000.00
In 2002 one of our volunteers offered to take over the event which had been previously Jamie Veronica's domain. The volunteer changed the name to Catspurrilla to play off of the Gasparilla theme. I remember her creating a huge banner with a new logo and name for the event. She really knocked herself out on this one and admission was $25.00 per person, but VIP tickets were twice that and the benefit was that only the VIP's got to pet a small cat. (I can't believe we used to do that and we stopped in 2003!) Catspurrilla raised $6,450.00 and the volunteer burned out, and nearly had a nervous breakdown, by the time it was over. No one wanted to take on yet another big event at the sanctuary so it fell back on Jamie Veronica to make something happen.
The spring came and went in 2003 with no event. We had been raising money with a week long event that we called the Haunted Trail. It was a long week of working deep into the night to do a night tour and then scare people as they walked through areas of the sanctuary that did not have cats where we set up "scares." It was late into the summer when Jamie came to me and said, "I want to do a gala for the sanctuary, where people dress up nice and eat a nice dinner and dance. I want to do something totally different than anything we have ever done before...and the deposit is going to be $5,000.00."
I nearly fell out of my chair. That was more money than we raised at most of our events and that was just the deposit! We weren't sure any of our supporters had fancy clothes or knew how to dance. We sure didn't. She was insistent though so I told her to go ahead. I was feeling optimistic. I had just met the love of my life six months back on Nov. 1, 2002. Howie was new enough to all of this that he didn't know just how outrageous this idea was.
Jamie christened the event the Fur Ball and arranged with A La Carte to rent half of their ball room. The only date the hall was available was 10/3/03 which meant the Fur Ball would be right before the Haunted Trail, but we were all excited about doing our first off site gala and figured we could make it work. Tickets were $50.00 per person to cover all of the added expense and $75.00 for VIP's who got to come early and drink free Turi Tiger Tinis & Champagne.
Howie had built relationships with Jaguar of Tampa who was our first major sponsor and had secured the free champagne. As the night was quickly approaching and ticket sales were not as robust as we had expected, Howie pulled out his Rolodex and began calling practically every person he had ever spoken to and invited them to the Fur Ball. We were worried that we wouldn't even raise enough to cover the expenses, but since we had already paid for all of the food, Howie figured that at least his friends would all have a good party. Our biggest ROI to our sponsors was that our website was getting 120 visitors per day. At this writing in 2009 we get more than 4,000 daily website visitors.
The night continued with a never-ending silent auction spread, gourmet vegetarian fair, African drumming sessions, door prizes, a Bahamas Vacation giveaway, a wild live auction hosted by Channel 8 News Anchor Gayle Guyardo, Conga Limbo Lines, and an amazing fire eating act put on by Prince Rupert. Much to our relief and amazement 300 guests attended and we netted $22,000.00!
We learned the next morning that while we were all partying to save tigers from being exploited, two of the world's worst tiger exploiters (in our opinion) had been up all night partying and using Cocaine in Vegas which resulted in Roy Horn being attacked and nearly killed by one of his performing tigers. The tide began to shift and the St. Pete Times ran a story, quoting us, called "Maybe They Don't Belong in Cages and on Stages."
Cox Radio donated $100,000.00 in air time ads for the Fur Ball and 850 people showed up for the 2004 Fur Ball despite the fact that we had faced four hurricanes in six weeks. Tickets were $50.00 and $75.00 VIP and the style of event was again a buffet. Entertainment included a comedian, drumming circle and Prince Rupert's fire eating act. By midnight we had netted $40,465.00 for the cats.
The 2005 Fur Ball was a Roaring Twenties Theme the next year and we doubled the price of the tickets to $100.00 and $150.00 for VIP's and raised a net of $60,000.00 with only 500 attendees. This enabled everyone to have a better time because there were no lines and our volunteers found it much easier to deal with 500 people at check out as opposed to 850 like we had last year at lower prices. We discovered last year that at 55.00 we were just breaking even and for people for whom that was a lot of money we found that they did not spend money in the auctions so we had to evaluate whether the Fur Ball was a donor thank you party or a fundraiser and deciding it was the latter made the agonizing decision to double the price.
The 2006 Fur Ball had more
than 500 attendees and netted more than $52,000.00. As always it was
THE party of the year and included a sit down gourmet dinner and chocolate fountains as well as all of the usual ways we have fun such as drumming, live music, dancing and the live and silent auctions with International trips.
Party of the Year That's what a lot of people in the know called the 2007 Fur Ball. The Fur Ball netted more than $120,000.00 with a sell out crowd of 700 people. More than double the previous year! We had our first King of Feast contest where chefs competed for the prize as the most awesome looking and tasting creation. See the entire recap including photos of Bo Derek who won our first ever Guardian Angel Award and our colorful, cat themed guest here: http://www.bigcatrescue.org/000archives/2007FurBall.htm
The 2008 Fur Ball was an African Safari Theme and netted over $110,000.00! What makes this particularly remarkable is that it did so during the worst week the stock market has ever experienced. Over 550 big cat supporters had a blast dining, dancing, shopping in the Bargain Sale, tasting and voting in the cake contest, playing the Wheel of Fur-Tune casino table and bidding in the silent auction and live auctions. Spirited bidders in the live auction won exotic trips see lions in South Africa, tigers in Thailand, visits Paris, Brussels and London and golf at St. Andrews.
Here we are; a year later and it is Fur Ball time again: October 9, 2009. Will you be a part of our history this year and make some memories to last a lifetime?
Reserve your "SPOTS" Now!
Please join us at this not-to-miss event. Purchase your tickets online now or give us a call and order your tickets over the phone. For more info or phone reservations contact CustomerService@bigcatrescue.org or call 813.850.7052
Win a Rolex Watch from AvantGold Jewelers: Raffle tickets are $20 each, or the best value is 7 for $100. The drawing will be held at the 2009 Fur Ball, approximately 10:00 PM EST Friday October 9, 2009. You do not need to be present to win - winner will be notified by telephone if not present. For watch details and to purchase tickets online click HERE
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