With the increase in meet ups around the country, organisers (and wannabe organisers) are feeling the pressure to provide bigger and better goodie bags for attendees. This could, in turn, be putting people off from organising their own metopes.
We’ve talked before about how to put together a goodie bag, but today, we’re going to look at them in a little more detail.
Goodie bags are an awesome bonus to an event. It’s so much fun to go to something (whether you’re invited or you requested to go) and to receive a little bag of treats at the end of the event just makes things a little sweeter. It’s also fun to be the one giving people the goodies!
Goodie bags should be (generally) an unexpected treat – of course, events will promise one to entice people to go, but on the whole, they shouldn’t be the main reason why you want to go and spend a few hours of your time somewhere. In fact, a goodie bag could be detracting from your event – rather than concentrating on organising an amazing time for people, organisers might spending all their time on organising treats for their guests and worrying afterwards about guests not blogging about the items in there, which may have been part of the deal with the companies giving you the items to go in the bags.
There is a perception that without a goodie bag, people won’t come to your event – however we prove that wrong every time #blogclub meets up. Getting together with some excellent local bloggers is our favourite thing to do – and worrying about what gifts to give would take up more time than we can spare.
If you still feel like you need to have a gift for guests (and why not – this is obviously up to you!) then why not consider doing something like a lucky dip? At the Christmas party that the South West Bloggers held a few years ago, they had lots of random gifts under the tree for each attendee. They were able to acquire better gifts rather than lots of little ones, and people still enjoyed having something given to them (especially since they were all wrapped up!)
How do you guys feel? Do you need a goodie bag to go to an event – or have you been put off organising a meet up because you don’t know who to approach for products? We love to hear all your opinions!
I’m currently wanting to plan a northern UK meetup as I couldn’t find any to attend on Twitter, but being a newbie blogger I was put off by the whole goodie bags thing and not having much reach with companies. http://www.laviecece.blogspot.co.uk xx
I can relate. But I don’t think you should give up.