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In Part four of my post on bingo specials, we will be talking about using merchandise as prizes. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)  Using merchandise, you can promote your game very effectively while still giving the players what they want.  For example, now would be a great time to have a back to school special, where halls could give away computers, laptops, iPods or any other kind of merchandise that would be school related.  You could even give away tickets to high school or college sports if your customers were interested enough.

I know that we used to give away cars at some specials.  We would have a car that was part of a progressive prize, and if it didn’t go after a while, we would hold a special where the car was guaranteed to go.  But you do not necessarily have to give out large money prizes to bring in the crowds.  You can have merchandise prize specials where every bingo player that won by themselves receives a t-shirt or some other prize.  We had one special where we gave away stuffed toy panda bears that wore a little t-shirt that said “It was Panda-monium when I won at bingo!”.  We had great success. We had more people come in and play that then if we had just been playing a normal game.

You could also give away daubers.  Every player loves daubers!  There is a downside, if you hall sells daubers, then it will probably have the dauber sales drop off for awhile after the special, but hopefully you will have made up for that loss by the amount of people playing the special.  There is a multitude of different specials that you can play.  It just depends upon what you think your players would enjoy.  Sit down and talk with some of your best players.  Ask them what they would like to play for.  You will not only get the benefit of finding out what they like, you will make them feel as if they have a stake in what the hall does.

If you have played any merchandise specials, let me know what they were in either the comments section or you can always email me at bigbad@bigbadbingoblog.com.