Meetup Logistics - Gift Bags?

[pixachii]

Hey! I hope it's alright if I post this here. I thought this would be the easiest place for future event planners planners to find this information later.

So I'm co-hosting a fairly big Blythe & Doll meet. It's not going to be as big as PUDDLE, but some people will be traveling a little ways to get to it. So today, my co-planner asked me if we were going to have gift bags for all the attendees. I guess this is a standard staple of Blythe meets?

So my question is, have you ever been to a meet up where the host provided gift bags? If so, what items were in it? How were they presented?

And, along with that, if you were planning or gift bags for, say, around 20 dolly people, what kinds of items would you put in it? If you were receiving a dolly gift bag, what would you like to find in it?

Thanks!

[Blythetastic]

I think it really depends. People often bring little gifts to meets for other attendees but I don't think I've been to one where there were a gift bag from the hosts. Biz hosted a Blythe meet at her house last year and gave out Blythe glasses that she made (etched a design on them, very cute).

Some have brought random little gift bags (very small) with a few pieces of candy and their Blythe business card. Some people in the area make and sell Blythe stuff online so it's a little candy and a little advertisement. Another person who makes and sells many Blythe items brought little flower covered crowns as a gift to meet attendees at Biz's meet last year but I wouldn't say that's the norm for Blythe meets.

[vadafade]

Wow, what an exciting thing to be co-organizing, pixachii!

I've never gotten a gift bag at a dolly meet, and I've been to a few large (50+) and a few small (~10). I'm actually not a huge fan of gift bags, as I find them to be fairly useless/pointless and pretty high on the wasteful scale, so I've always felt relieved that the only dolly event I've attended where I did get a gift bag was at the ATL BJD Con, last October. (And, I mean, that's to be eected -- it's a con, so of course there will be gift bags.) That particular gift bag included a print-out of the schedule, several pieces of candy, a few mini/kawaii erasers, a BJD-themed notepad and pen, a free pair of 12-14 mm acrylic eyes (donated by a vendor), a ton of business cards (probably from all of the vendors), and a full color catalogue from the Monique wig vendor. Fun as it was, all of this was rather unceremoniously dumped into a plastic grocery bag and handed to each participant when they checked in.

Gift bags for the Blythe meet would be fun, but don't stress yourself out too much over it! Actually, I think it's perfectly fine to not do gift bags at all, since 1) it's a meet, not a full-blown convention with official schedule, panels, hotel blocks, etc.; 2) it's your first time co-hosting, and you might want to see how things flow/turn out this time around (maybe you'll discover that, for whatever reason, this particular group isn't the "gift bag type"); and 3) gift bags can be costly and time-consuming for the organizers. Depending on the number of attendees, sometimes total gift bag costs can run as high as $50 or $100, which wouldn't really be worth it, given that people typically end up tossing most of the contents anyway. Additionally, there might be more important aspects of the event that deserve that time/money instead, like hosting a special guest speaker or buying supplies for a DIY tutorial.

However, if you have a few attendees who are willing to donate some small, material items for everyone -- like the kind Blythetastic mentioned -- then I think it would make sense to do gift bags. If it were me, though, I would say no to gift bags this time around, just based on the fact that I wanted to feel things out without the extra worry/hassle of gift bags. And if everything went smoothly, I might think about doing gift bags for a future meet, if I felt so inclined!