All-Star Showcase Questions

[Mom2Cheergirls]

Was talking with some other moms about how we wish our gym did a showcase. We had a few questions and I thought this would be a good place. This is really geared towards the organizers of showcases and gym owners but anyone with knowledge your help would be greatly appreciated. Our big question or problem is that our gym space is too small to do a showcase. We have seen some gyms do this at high schools etc... but how do you handle the spring board floor issue. Does the gym transport theirs??? I am sorry if these seem like really idiotic questions. We just want to see how one would go about setting this up so we could be proactive in bringing the idea to our gym. Our gym is pretty receptive to ideas but generally more occurs when parents take the lead in the problem solving of some of our bigger dare I say crazier ideas.... so we figured the more knowledge we had as to how to go about this the more likely that this could occur with our gym in the future. We don't like to just whine and complain we do actually like to help where we can. Is there anywhere else where you all do showcases - there is some question as to if our schools would even allow a springboard floor to be brought in. I again apologize if I sound like a big dummy - again as a group of parents we are trying to somewhat understand the process before we bring it to our gym owner. We figure there is more to this than we know. Thank you to any advice and knowledge you can share.

 

[ACEDAD]

Yes, you would have to take up, transport and reinstall your spring floor.

 

[cupieqt]

We have ours at a local high school gym. We bring the panels of the floor only so we don't have to break down the whole floor. I just line up some dads to roll them up and haul them on a trailer.

It's really pretty simple but hugely beneficial for us. I bet if you volunteer to organize it you would get a green light from coaches.

 

[mstealtoyou]

Was talking with some other moms about how we wish our gym did a showcase. We had a few questions and I thought this would be a good place. This is really geared towards the organizers of showcases and gym owners but anyone with knowledge your help would be greatly appreciated. Our big question or problem is that our gym space is too small to do a showcase. We have seen some gyms do this at high schools etc... but how do you handle the spring board floor issue. Does the gym transport theirs??? I am sorry if these seem like really idiotic questions. We just want to see how one would go about setting this up so we could be proactive in bringing the idea to our gym. Our gym is pretty receptive to ideas but generally more occurs when parents take the lead in the problem solving of some of our bigger dare I say crazier ideas.... so we figured the more knowledge we had as to how to go about this the more likely that this could occur with our gym in the future. We don't like to just whine and complain we do actually like to help where we can. Is there anywhere else where you all do showcases - there is some question as to if our schools would even allow a springboard floor to be brought in. I again apologize if I sound like a big dummy - again as a group of parents we are trying to somewhat understand the process before we bring it to our gym owner. We figure there is more to this than we know. Thank you to any advice and knowledge you can share.

We've been having Showcases in Oct years and years and years. We started out using a local high school gym and then we outgrew that space. Moved a little further away to a bigger high school facility for 2 years and now we have it at the coliseum in Winston Salem. During all those year's we did transport our spring floor to the facilities and set them up. We also use the floor from a 2nd CEA location for the warm up area and tumbling strips. Our showcases are patterned after competitions and the warm up area is set up accordingly.

Having a Showcase is time intensive. It takes A LOT of man hours. Luckily we have a lot of teams to spread the work around. For example.....1 team might be in charge of Admission...(manning the tables all day and collecting spectator fee's from everyone. ) 1 team might be in charge of canned food collection. 1 team might be in charge of judges hospitality room. (Keeping it stocked with snacks, food and drinks) 1 team might be in charge of "security". (Checking wristbands at the doors leading into the gymnasium to make sure everyone has paid) There have been years that we've had parents grilling food to sell and drinks popcorn candy that kind of stuff and we've had years where the schools booster club handled that stuff. 2 teams might make sure the floors are moved and set up on time and 2 other teams are in charge of staying after and breaking down the floor and cleaning up.

These are just a few things I thought of off the top of my head to get you started. Hope I helped a little bit!!

 

[12stepCheermom]

Was talking with some other moms about how we wish our gym did a showcase. We had a few questions and I thought this would be a good place. This is really geared towards the organizers of showcases and gym owners but anyone with knowledge your help would be greatly appreciated. Our big question or problem is that our gym space is too small to do a showcase. We have seen some gyms do this at high schools etc... but how do you handle the spring board floor issue. Does the gym transport theirs??? I am sorry if these seem like really idiotic questions. We just want to see how one would go about setting this up so we could be proactive in bringing the idea to our gym. Our gym is pretty receptive to ideas but generally more occurs when parents take the lead in the problem solving of some of our bigger dare I say crazier ideas.... so we figured the more knowledge we had as to how to go about this the more likely that this could occur with our gym in the future. We don't like to just whine and complain we do actually like to help where we can. Is there anywhere else where you all do showcases - there is some question as to if our schools would even allow a springboard floor to be brought in. I again apologize if I sound like a big dummy - again as a group of parents we are trying to somewhat understand the process before we bring it to our gym owner. We figure there is more to this than we know. Thank you to any advice and knowledge you can share.

We use a high school gym and just bring the panels. The routines are full out but the tumbling is toned down based on what they're comfortable doing on a dead floor.

 

[cupieqt]

We use a high school gym and just bring the panels. The routines are full out but the tumbling is toned down based on what they're comfortable doing on a dead floor.

Exactly the same as us. No judges. No refreshments. No major undertaking if you're a small gym.
If you're CEA or ACE then that is a whole different story my friend!

 

[12stepCheermom]

Exactly the same as us. No judges. No refreshments. No major undertaking if you're a small gym.
If you're CEA or ACE then that is a whole different story my friend!

Yup. We've got tailgating in the parking lot and some bounce houses they'll bring out. We run a canned food drive as admission for the second Harvest food bank and do some fun little games between teams to give crossovers a breather, but all in all, it's not terribly difficult to organize or run. The biggest thing is getting folks to help move the panels to the school from the gym, but since we use a high school where we have a little...uh humm....leniency from the administration, we also use their seven panels of dead floor for our warm ups to get out of moving 16 panels from one location to another. We have a parent who's a DJ set up the backdrop and sound and lights and there you go. Not rocket science and it's a fun event for our kids.

But we're not CA, CEA or ACE either.

 

[elisekc9]

Was talking with some other moms about how we wish our gym did a showcase. We had a few questions and I thought this would be a good place. This is really geared towards the organizers of showcases and gym owners but anyone with knowledge your help would be greatly appreciated. Our big question or problem is that our gym space is too small to do a showcase. We have seen some gyms do this at high schools etc... but how do you handle the spring board floor issue. Does the gym transport theirs??? I am sorry if these seem like really idiotic questions. We just want to see how one would go about setting this up so we could be proactive in bringing the idea to our gym. Our gym is pretty receptive to ideas but generally more occurs when parents take the lead in the problem solving of some of our bigger dare I say crazier ideas.... so we figured the more knowledge we had as to how to go about this the more likely that this could occur with our gym in the future. We don't like to just whine and complain we do actually like to help where we can. Is there anywhere else where you all do showcases - there is some question as to if our schools would even allow a springboard floor to be brought in. I again apologize if I sound like a big dummy - again as a group of parents we are trying to somewhat understand the process before we bring it to our gym owner. We figure there is more to this than we know. Thank you to any advice and knowledge you can share.

We are a very small gym and just do ours at a local gymnastics facility that's big enough to house the parents. I like the idea of canned food for entry! Might suggest that for this year.

 

[CGAcheer]

we did our first one at our gym and couldn't fit everyone.

Then we moved to a local high school gym and used our connections to secure the facility at a very affordable cost. We rented a floor from a smaller relatively local competition company and had volunteer dads help with the floor set up. Our booster club ran the ins and outs of the details. I believe they paid high school cheer leaders to work concessions and tickets, so that the booster moms could watch their kids

 

[mstealtoyou]

I never said it was rocket science for us. Just time intensive. I can't speak for ACE or CA!

 

[cupieqt]

I never said it was rocket science for us. Just time intensive. I can't speak for ACE or CA!

I hope I didn't come off as condescending towards CEA or ACE when I stated it was a different story for you guys! I just imagine that it's a whole lot more work involved when you have multiple locations with so many teams. Nothing but respect and admiration for the organizing of those showcases!

 

[coach12]

We used to just do it at our gym, but now that we have 3 locations, we use a local high school. we rent a spring floor from a local company (saves us from having to bring our floor). we charge admission just to cover the high school & floor fees. we have 1 parent video all the teams & we try to get an outside judge just to give the teams a critique of their routines. It works great for us. It's very low maintenance & all our teams get to perform their routines before a big crowd & get the competition feel. We do ours a couple of weeks before our first comp.

 

[mommadonna]

We have a showcase type of event, but it is run by Universal Spirit. It is called the "Preseason Warmup", and our program takes up the morning. A couple of other small programs and school teams take up the afternoon portion of the schedule. It's great because the teams actually get a score from judges along with feedback on what they can do to improve their scores before the season starts. They don't actually compete against one another at this event, they just get the score and the feedback. It's a great "no pressure" event that friends and family can attend in unlimited numbers. It is held in an arena type venue that has plenty of space. We love it.

 

[Mom2Cheergirls]

Thanks everyone I went on a trip so was not able to see the responses and was dying to. mstealtoyou - Wow - thank you for telling me how you all progressed from small to large . We are definitely a small gym that is growing and probably would not unfortunately get the teams to run things on that scale - but certainly a smaller scale and having each team given a specific job is really an awesome idea that we could do even on a smaller scale. mommadonna I like the idea of an organizer do you know if that is pricey ??? I think if we can run it - we might keep costs down but I love options. Luckily we actually have some coaches who have a background judging as well - and they know people as well in fact they always do that in gym to all the gyms before comp to get some fresh eyes on what the teams looks like (just not a showcase done during practice). Everyone had such great ideas and support - I think we could pull it off. I don't think we could get one ready for this season but certainly could present this for next season as something we parents want to see. Did anyone have issues with their high school gyms being against the springboard coming in. Our school system is HUGE and they are very very protective of their spaces as they are a commodity for them - so I am little worried about that. I am going to send an email to our owner saying a group of us parents would like to work with them to make this something we do for next year (any advice from you all on how to spin it)- our owner is very nice so not concerned about that just think it might be something they find daunting (we have been growing quick with all the good and bad that comes with it - most good). Okay so if I get a go ahead - and they don't want to use our floor -for those who rent them how does one go about finding that. Did you call the competition companies??? I think I could find a space - and I am going to check our local gymnastic places and we do have a university near us as well to see if someplace may have a springboard where we could fit people but if I need to find a space and bring in a floor - I think moving our floor would be the one thing that would cause our owner to say no or not for a couple of years. I really get the feel from the parents that our gym needs something like this.....Sorry if this is disjointed just trying to work out my thoughts and coming to you all as I have found fierceboard to be just a great place to learn. Thanks for the support and advice!!! Sorry will go through and shimmy people later have to get the littlest off to school

 

[Morgankay88]

When we first started out we did our parent showcases at our gym. For the past 3 years we have been doing it at a high school. When we were in our "in between" stage... not quite big enough that we could afford renting out a place but too big to fit everyone we split our showcase in half. And did two seperate ones so the younger teams were in one showcase and then the older teams in another. Some stayed and watched the older teams but it still worked out well. Maybe that would be an option for yall.

We do it at a local high school now and do it on the night of the rec league cheer competition. The rec competition is put on by the high school cheer team as a fund raiser and they use our panels for the floor. So the high school cheer team is in charge of the set up and take down of the floor, which is nice for us. The high school's varsity team performs their competition routine at our showcase to which is a fun addition to the program.

We do sale tickets to cover the cost of renting the gym. And this year we are having a raffle and the money is going to our Special Athlete teams.

I like the idea of having an outside judge to give feedback. Its always nice to have an outside opinion... plus I think the athletes get pretty sick of hearing from us coaches.