Sponsorship & Advertising
Put your name on the county's front yard
Sponsorship is the reason the Olmsted County Free Fair has never charged admission. It closes the gap between what the grounds cost to run and what rental and parking bring in, and it puts your name in front of the 200,000-odd people who come through these gates in a year. Every tier below is built around real visibility, not a logo buried on a poster.
Annual partnership levels
Community Partner
For the shop down the road
$1,500 / year
- Name and logo on the website sponsor page
- One social media thank-you post a year
- Recognition in the printed fair program
- Two weeks of digital marquee slide time
- Two complimentary fair parking passes
Grounds Partner
Seen everywhere, all week
$5,000 / year
- Everything in Community Partner
- Your banner on a main walkway for the full fair
- Logo placement in the digital fair program
- Six weeks of digital marquee slide time
- Four fair parking passes and two grandstand seats
Presenting Partner
Your name on a headline event
$12,000 / year
- Everything in Grounds Partner
- Presenting rights on one featured event — derby, tractor pull or concert
- Logo on the grandstand screen throughout your event
- Public address recognition at every session of your event
- Six parking passes, four grandstand seats, two reserved stalls
Signature Partner
Name a building or an arena
$25,000 / year, three-year term
- Everything in Presenting Partner
- Naming rights to one building or arena for a three-year term
- Permanent exterior signage, produced and installed by the county
- Year-round marquee presence on both digital boards
- Ten parking passes, eight grandstand seats and reserved parking
Digital marquee advertising
Two full-color digital boards face the road at the grounds entrances, running a rotation of up to fourteen slides at six seconds apiece. That gives a single slide roughly 43 appearances an hour, every hour, whether or not anything is happening on the grounds. Slides are booked by the week and you can change your artwork as often as you like.
- Board size
- 8'10" × 23'11", two boards
- Rotation
- Up to 14 slides
- Slide duration
- 6 seconds
- Traffic estimate
- About 10,000 vehicles a day past each board
- Artwork format
- JPEG or PNG, 1920 × 1080 px, RGB
$140 per slide per week
- 5% off a 26-week commitment
- 10% off a 52-week commitment
À la carte options
| Placement | Fee | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Arena banner, Graham Arena Complex | $250 per event | Your 2 ft × 6 ft banner hung inside the arena, hung and struck by our crew |
| Grandstand banner | $350 per event | Rail or back-wall placement facing the covered grandstand seating |
| Full-page fair program ad | $500 | Printed program handed out at every gate through fair week |
| Website event-page sponsor | $300 per year | Your logo and link on the event listing page of grahampark-demo.org |
| Public address announcement package | $200 per event | Three 30-second reads between classes or between acts |
| Free Fair gate sponsor | $1,500 per fair | Your name on one entrance gate for all seven days of the fair |
In-kind & community support
Not every business is in a position to write a check, and we would rather have you than not. Product, services and volunteer hours count: a restaurant feeding the setup crew, a landscaper trimming the entrance beds, a lumberyard donating stall lumber, an electrician donating a Saturday. In-kind partners are recognized on the same sponsor board as cash sponsors, at the value of what they contributed.
How it works
- 1
Reach out
Call or email the events office with the opportunity you have in mind, or ask us to suggest one for your budget.
- 2
Talk it through
We walk through the benefits, the timing and anything custom you want to build into the package.
- 3
Sign the agreement
A short written agreement setting out the term, the fee and exactly what the county is delivering.
- 4
We handle the rest
Production, installation, scheduling and promotion are on us. You get the recognition and a wrap-up report.
Sponsorship levels, marquee rates and benefits shown here are illustrative planning figures for this design-concept site. All advertising placed on county property is subject to the Olmsted County advertising policy and confirmed in writing before it runs.
Want to talk through a package that fits your budget? Reach the events office and we’ll put something together.