NEWSLINE STORY

published November-December 2015

Connecting to Showcase Horseshoe Pitching and the World Tournament

by Stu Sipma, NHPA President

As part of my duties as World Tournament Coordinator, I attended the Connect Sports Marketing Convention August 26-29 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This conference is an opportunity for the NHPA to showcase our event to a wide variety of cities throughout the country. Over 150 planners attended this conference, along with another 100 sponsors.

During the three-day conference, I had over 47 appointments with various tourism and convention and visitors bureau groups. There were also educational seminars each day to train organizers in the field of planning and executing their events. Once again, the interest in horseshoes and the prospect to bid for the World Tournament remains high. It was interesting to hear stories from the tourism and convention and visitors bureau groups about how the economy has affected their budgets. Some regions of the United States are doing great, while others are struggling to maintain.

From this conference, I am happy to report the following locations have expressed an interest in bidding for the 2018 World Tournament: Knoxville, Tennessee and Charleston, West Virginia. We also have many other locations that have expressed a high interest in bidding.

Publicity/Promotion Director/2^nd Vice President Tina Hawkins and I will be attending the TEAMS (Travel, Events, and Management in Sports) Conference in Las Vegas November 9-12. I look forward to these events as I believe they benefit the sport of horseshoes by not only drawing interest in sites bidding, but also in raising awareness among sports marketing groups from all over the country that horseshoes are played at a competitive level.

Regional Directors, your local tourism and convention and visitors bureau group may contact you, as I provided them your name(s) to start the communication. I have encouraged them to team up with their local horseshoe clubs before starting the bidding process, as I have found that teams comprised of both horseshoe pitchers and tourism groups seem to be more successful during the bidding process.