AS I SEE IT
Bob Magee
Pro Wrestling Between the Sheets
PWBTS.com
"Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless
people are being dragged from their homes. Families are torn
apart. Men, women, and children separated. Children come
home from school to find that their parents have
disappeared"
-Anne Frank's 1/13/43 diary entry
This season, 154 indie promotions in 28 states and 5 Canadian provinces held a total of 219 shows and events, with a final figure for the season coming
to 27,179 toys, 29,350 pounds (well over 14 TONS)
of canned/non-perishable food, $714,450.91 US in
cash donations.112 backpacks/sets of school supplies,
a van filled with winter jackets and clothing, another 50
winter coats, 2 boxes of bedclothes/linens, 20 Halloween
outfits, a "number of large bags" of pet food and more.
As I said last week, why do I make such a big deal about it?
To make a point each year to show how these very same
promotions are, in fact, major assets to their communities
and to those they help.
Here are a few more thoughts on promoting your Holiday
charity events for NEXT season (or ANY time throughout the
year), which will also work for your shows in general...
What are some of the things that the most successful efforts
had in common?
1) A major commitment to whatever charitable effort the
promotion chooses. This means more than a last-minute
decision to do a benefit show. This means planning ahead of
time...making sure that fans know well in advance. Making
sure that every social media post, every press release,
every promo on a TV show (cable or streaming) mentions it.
2) The most successful efforts see promotions worked
together with local businesses and groups. Revolt
Ministries/Stuff The Bus Toy Drive, Prairieland Independent
Wrestling, and United Wrestling Coalition's annual Toys for
Tots show involved networking with area businesses and
community organizations. Promotions can use these business
and community organizations to help in publicizing their
event, and to ask them to contributing to toy/food/financial
collections themselves.
Boxes for Toys for Tots (local Marine Corps Reserve groups
often can provide upon request) or for other groups, and
canned/non-perishable food donation boxes can also be
located at these businesses and organizations as well as at
wrestling shows, as well as at the sites these organizations
run shows helping to publicize events.
3) Promotions should partner, when possible, with
established charitable organizations that have good
reputations in their local area. Fans will then know that
donations will be used effectively, which may increase
giving at these events. Most important, promotions should
work with agencies that serve the needs of their local
communities (or that involve a cause that they personally
believe in/are committed to).
4) PUBLICIZE, PUBLICIZE, PUBLICIZE. Promoters don’t exactly
need to attend the Wharton School of Business to know that
the most important thing, no matter whether you promote
wrestling shows or sell cars… rule one is to plug, plug,
plug. If a hopefully useful mark like yours truly who runs a
small wrestling website, and posts on social media, is ready
to help you do so, use us…you’ve lost nothing, spent
nothing…and quite possibly gained a lot. So, use us to help
promote your own company's events digitally. Yes, USE US.
Even in 2026, there were promoters so into carny (or all
encompassing) bullshit who have ignored my requests for
information. One actually blocked me on social media. I've
been told by the promoters in the past that “they can do it
by themselves”. I wonder if those promoters who bragged
about helping a charity and have little or nothing to show
for it... should consider going to that charity and tell
them they only got a smaller number of toys, cans of food,
or winter jackets… all because their promoter decided he
could “do it all by himself".
Back to promoting...
Do what I suggested above along with the usual (and
necessary) grunt work. Yes, you do have to do these
things...and no, you can't do the other extreme of bad
promoting, aka "just putting it online" or on social media.
You have to get up posters, hand out flyers, as well as get
sponsors to defer the cost of your show, and help sell
tickets for you (and maybe even help collect/donate to your
designated charity) … all of which are necessary no matter
what kind of fan base you have. See if the charity
themselves can help...they'll have credibility to a
different audience that you might and may have inroads to
the media you may not.
Let local mainstream (and wrestling) media know the event is
taking place and who the event benefits...using newspapers,
television, radio, and other forms of media...and again,
that it's a charitable effort. Have the charity help here as
well.
If your local newspaper/media source is a smaller weekly or
daily, send it to whoever runs a section for community
events. Even if that newspaper usually won't run plugs or
report on your shows (but only reports on WWE, if that),
they'll usually make an exception for events benefiting
charitable efforts during the year...and especially during
the Holidays.
Use social media to let fans and the public know the event
is happening. Every form of social media. Continually. Make
sure your talent and staff are doing the same...as far ahead
of the event as you can. Make fans (and talent) feel like
it's a yearly obligation to attend and contribute if this is
a show you've done yearly.
Whatever digital, social, and other media you're
using...PLEASE use intelligible English. Use spell check.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE use spell check, and ask someone to
check it for at least basic grammar and spelling mistakes
before you send it out. While you need to push your show…
stop sending or posting or tweeting info sent in all caps
and with a dozen asterisks and exclamation points.
Tell fans WHEN your upcoming charity show is…far enough in
advance to let them make plans, so they don’t go to someone
else’s show instead or just stay home...not the week before.
Your competitor might beat you to the punch and to the
dollar...and the opportunity for a charitable donation if
you don't.
Tell them WHERE your shows are, and how to get to the shows
on all social media and websites. Mass transit directions
and connections help if you run in a city or region where
mass transit exists. If not, give decent driving directions
to your shows. It isn't a fan's job to find your show, it's
your job to make it as easy as possible for someone to give
you (and your charity) money or toys/food/etc.. Something as
simple as a fan not being able to find a location for a show
can cost a promoter (and charity) dearly.
When you do these things...tell fans WHO is on the show and
WHY they should care about a match (yes, explain storylines
briefly), so fans feel there’s a reason to come to see the
show. The one and only booking related thing I'll say here:
as a rule.... if you list a "major surprise" for your show
(and aren't eventually naming him or her), to bring in
fans... DON'T. It's been overdone so much it borders on the
ridiculous. It puts no asses in seats, no cans of food in a
hungry person's kitchen, no toys in a child's hands, no coat
on a 70-year-old grandmother.
Again, make sure the benefiting organization is publicizing
the event on their social media, regular media and other
resources available to them (don't assume that they are).
Use social media to spread the reach. Use Facebook and
Twitter and Bluesky and Instagram and TikTok in a hundred
different ways
5) Get local merchants/individual sponsors to help you
publicize (and if possible, defer any costs incurred), to
ensure maximum dollars, contributions, and resources go to
your organization of choice. There are many options, from
old school window posters to websites and social media.
6) Offer admission discounts for donations. Offer a discount
on ticket prices to fans for donating a toy, canned/non-
perishable food, or whatever your charity is seeking.
7) Finally, if you're a fan and you have a preferred charity
that you'd like to see your favorite indie promotion act on
behalf of, now is the time to start asking then. Yes, it
means you'll likely be doing some work yourself. But as I
said above, there is simply being "nice"... a passive
act...doing no harm; and instead, choosing to be "kind"...
something that requires action. In the years to come, we may
well have to be the change we seek.
Until next time...
If you'd like to contact me, you can do so at my
bobmagee1@hotmail.com account or to through Facebook
Messenger at https://www.facebook.com/bob.magee.180, direct
message me at https://twitter.com/BobMage70323520, or
contact me at BlueSky at
https://bsky.app/profile/bobmagee940.bsky.social
