The Challenge
What I built
Rather than focusing solely on fundraising, I wanted the event to feel like a memorable Oilers game-day experience that naturally encouraged community connection and charitable giving.
Every decision centered around one question:
"How can we create an experience families genuinely want to attend while maximizing support for the foundation?"
With no event budget, relationship-building became one of the project's greatest strengths. By combining community partnerships, volunteer support and in-kind sponsorships, I was able to elevate the guest experience while keeping costs as low as possible.
Results
Guests in Attendance
Raised Across Two Years
Community Partners
Reflection
This was the second year I led the event, and scaling it from a restaurant setting to two hotel banquet halls fundamentally changed the scope of the project. Rather than simply repeating the previous event, I redesigned nearly every aspect of the guest experience from activities and programming to partnerships, sponsorships and venue logistics.
The experience reinforced that successful event growth isn't about making an event bigger it's about making it intentionally better while adapting to new operational challenges.
Although the event did not reach its ticket sales target, it still achieved its primary purpose by bringing the community together and overall across two years of curating this event over 15,000 was raised in support for the Ben Stelter Foundation.
A little more about me
The best work starts with honest curiosity.
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