Patriot Shootout
Event Brand · Website · Sponsorship · Fall River, Kansas
Home page. Date, cause, and countdown above the fold.
This moose was hiding behind the flyers.
Every sighting gets the same four questions, written down the way we'd write them in the journal.
- Scope
- Event identity, website, sponsorship materials
- Sector
- Charity shooting event · 501(c)(3) beneficiary
- Habitat
- Flint Oak Hunting Lodge, Fall River, Kansas
- Platform
- Custom build
Challenge
A full event website needed to be built from start to finish on a very short timeline. The only source material was a stack of flyers, and they did not all say the same thing.
Different versions had different details and priorities, several people were involved in planning the event, and the beneficiary nonprofit had its own existing identity to consider. Before the site could be built, we first had to figure out what information was actually current and correct.
Discovery
Once the event details were sorted out, the purpose behind it became the clear focus.
The Patriot Shootout benefits Warfighter Scuba and its work supporting U.S. veterans. That needed to be more than a small mention somewhere on the site. It needed to help explain why the event exists in the first place.
Solution
We started by creating one reliable set of event information so everyone was working from the same details.
An Eventbrite page was launched first, giving people a place to register while the final domain and website were being completed. From there, we built the full site with a dark gold and gunmetal look, a badge-style identity, and a design that felt appropriate for both the event and the people it honors.
The site puts the date and cause front and center, then gives visitors the details they need: four shooting lanes led by retired Navy SEAL, SEAL Team Six, and U.S. Army Special Forces operators, long-range shooting out to 1,380 meters, a live countdown, and a clear way to reserve a team.
Outcome
The event now has one central place for accurate information, registration, sponsorship details, and the story behind the cause.
Instead of relying on multiple flyers and versions of the event details, organizers have a site they can point people to and continue building on as the event grows.
The first deliverable was not a design
It was an answer. Several flyers were already circulating and they contradicted each other, so the opening work was reading all of them, listing every place they disagreed, and getting one version confirmed. A lot of people were involved and each of them held a piece of it. Once there was a single agreed set of facts, the build itself went quickly, because nothing had to be redone every time a new flyer surfaced.
Live first, permanent second
The event needed somewhere to send people immediately, and the domain worth owning was not secured yet. So it launched on Eventbrite, which took a day rather than a month and gave the organizers something real to share while the rest was being built. Once the right domain was in hand, the full site replaced it. Waiting for the perfect setup costs you the weeks you actually needed, and a temporary front door beats a coming soon page every time.
Too many good ideas is still a problem
Early directions for the mark pulled several ways at once, and the beneficiary nonprofit carried its own identity that had to sit alongside whatever we made. Trying to honor all of it in one mark is how you end up with something that says nothing. We cut back to a badge, gold on gunmetal, and let the cause carry the meaning instead of the logo.
Every answer where a sponsor expects it
A sponsor deciding whether to commit has a short list of questions, and every one of them is answered on the page rather than in a follow-up email. What it costs, what is included, who is running it and where the money goes. Registration itself runs through the venue directly, so the site's job was to make the decision easy and then get out of the way instead of trying to own a step it had no business owning.
A venue that sells itself
The venue is half the reason most guests come, so it got real estate rather than a line item. When something is already doing persuasive work on its own, the job is to give it room, not to write around it.
Nobody had the facts. They had flyers.From the journal margin