Over the past several weeks I have received many emails & phone calls from other churches interested in doing a
Helicopter Egg Drop in their community. I thought I would share some insight that might be helpful for you to consider. We certainly weren’t the first to come up with the idea, but we did learn a thing a thing or two that will make our event this year better than last year. Here are some things to consider…
- Are there other churches in your immediate area that are planning an egg drop? If so, I would consider not having one. This event takes lots of effort, planning, and money to pull off successfully. If there is another church in your area planning one, you will not get the results that you would if you were the only one doing it. You will also dilute the effectiveness of the event for the other church doing the event and that’s just not cool. Instead, think of another unique event that could set you apart.
- Think about location and don’t forget about parking. If you are the first to have an egg drop in your area, and you market the event well, expect a BIG crowd. We estimate that we had over 3,000 people there. Last year, we used a soccer field, but parking was a big issue. People had to walk a long distance to get to the field. Make sure to notify the police or fire police of the event. Hopefully, they can assist with managing the traffic. If so, make sure to have someone provide coffee or bottled water for them. Most likely, the owner of the event location will ask you to add your church and/or the helicopter company as an “additional insured” on to your insurance policy.
- Find a helicopter…and a BIG one too! This could take some work. Make lots of calls, and be prepared to hear “no”. If someone’s not interested, ask for other contacts. Call your local airport. Use the largest helicopter that they have. Thousands of easter eggs take up lots of room. Last year, we had 20,000 eggs. We spread out 8,000 on the field ourselves, and dropped 12,000 eggs. We couldn’t fit all 12,000 eggs in the helicopter, so we had to make 2 drops. Ask the helicopter company if you can see the inside of the helicopter beforehand. Better yet, bring a large garbage bag full of eggs with you to see just how many eggs you can fit inside. Plan on spending $400 – $600/hour for the helicopter. I know of one church that received a reduced rate, by allowing the helicopter company to offer rides after the event for a fee.
- Giveaways attract people! Repeat…Giveaways attract people! Last year, we gave away a Nintendo Wii game system, a Nintendo DS Lite, and an iPod shuffle. We gave everyone a tear-off ticket with a number on it. We had the drawing in the middle of the 2 drops. It kept people off of the field, and kept the momentum of the event going.
- Where do you get the eggs? We were happy with www.PlasticEasterEggs.com. They are a family run company. They shipped quickly and accurately. The eggs that they use seem to lock tightly as well. You could choose to fill the eggs on your own if you have a large amount of manpower. Another question I hear a lot is…how do you keep the eggs from breaking? You don’t. They break, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Kids will pick up the candy & toys off of the ground just the same.
- Buy or borrow lots of temporary fencing. We fenced off the entire perimeter of the field with orange snow fencing. We found a landscaping company that let us borrow it. We guaranteed them that we would pay for any of the fence that got ruined. I would hate to think about how to keep people off of the field without this fencing…especially if you are doing more than one drop.
- Divide the field into age appropriate areas. We divided the field into 4 age appropriate areas. We used different colored balloons to identify the different areas. We gave out colored wristbands to match the age appropriate area. Use volunteers to make sure that people are lining up in the right area. Good luck keeping the parents out…it simply won’t happen…sorry.
- Have a very visible lost child area. We didn’t plan for this last year…big mistake. There were at least 10 kids that lost their parents. Print up a HUGE banner that is very visible for everyone to see. Have a few volunteers there to talk to the kids and keep them occupied until the lost parents come to claim them.
- Serve free water & coffee. Starbucks was generous to us last year and donated 1,000 cups of coffee for our event. Check with your local coffee shop and ask them if they would be willing to donate or at least give you a deep discount.
- Use the event to invite the community to another event. We used this event to invite them to come and see Jon & Kate + 8 the next Sunday. We also passed out postcards advertising our next sermon series which happened to be on strengthening marriages.
- Have plenty of volunteers. We had 40-50 volunteers last year. This year we will have more. If you use the snow fence idea as mentioned above, you will need lots of volunteers to “drop the fence” at designated spots after you countdown from 10! Consider having brightly colored t-shirts printed so that your volunteers can be easily spotted by anyone needing assistance.
- Keep a bunch of eggs put aside for kids that don’t get any. It never fails…there will be some kids that get “0″ or very few eggs. Have an area set aside with a bunch of eggs in totes. If one of your volunteers sees a kid crying because they didn’t get any eggs, no problem…send them to the area where you can give them a few eggs. Trust me…you will be a hero and it will go a long way with the parents too.
- Make it fun and keep people occupied before the event. Play music that kids like…Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montana, etc…Hand out balloons, hire a juggler, have the Easter Bunny roaming around.
- Ask people to pick up trash on their way off the field. I thought the clean up was going to be a nightmare for us. I made an announcement over the loud speaker asking people to help by picking up debris on their way off of the field. I was amazed at how many people helped by picking up paper & plastic eggs left behind.
- Think Safety! Make sure to ask your volunteers to be watching for kids that may have fallen. Keep an eye out for smaller kids that might have ended up in the wrong area with bigger kids. We had the ambulance there as a precaution. Thankfully, we didn’t have any safety incidents that required medical attention.
If your church had a helicopter egg drop, feel free to add any other tips or comments that might be helpful.
Mike, thanks so much for the practical info. We’re in the middle of planning our first egg drop event for both of our campuses in Houston. I had a couple of questions to throw out there:
- How did you get the “buzz” in your community? What kinds of marketing did you find effective?
- You mentioned doing 2 separate drops. Did you divide per age? Any more details on how you pulled off the actual drop would be helpful.
Thanks again!
- Jeremy
Jeremy,
We sent out a direct mail piece to the community. We also printed up invite cards(business card size) to our people asking them to invite as many people as possible. We also sent press releases to the newspapers.
We didn’t divide the 2 separate drops by age. We kept everyone off of the field until both drops were made. The person dropping the eggs from the helicopter guided the pilot so they spread the eggs out as evenly as possible.
We used a local airport to load the helicopter with the eggs. After the first drop, the helicopter went back to the airport to reload. We had a volunteer stationed there to help load. After loading the helicopter, they called us at the field to let us know that the helicopter was on the way. After the both drops were made, and the helicopter was gone, we counted down from 10. We dropped the fence in several spots and the games began.
Hello,
We are hosting an egg drop in 2 weeks had a quick question. We are looking to divide our field in quadrants and use colored wristbands. Some push-back we are receiving is from some who think families who attend with multiple children or single parent families with multiple children will not feel comfortable with separating their children. The thought is they would probably not participate. Did you perceive that as an issue? Where were your breakdowns in ages for your sections? Any help would be appreciated! Thanks,
Donnie
Hi Donnie,
We divided the field up into 3 sections(4-6 yr., 7-9, 10-12)and we have another designated for 2-4 yr. olds. It might be an issue if a parent has multiple children in different age groups. We didn’t hear that being a issue from the parents last year. I suppose if it was, I’d let the parent bring all of the children in one section so they could keep an eye on them.
I hope that your event goes well!
We had a very similar experience we had almost 4000 come to our egg drop and we were not totaly prepared for it. Parking, restrooms, Eggs, Candy, Prizes – Not Enough. We tried to section off by ages but noone stayed where they were suppose to be – we didn't get the field cleared by the time of the second drop so the kids got pelted with eggs — No problem it just felt like rain (Eggs were empty) It was a much better experience the second drop haveing the eggs fall on you than just watching. – I think this year we are just going to let everyone on the field and let the eggs fall where they may – or do a diferent drop for each age gorup.
We attempted this last year expecting about 500 people to come out and we had over 5,000 people!! It was so much fun but a logistical mess. I recommend involving the police for traffic control (we backed the freeway up for a mile in both directions!). We are thinking about doing a drop for each age group this year, though that gets pricy. We spread eggs out ahead of time then had the helicopter drop 1 garbage bag over each of the 3 age groups. That way we didn’t have to worry about it being perfect. One really cool thing we did was our giveaway. We had 1 gold egg that was dropped from the helicopter. The winner received a gift basket with gift cards donated from several local business like the walmart, target, restaurants, and toy stores that equaled $500. It was a BIG draw for the event. This year we may split it up into 5 gold eggs worth $100 in prizes each.
oh and we did the egg drop right before our Saturday night service so people could just stay. We were overwhelmed with the amount of people who stayed for church! It was a phenomenal event and we are excited planning to make improvements on it for this year!