From The Contest Queen

Sunday morning began with a Pinata Party. Twelve people were called up to the front, a designated pinata smasher broke the pinata and each person grabbed one of the eggs that rolled out. They won was was written on the little piece of paper that was inside.

We then watched videos of big winners including Jon of Natick, MA a finalist in the Pepsi Billions sweepstakes. Very nail-biting. No, he didn’t win the billion, but he did win a million!

It was announced that the 2010 Annual National Sweepstakes Convention will be held on the Labour Day weekend in Bloomington MN. I’ll post the details as soon as they are available.

Then we had all the editors of America’s most popular newsletters answer questions, panel-style.

Brent Riley & Kerrie Bloss of Online-Sweepstakes.Com
Carol McLaughlin of This N’ That Sweepstakes Stuff Newsletter
Patti Osterheld of SweepSheet
Judy McCurdy of Sweeping America
Al Sayward Jr. aka. “Captian Jack” of The Sweeper Times

The last game played was Keyturn. Ten players came up, selected a key and won what was behind the door their key opened.

We closed with a big YEE-HA!

See you in New Hampshire for a Star Spangled Celebration!!

We are back at home safe and sound getting Nicole ready for her first day of school. We were so busy and had so much fun in Texas, I was not able to blog as often as I would have liked. I will continue to document our adventures at the 19th ANSC even though, like most of you, we are now back to our “regular” routine.

Saturday started with a surprise guest; Santa! Did you know he spends his summer vacations in Texas? I would too if I lived at the North Pole! (Notice his belt buckle even says SANTA.)

His elves passed out candy canes and a present for each table which one person won.

He also administered the Grand Prize Draws, Santa-style. All the prizes were wrapped and under the tree. If your name was called, you got to go up and select any gift you wished. Very exciting.

After all the gifts were passed out we had a fantastic Tex-Mex buffet lunch.

Followed by a Q&A session with Jeffrey Feinman. What I found the most interesting was that almost all the questions asked were the exact same ones I had sweepstakes marketing companies and promotional lawyers answered in my book.

We left when the raffles drawings began to spend extra time with Nicole at the pool as we did not participate in any of the raffles. Why not? They are only applicable to Americans as the prizes are stamps, envelopes, etc.

Back to the Riverwalk for dinner.  We managed to talk Nicole into eating Italian for one night followed by a big scoop of Blue Bell ice cream.

Friday morning started off with a really fun game called “Give’m the Boot”! Twelve names were drawn and the first player got to sit in seat #1. Then the other eleven players rolled a set of Texas-sized dice. If the player got doubles, they got to roll again. They then rolled one die and if they got a one then they would give the first player the boot. If not, then they won a custom painted boot with a prize inside.

Then Jeffery Feinman, former President of Ventura Associates and author of The Prize Winners Handbook, spoke about the hobby from a marketer’s perspective.

After a quick lunch we came back for session of the nail-biting Deal or No Deal. To make the game even more interesting, Brent Riley, owner of Online-Sweepstakes.Com, matched dollar for dollar, whatever each contestant won.

What a convention! I think I know 1/2 the people here. I have been so busy I didn’t even get a chance to blog yesterday.

You may remember Rick Adams from the 1st Annual National Contestor Convention. He and his wife Chris joined us here in San Antiono and came with us on Thursday morning for breakfast. We headed to the Guenther House in the King William area for their famous sweet cream waffles. YUMMY!

We came back to the hotel for a dip in the pool followed by another Tex-Mex meal. Nicole can’t seem to get enough of queso and chips!

After registering, we headed to San Antonio’s most famous landmark, The Alamo. WOW!

At 7:00pm the convention officially kicked off with a welcome from Robert & Gwen Beauchamp followed by a casual mix and mingle. I could have stayed up all night catching up with friends.

This week I am blogging from San Antonio Texas. We arrived in San Antonio yesterday afternoon combining a family holiday and our attendence this weekend at the 19th Annual National Sweepstakes Convention.

The first thing we did this morning was go shopping! I love a store called Anthropolgie which is only located in certain US cities, so whenever I am travelling near one I make a point of stopping by.

Then we began our trek up the Mission Trail. We began at Mission Espanda, stopped at Mission San Jose and then ran out of time for the day. We plan to visit the most famous stop on the Mission Trail, The Alamo on Thursday.

After being in the heat for most of the day, we returned to the hotel for a dip in the pool followed by an authentic Mexican dinner at Casa Rio on San Antonio’s famous Riverwalk.