Sponsors and sponsorship tiers
Price your levels, invite businesses from your own show page, and put the ones who say yes on the homepage and the windshield cards. Bill them from the show, or record the ones who already paid.
Updated September 3, 2026
Turning sponsorships on
Sponsors, in the manage menu, is where tiers, sponsors, and requests live, and the page never hides. When the invitation is off, it shows an amber banner with an Enable sponsorships button; press it and your public pages start inviting sponsors. The same switch sits on the Public page settings tab as Invite sponsors. It is on by default, and it controls two things: the “Want to sponsor the show?” card on your show page, and the Sponsor link in the site menu. Both lead to the sponsor page, which always exists at /sponsor/.
Tiers
A tier has a name, a price, and an optional pitch, “What they get”, with room for a paragraph. Give a tier a price or a pitch and it is offered on the sponsor page as a card; a bare name is a badge only, useful for a Friends of the Show level you hand out rather than sell. Drag tiers into the order you want them shown. The price is display and email copy; nothing is charged through the site.
Sponsors
Sponsors get on the list two ways: you add them by hand with the form under the list, or they arrive on their own when an invoice is paid or a payment is recorded. Either way, each sponsor has a name, an optional website, an optional logo (JPG, PNG, or WebP), a tier, and two placement switches. Show in the sponsors grid on your public page puts them on the show page, logo or name, linked to their site, with a tier badge; Gold, Silver, and Bronze get their colors, any other tier name gets a neutral badge. Logo on every windshield card puts them on the printed cards. Drag to set the order, and it holds across the page and the cards.
Sponsors also line the bottom of the live results TV board, both the dark and the daylight version: every sponsor shown on your public page, as a white chip with the logo or the name, in the same order. Six fit across the screen and any more take turns. It’s on by default; the switch is Sponsors on the big screen, on the Awards and tally settings tab, next to the QR code setting.
On the cards, the layout follows the count. One flagged sponsor becomes a banner across the bottom. Two flank the Car Number. Three to six become columns alternating left and right. A sponsor without a logo prints as their name. The cap is six; anything past that is left off the print.
The sponsor page and requests
The public page, headed “Sponsor the show”, lists the offered tiers with prices and pitches, then a short form: company, contact person, email, phone, the level they have in mind (with “Not sure yet” as a choice), and anything else. Submitting sends you an email, “[Show] Sponsorship request: Company”, and adds the request to the Sponsors page under Sponsorship requests with their details as tap-to-call and tap-to-email links and a Mark handled button. The form is rate limited and has a hidden trap for bots.
Where the email goes is a short chain: the address in Sponsorship inquiries go to, on the Notifications settings tab; failing that, everyone who gets new-registration alerts (team members with alerts on, plus any extra addresses); failing that, the show’s contact email. The Who gets the email box above the requests list shows the current answer, and so does the Where messages land card on the Notifications tab.
Billing a sponsor, or recording one who paid
When a business says yes, press Send invoice on their request (or open the Invoices button at the top of the Sponsors page). The invoice carries the level, its price, any discount with your reason, and a Pay button or check instructions; when it’s paid the sponsor lands on your list with the tier badge and you get a note. Sponsors who paid before you had the site, by check or cash or Venmo, get recorded instead: each sponsor row has a Record a payment link, and nothing is emailed. The whole flow, including the 501(c)(3) letter on invoices, is on Sponsor invoices.
What sponsorships do not do
- No contract runs through the site. The invoice is the paper; the sponsor pays you directly, and Car Show HQ never holds the money.
- Tiers have no quantity; there is no sold-out state.
- Card placement follows the count of flagged sponsors, not the tier. A Gold logo is the same size as a Bronze one.
- Requests get no automatic acknowledgment email; the reply is yours to send.
Next, if a sponsor’s logo belongs on the cards, print the Numbered cards PDF the night before and check it on paper; a logo that reads on screen can go muddy in black and white.
Keep reading
- Check-in and cards
- Emailing registrants
- Gate Mode
- Gear & services
- Group entries
- Importing entrants
- Judged scoring
- The location check
- Payments and payouts
- Recurring shows
- Results and awards
- Roles and staff access
- Security and reliability
- Setting up registration
- Spectator donations
- Spectator voting
- Sponsor invoices
- Testing your show
- Your own pages
Sponsorships, answered
Does the sponsor pay through the site?
They can. A tier's price is shown on your public page, and when a business says yes you send them an invoice from the show; they pay through your own Square, Stripe or PayPal account or by check, and the money goes straight to you. Sponsors who paid some other way get recorded, not invoiced. See Sponsor invoices.
Where do sponsorship requests go?
To the address in Sponsorship inquiries go to (Settings, Notifications), or if that is blank, to everyone who gets new-registration alerts, or failing that your show's contact email. They also appear on the Sponsors page under Sponsorship requests, where you mark them handled.
How many sponsors fit on a windshield card?
Six. One sponsor becomes a banner across the bottom, two flank the Car Number, three or more become columns. Beyond six, the rest are left off the card, so pick the ones who paid for it.
