We hosted a Webkinz Extravaganza event this weekend. Since it was our first one, we were a little nervous. We had heard that these events could be out of control and crazy busy with Webkinz enthusiasts all over the store. This information had come from customers who had attended Webkinz events in past years at other stores as well as other store owners. We decided to spread the event over three days so we did not get mobbed. Let me just say on this side of things that having the Extravaganza event was worth the effort just to hear all of those wee ones say “ExtravagannnnnZA!”
To participate we had to buy a kit from the Webkinz guys that had all of those cool Extravaganza Webkinz, the posters, some of the prize goodies. The kit has the same number of Extravaganza pets for each store whether you live in a town the size of Portland or Carlton, so we still have lots of those left, and we are selling them for a dollar while supplies last with any Webkinz purchase of $15 or more. Ganz doesn’t tell you what kind of events to host though, so we just kind of had to wing it. We decided to try to emulate the online aspect of playing with your Webkinz in life sized events. We did a wishing well, and a jellybean challenge, and a Wheel of Wow. We hosted a coloring contest and a Kinz Style Costume Contest.
For the wishing well the kids had tiles that I put fruit stickers on one side of and stars on the other side. They had to line the tiles up in three rows of three. I had done up fifteen tiles so there were plenty to pull from for variety. I also put a wild card in that was a star on either side to increase their chances of winning. Yeah, I know, it feels like low level gambling to me also, but they did not seem to worry an instant about the slippery slope they were on and they were nearly guaranteed a win, so game on!
For the Jellybean challenge I filled a jar with jellybeans and issued each child a coupon with their registration that had room for their name, phone number, and guess, and they were able to put it in a jar to be considered. Almost a guarantee that if the child was under five, the guess was going to be 100, because there were a lot of jellybeans in that jar, and 100 is a LOT. Don got one little girl who wanted to count them though. Fortunately for Don, she could only count to fifty. Unfortunately for her, that meant there were fifty jellybeans in the jar. She counted them twice. Don tried to get her to go higher, but she was pretty adamant. It was fun really to see the kids stick to their guns when their parents were trying to give them some help with estimation, mathematical averages, etc. Loved the families where the child would come up, make some rash “100!” type of guess and one of the parents would want to do it for the….I mean “help” them, while the other parent was holding them back with admonitions of “let them do it themselves” .
Our grand total, BTW, was 769. We actually had a tie with two guesses at 750.
For the wheel of wow, I borrowed an old roulette type wheel from friends out in Willamina (thanks Matt and Joi!!) and stuck prizes all around the rim. There was one slot of win a Webkinz of your choice, several slots of win an Extravaganza Webkin, bookmarks, trading cards, lipgloss, perfume, etc. pretty self explanatory. You spin the wheel, you get a prize. All of this winning is bound to turn the lot of them into gambling addicts before they get into high school.
Most kids arrived without a really good idea of what they were there for, so we had art supplies on hand so they could enter the drawing contest. Oh my gosh! When I grow up I want to have an art gallery for the twelve and under set. It is such an awesome art form. They were all great. Don is scanning and posting the images onto our website so they can have the real pictures back. And of course, every child was a winner. There were varying degrees of winning based on effort and talent, but I’m sure this was the first time that most of these kids had entered a contest of any kind, so we wanted to encourage them to keep on participating.
Those that did know what was going on brought their Webkinz all dressed up for the Style Kinz Costume Contest. These were some well loved little plushies. We had every kind of Webkin with every kind of costume imaginable, and my descriptions could not do them justice, so check them out in our photo gallery on the hopscotch website. Too cute. One boy made an Indiana Jones costume for his Polar bear out of brown paper bag. He made the hat, the messenger bag, everything. Very cool. Another little girl turned a princess crown into a saddle for her horse. I said I wouldn’t try to describe them didn’t I? These kids were inventive!!
It was a crazy busy weekend. Sales were good at the store, and the energy popped. Having kids that excited about anything is just so much fun. They twinkle from their Saturday morning bed head to their tippy tippy toes. I am pleased to be living my life in such close proximity to that kind of energy.
