What to Include in an Event Sponsorship Prospectus

A sponsorship prospectus should include seven things: audience data, the event’s format and dates, a priced tier table, the deliverables in each tier, add-ons, a measurement promise and deadlines with payment and cancellation terms. Price the tiers as a ladder: 17 of the 19 price steps in four published prospectuses sit between 1.46 and 2.5 times the tier below.

• The question organisers type: “what should be included in a sponsorship prospectus?” Seven pages, listed in the skeleton below.
• The asset on this page: the Event Prospectus Seven-Page Skeleton plus the Event Prospectus Tier-Ladder Template, a five-tier price ladder with the ratio between each tier.
• What we read: four published sponsorship documents, from the Python Software Foundation (PyCon US 2026), IJCNN 2027, AUPHA’s 2027 Annual Meeting and MARC 2027.
• The gap we found: none of the four promises sponsors a post-event report or names a date for one.

Rules of thumb

• Step each tier 1.5 to 2.5 times the one below. 16 of the 19 steps in the four prospectuses we read fall in that band and a 17th sits just under it at 1.46 (the arithmetic is in the table below).
• Raise the price per pass as tiers rise. In the PSF prospectus the Participating tier works out at $2,125 per included pass and Visionary at $6,400, so the top tiers sell something passes cannot.
• Say whether attendance is actual or forecast. IJCNN 2027 writes “over 1,500 global attendees expected”, which is honest wording for a forecast.
• Use one deadline for payment, artwork and logo. AUPHA sets all three at 12 April 2027, 73 days before its meeting ends.
• Print the refund cliff. IJCNN 2027 refunds 50% for cancellations after 14 April 2027 and nothing from 14 May, 31 days before it opens.

The seven pages of an event sponsorship prospectus

An event sponsorship prospectus works best as seven short pages, each answering one question a sponsor’s marketing lead or finance approver will ask before signing. The PSF’s 2026 document runs to 14 pages, with “Sponsorship Packages” on pages 9 to 11; the order below moves price and terms earlier, because that is what an approver checks.

Frequently asked questions

What should be included in a sponsorship prospectus?

Seven pages: event at a glance, audience data, a priced tier table, deliverables per tier, add-ons, a measurement promise, and deadlines with payment and cancellation terms. Label every audience number as audited, last year’s or forecast, and state currency and tax on every price.

How long should a sponsorship prospectus be?

Seven to 14 pages is enough for most events. The PSF’s PyCon US 2026 prospectus runs to 14 pages and puts its full benefit list on a separate web page, which keeps the PDF short.

Should a sponsorship prospectus show prices?

Yes, if the tiers are standard. All four documents we read print their prices, from US$750 add-ons at IJCNN 2027 to the US$160,000 PSF Visionary tier. Custom headline packages can say “on application” while the rest of the ladder stays priced.

What is the difference between a sponsorship prospectus and a sponsorship proposal?

A prospectus is the same document for every sponsor, listing all tiers and terms. A proposal is written for one sponsor after a discovery call, recommending one tier or a custom package with that sponsor’s goals and measurement agreed.

How many sponsorship tiers should an event offer?

Four to six tiers plus add-ons covers most events. AUPHA uses four, IJCNN five, MARC six and the PSF eight; more tiers only help if each one adds a deliverable the tier below cannot buy.

What does the tier-ladder template look like?

The Event Prospectus Tier-Ladder Template is a five-tier ladder where each tier costs 1.75 to 2 times the one below and the headline tier costs 14 times the entry tier. Every price below is an assumption built from one entry price; replace the US$2,000 entry with your own and keep the ratios.

Price per included pass in this template rises from US$2,000 at Entry to US$5,600 at Headline and never falls between tiers. The PSF ladder climbs the same way overall, from $2,125 per pass at Participating to $6,400 at Visionary, though it dips to $1,675 at Supporting. If your audience is narrow and senior, a shorter ladder like AUPHA’s (top tier 7.5 times entry) often fits better than a 14-times spread. Setting the entry price itself is a separate job: the guide to how much to charge for event sponsorship prices a tier from the pipeline it gives a sponsor.

How do published sponsorship ladders step between tiers?

Published sponsorship ladders step most often between 1.46 and 2.5 times per tier, and the spread from entry to top tier ranges from 7.5 times at AUPHA to 100 times at MARC 2027. The table divides each listed price by the price of the tier below it.

Prices are as printed in each organisation’s own document, read 3 November 2026; the PSF and IJCNN state US dollars, while AUPHA and MARC print a $ sign without naming a currency. The PSF tiers are year-round sponsorships that include PyCon US benefits, and MARC’s sponsor list adds a hotel stay to its top three tiers. Four documents are examples, not a benchmark; we found no public dataset of sponsorship prices across events.

What goes on the audience data page?

The audience data page of a sponsorship prospectus needs attendance, job titles, job function, company size and industry, each labelled as audited, last year’s actual or forecast. A sponsor maps these numbers onto its own buyer profile, so a breakdown is worth more than a headline total.

The PSF document is the strongest of the four on this page: a 2,500+ attendee figure, a top-15 job title list, a function split (53.9% developers) and an industry split (software 43%, finance 13%, education 10%). AUPHA’s and MARC’s documents list tiers and benefits without audience figures. If you have no past data, give the forecast and say how you built it; sponsors forgive a forecast, not an unlabelled one. When renewing sponsors, last year’s actual numbers belong here too, and the guide to getting conference sponsors to renew covers how to collect them.

What should a sponsorship measurement promise say?

A sponsorship measurement promise names three things in one paragraph: the metrics you will report, how each is captured on the day, and the date the sponsor receives the report. None of the four prospectuses we read has one.

A workable promise reads like this: “Within 14 days of the event you will receive a report showing badge scans, meetings held, session attendance and the job titles of people you met; at 90 days we ask for the opportunities your team opened.” The 14-day and 90-day timing follows the reporting method in the guide to proving ROI to event sponsors, which also sets out the report’s line items. Only promise what your registration, lead-retrieval and app tools can actually capture: an uncaptured number cannot be reported afterwards.

Which deadlines and terms belong in a prospectus?

A sponsorship prospectus needs four dated terms: the payment deadline, the artwork and logo deadline, the cancellation schedule and the date tiers close. Without them a sponsor cannot tell when a late signature stops buying printed recognition.

AUPHA ties payment, ad artwork and a high-resolution logo to one date, 12 April 2027, and states that if payment is not received by then it cannot acknowledge the sponsor in printed materials or on the website. IJCNN 2027 asks for payment within 30 days of contract submission and prints a two-step refund schedule: 50% of the fee for cancellations after 14 April 2027 and before 14 May 2027, then no refund. A single dated line like these does more selling than a paragraph of urgency.

How long does it take to build and sell from a prospectus?

Building the prospectus document itself is the short part; selling from it takes months, because sponsors need the deadlines on page 7 to fall after their own budget approval. Work backwards from your artwork date, not forwards from today.

AUPHA’s single deadline falls 73 days before its meeting ends, and IJCNN’s no-refund date falls 31 days before it opens; those two dates are the hard edges. The slowest stage is often the one before the prospectus is sent: the audience data page, because it needs registration or survey data you may not have yet. The stages from prospect list to signed contract are covered in the sponsorship sales guide, and floor-space selling, which runs to a different timetable, in the guide to selling exhibitor booth space. Doing all of it yourself means one person spending many hours on outreach and follow-up; event organisers who would rather hand over the sponsor and attendee pipeline can read how an event marketing agency approaches it.

Sources

1. Python Software Foundation, PyCon US 2026 and PSF Sponsorship Opportunities (tiers, passes, audience data, page structure).
2. IJCNN 2027 Sponsor and Exhibitor Prospectus (tiers, add-ons, VAT, payment and refund schedule).
3. AUPHA 2027 Sponsorship Brochure (tiers, 12 April 2027 deadline, meeting end date).
4. MARC 2027 Sponsor Tiers and Benefits (tiers and benefits).

Related: see How to Sell Webinar Sponsorships for a Webinar Series.