SPONSOR PACKET

Why Sponsor the Gay Life & Home Show?

Simply put, the Gay Life & Home Show is the only event of its kind in our region where your business and its name come face-to-face with the region’s affluent gay and lesbian market. Our target attendee reflects the demographic indicated below and we bring that demographic to you. As a sponsor, your support helps make this important event a reality – you really provide the icing on the cake and this community knows it! In short, sponsors send a strong and clear message to the region’s gay and lesbian community about their serious and committed support. And because gays and lesbians respond overwhelmingly strong to gay and lesbian targeted ad campaigns, this pays back great dividends.

Sponsors also gain a clear and stronger competitive advantage by attaining increased exposure associated with the event and additional show day privileges. Sponsors receive larger premium-location space and varying levels of increased business name and logo promotion before, during and after the show [see our Sponsor Packet for details]. In addition to sponsor privileges, you’ll continue to have year-round presence via our website and strong print promotion with our full color expo guide given out to all attendees and thousands more through local area gay and lesbian bookstores. As a sponsor, this is an incredible amount of exposure targeted solely to the gay and lesbian market. Your premium promotion begins on our website immediately upon submitting your completed Application and material - act soon while the best sponsor positions are still available for you to choose!

Why Market to the Gay and Lesbian Consumer?

A New York Press writer said it best “while money talks…gay money SCREAMS!” and one only need review the data collected on this affluent demographic to understand why. In brief, many gays and lesbians are in professional and managerial level positions, most with dual incomes and no kids, and typically having more discretionary income to spend. But, they also tend to be very loyal consumers who would rather give their money to businesses specifically targeting them. This market reality has not been lost on over 30% of Fortune 500 companies who specifically and openly market to the gay and lesbian consumer and job-seeker. Some common names include US Airways, General Electric, NBC, J.P. Morgan, Smirnoff and Showtime just to name a few – so learn from this hard-spent research money and follow their lead!

Locally, according to the most recent government census, there are approximately 300,000 gays and lesbians living in the DC, MD, VA area with 20,000 self-identified same-sex households. Because gays and lesbians respond overwhelmingly strong to gay and lesbian targeted ad campaigns, this alone shows the magnitude of opportunity for those that choose to reach out and target this market. Below are the area's gay and lesbian consumer demographics as gathered and reported by Simmons Market Research* during a survey of Washington Blade readers in 2000. The figure in parentheses indicates the comparison to all adults in the area.