Looking for Advice on Starting an IEA Team

[Kirikou]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been discussing starting an IEA team with another local barn for the past couple of years, but we’re struggling to get a third barn on board (we need at least three teams to start). The biggest hurdle has been being able to accurately answer the question, “How much is this going to cost?”

The membership fees are clearly listed on the IEA website, but we’re having trouble estimating the cost of hosting an IEA show (we both run in-house schooling shows but we don’t have to pay for a steward, etc). I know that entry fees help offset expenses, but we also need to account for the cost of stewards, judges, EMTs, etc. When I reached out to the (very nice!) national IEA staff, they said costs vary too much by region for them to give me an estimate and recommended reaching out to other barns with teams.

Since there’s no existing IEA circuit in our area, I’m hoping to get some insight here: What are the ballpark costs of running an IEA team and hosting a show? Any rough numbers would be incredibly helpful as I talk to families and try to recruit another barn. For reference, we’re in the Upper Midwest, in areas that would fall into the low-to-medium income range for this IEA circuit.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[Sarah616]

First, and maybe this was information given to you by the national office, is there no region anywhere near you? You need three teams entered to host a show, but when you join you will be placed into a region that has enough room and is within easy traveling distance. They are unlikely to start a new region made up of only three teams. Being in the Midwest, your regions may be a lot larger than what I am familiar with in Virginia.

Here are my estimated costs from the shows I hosted this year
Judge - $350 - I am able to get pretty local judges who don’t require travel or lodging expenses, but if you are super remote you may have to pay for a hotel
Steward - $300 or $350 - again the lodging aspect, but also it is different from IHSA because you have to hire an actual steward, and not just use a committee of the coaches
EMT - varied greatly. I had one who charge $20/hour from start of schooling to end of the day, and another who charges a flat $300. The flat fee comes from a little further away than the ones who charged an hourly fee. I think there are some volunteer EMT services that don’t charge but accept a donation
Ribbons - again, varies, but I think around $500 or so depending on how many you need
Porta Potties - if you don’t want people overflowing your barn bathroom, I highly suggest porta potties. We have a good deal with a local place that brings us two for about $120

I don’t pay my ingate or announcer, but have those as volunteer positions. I might throw a free lesson someone’s way for volunteering.

This year entries were $55/class, and I think IEA was taking $6 dollars from each entry. Once they get their online entries up and going we are looking at service fees as well, which is super annoying and most coaches are very much against.

I’d say our total costs are somewhere around $1200 day of, not counting the bit we have to send to IEA. Our shows tend to make around $4,000 end profit because we tend to allow a good number of entries.

I love IEA and am happy to help out anyone who has questions about it.

[Kirikou]

This is exactly the kind of breakdown I was looking for—thank you so much for sharing! The cost estimates and insight into things like the stewards, EMTs, and even porta potties! are incredibly helpful. IEA has been on my radar for a while, but figuring out the logistics has been a challenge, so I really appreciate you taking the time to lay this all out! Thank you!

[trubandloki]

@Sarah616

I highly suggest porta potties. We have a good deal with a local place that brings us two for about $120

Not IEA specific, but this is an example of how things might cost different depending on where you are. I find porta potties to be $100 each, so getting two will be $200 for example.
That was a pretty standard fee last time I called around in my area.