Mountain Biking - What makes a GREAT Mtn Bike Fastival?

I am involved in my local bike club and have some event planning experience so they have asked me to work on our Fat Tire Fastival this year. What makes a great Festival to you guys? Sponsor? Large number of people? Food? Swag? Trails?

We would like to see 200-250 people this year. I want to make the event as fun as possible but am not sure what will appeal to the masses. I am looking at sponsorships for the donation of product for raffles and such and was curious if you guys had suggestions of places that were good sponsors.

Any input is welcome. Also how much is a festival worth? If we are talking 2.5 days (Friday night, Saturday and Sunday) including 5 meals (2 dinners, 2 breakfasts, and 1 lunch). We are looking at about $35/person. Please gove me some constructive input.

The local club around here puts on an annual festival. This year's was a very good time. The cutoff was 250 and it was completely filled. Sign in was Friday night and there was a night ride Fri. for those that got there in time. Food was brought in (catered) for 3 meals on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. This STILL required a large number of volunteers to serve the food and do clean-up. Plus, you've got to have someone willing to make coffee and oatmeal in the morning. A local musician played on Saturday night. Then of course a KEG was provided by one of the local micro-breweries.

There were rides Fri night, Sat. morning, early afternoon and late afternoon and then another on Sunday. If you wanted, you could've gottin in over 100 miles for the weekend.

Camping facilities are crucial. We reserved the ENTIRE campground for the event.

Cost included camping, a T-shirt, the 5 meals, and all riding for $60. If you checked a box to do part-time volunteering, you were refunded half the entry. I offered to be a trail guide and got 1/2 my money back!

The only thing I would've added would've been some "fun activities" like a Huffy Toss, or Bike Polo, or some type of Skills contest.

L8R