Why we love giving away free tickets to our readers

By John Toth

The Bulletin

You all know that summer is my favorite time of the year, no matter how hot it gets.

I probably like the heat more than many others around here, which is why we are going to help some of our readers to cool off.

If you’re reading this column, you have already seen our Page 1 promotion for free tickets to Moody Gardens’ Palm Beach Water Park in Galveston. We are giving away a bunch of tickets to help you get through the summer heat for at least one day.

This is a top-class water park in the Moody Gardens resort complex. We have been partnering with Moody Gardens for many years to give our readers an opportunity to win free tickets to their venues year-round. There will be more free ticket contests coming this year with Moody Gardens venues as the prize. It’s the most popular give-away we have.

It’s our way to give back to our readers who make all this possible. Without you, there is no paper. Advertisers buy space in a publication for the opportunity to market a product to the readership.

Without a loyal readership base, advertising doesn’t work, and it goes away, as does the paper. We  strive each week to maintain and grow our readership.

I’ve been doing this publishing business for a long time. I I started a new magazine on campus and a weekly newspaper for a veterans organization while carrying a full curriculum. I was also sports editor for the weekly college newspaper.

Back in those days, we did everything manually, which made for very long nights as we raced to meet deadlines.

We had to drive from one place, where we did the composing and paste up, to another place, where they printed the paper. Then we had to get the publication back to the campus and distribute it.

We didn’t run any give-away contests in the college paper, but we did have some advertising from businesses near the campus.

I suggested running contests, but I was the newest editor and got voted down. All that changed with The Bulletin.

For more than three decades, The Bulletin has been running some very successful give-away contests, except for one.

I took a graduate Shakespeare class at the University of Houston Clear Lake during our early years of publishing The Bulletin, and we gave away Bulletin coffee mugs to the first three readers who mailed in the correct answer to a Shakespeare question.

All the entries had the answer right. But we only received three coupons. They all were mailed Bulletin coffee mugs, and I canceled the Shakespeare contest.

There are no Shakespeare- related questions on the entry coupon for the free Palm Beach Water Park tickets.

Just fill out your information, print clearly and send it in. And, pick up The Bulletin every week to read all the interesting things we include in each issue.

We appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you for all your support throughout these 31 years.

(Email me at john.bulletin@gmail.com)