Hi guys. It's been a longtime since I've posted

at the large events how do the producers get volunteers for tasks like parking, stalling, running the back gate etc

is it all paid positions?  

what about smaller jackpots where volunteers are needed ? 

thanks 

The only place we have "volunteers" is at our local saddle club where members are expected to pull their weight. Otherwise, we pay all staff (tractor drivers, office staff, announcers, etc).

We are putting on a big show in a few weeks for a non-profit we are involved with. We get many volunteers that help because of what the charity entails, we send kids with life threatening illnesses to rodeos and make them King or Queen of the rodeo for the night. BUT---we still pay our barrel setters, it just became too big of a pain to try and put volunteers into time slots to set barrels and we try and pay the tractor drivers but they usually refuse so we give them free stalls for the weekend to try and compensate. It is a LONG weekend for all involved.

Finding volunteers has become really difficult! Most events have to hire help and that's difficult, too. In order to produce a well-run event, you must have enough workers (paid or volunteers) and it's become really difficult to staff events. Not sure what the answer is to this...