The info below is subject to change and I will keep adding to it, so please keep checking back. Iten will be up on this page soon as well.

Sponsors

Dollywood (free admission + lunch)

• Extra Info: We will allow you to split up in groups to run through Dollywood at your leisure. We will meet for lunch, please do not be late. They will be giving us a presentation about the brand at that time. We will then be able to go out again into the park. Dollywood will be offering vans for those bloggers interested in visiting the Dolly cabins. This is a unique way to bring something extra to your blog posts. They will bring you over and back to the park in groups. Please note that Dolly brands have been very generous and are looking at hosting Brandcation in a dolly cabin in the future (free of charge) so we would love your opinion if you would stay there.
• Facebook
• Twitter

Cabin Fever Vacations (special rates for our group)

• Extra Info: The cabins would love to have you blog on their site. This is a GREAT way to get some travel blogging exposure for future comped trips for your blog and a link back. I will help set up all interested parties.
• Their Facebook
• Their Twitter

Dixie Stampede (free admission to dinner show)

• Facebook
• Twitter

Titanic Museum (Free admission to sold out tour, usage of meeting rooms, and breakfast)

• Extra Info: they will link your blog posts on their page
• Facebook

Wax Museum (free admission, gift. tickets to give away on your blog)

• Facebook

Country Tonight (free admission to concert show, optional event, tickets to giveaway on your blog)

• Extra Info: This is not a planned event, but they have offered us tickets. Those interested I will pass tickets to you and your friends and you can go at will while exploring. The theater is a multimillion dollar theater.
• Twitter
• Facebook

Flashy Blinky Lights – sponsorship for special (surprise) event

(more info coming soon)

Info you may need:

Hosted by: Brandfluential
Hashtag: #brandcation

(it is also fine to tag your posts with additional hashtags like the location #pigeon forge , #smokeymountains , etc)

We are going to PIGEON FORGE, NOT GATLINBURG. These cities are very different, although only 5 miles apart. PF is hosting us, so please do not write that wrong in your articles.

Things you should know:

We would like to host a group rafflecopter giveaway with one of your posts. The city of Pigeon Forge has been very generous in offering up admissions, food, and information. Its been very Southern hospitality at its finest. We will send out the code in about a week after return and I will keep the tickets and fulfill the prizes. We will all be hosting the same rafflecopter and the prizes will consist of tickets from the locations we visited!

We fully expect you to blog about and include your opinion/pictures for all the comped events and any sponsors that paid for us to attend. You may include the Dolly brand events into one post if you prefer…sorta like a “Dolly Day” (dixie stampede, dollywood). Additionally, we have one sponsor picking up a special event, so we would like you to include “brought to you by ___________”. I will give you more info at that time since its a surprise. After all, the entire reason the companies want bloggers there are to BLOG. Brandcation #3 girls really did a great job (120 posts and over 1400 social media shoutouts) but we believe this group will do even better. When it comes to SWAG and GIVEAWAYS, the focus on this Brandcation will be less swag since we are all coming in from different locations. In any case, you do not have to do an individual post about swag sponsors (unless you would like to) but we do ask that you do one “thank you to” post at the culmination of the event. We will provide you with a digital cut and paste that are welcome to customize.

* Please tweet and facebook while you are live at some of the events. We will ask you/remind you and we do NOT want it to take over the event, but we may ask you during down times to give outs to the brands. Show them the POWER of what you can DO. Our presence at some of these places is a FIRST for them and its up to this group of bloggers to show how positive a strong group of professionals can be.

You will have some down time. Please bring money for some food on your own, snacks, and extras you want to buy. We have built in breaks between events and in the evenings.

WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN

——

Because we realize that Brandcations are a special breed of event, we want to thank YOU for giving back to the sponsors in a timely fashion. Between now and 2 weeks after the event, every one of the following earns you an entry :

• tweet/follow of a brand
• facebook like/share/follow of brand
• blog post about the events/brands/brandcation
• pin of a brand
• link to a brand, etc
• stumble one of the attendees posts on brandcation/events
• any other social media aspect you think of not listed but related to events
• pre-event ideas: shout outs on twitter, encourage visitors to follow, ask people if they have been to those locations, ask fav rides at dollywood, etc.

One winner will be rewarded from an entry to win thier choice of one of the following three prizes:

“Moms Playtime, Surftime, Alonetime Prize”

which will be an iPad2

or

“Moms a Business Woman with a Blog Prize”

which will be a Canon T3 12.2 meg with 18-55mm lense

or

“Moms Relax, Get out of my room, I am reading Pack”

which includes Kindle fire + 1 year amazon prime + $100 amazon gift card

There will only be ONE winner, but its just out of 33 other bloggers, so your chances get higher the more you do. I will pull the winner by “as the winner is” plugin. Just please come back and put your link to your tweet/facebook/pin, etc. in the comments. Every comment for your posts/social stuff you make on this post is an entry.

In adddition to your comments, PLEASE PLEASE put your articles in this linky when you write them and make the title something for us to know what it is. For example, if you are doing a post on Dixie Stampede, please write (Dixie Stampede/Momdot) or (Pre-brandcation Shoutout/MomDot) etc in the title. We are going to turn over your articles to the brands at the end and its helps us collect them in an easy way.  This is absolutely the most important part of the end of the event for us as the staff for this. Your articles and thoughts on where we visited help us decide future locations.

linky below, please wait for it to load. You may start now!

I didn’t expect to have 36 entries in the Brandcation sponsorship contest. I really didn’t. I thought 5, maybe 10 bloggers, would enter and it would just be a matter of who was the most creative. I was SO wrong. There were not only 36 entries, but 36 fantastic and beautifully written entries, some that included video, some that were heartfelt and some that had fantastic reasons on why they wanted to attend our 4th Brandcation. I was just telling Lynsey we could almost run a whole new event based just on those entries, but unfortunately we only had the one spot to give away.

Or did we…

During the course of this contest, we unfortunately had a blogger have to give up her ticket due to a work situation. While we are VERY VERY sad to see her not be able to attend, we are going to gift out her ticket to a second winner and Lynsey from Moscato Mom offered to pick up the cabin tab.

So in the end, we have been able to pick TWO bloggers based on the generosity of our attending bloggers and their kindness in supporting the women on this event. Which goes to show you just what kind of event this is!

The judges on this sponsorship were Kim and Nicole (on the Brandcation staff) and Toni, Lynsey, and Jen, all whom donated towards the sponsorships. I asked them to send me their top 3 bloggers out of what they read, in order of their picks, and not to copy any other judge. There were two bloggers that were consistently in all the judges emails in spaces 1 and 2 back to me.

Without further ado, the winners are:

Melissa from Fun Saving Mom, whom put together a really authentic video on why she wanted to attend and what she does all day as a mom

and

Cyn from Daily Cynema, whom put up laugh out loud photoshopped photos of herself “attending”, while also adding her desire to bike to Brandcation for charity.

Let me make something super clear.

There was not one bad entry in the bunch. NOT ONE.

Every blogger that entered deserved to win and as bloggers ourselves, we understand the hearts that go into an entry and the hope to win in the end. The simple fact is there could only be 1 (and lucky for us 2) winners but it does not mean that we won’t have other tickets come up. If we do, we will revisit this list to see if we can offer them back out, so please let us know below if you would still like to attend if the ticket (but nothing else) was sponsored. You can read more about past Brandcation events here. If for any reason either of these two bloggers cannot attend, we will revisit the entries for a new winner.

We do BEG you to join the forum and get to know the bloggers (and soak up their knowledge) and hopefully be one of the first to grab a ticket on the next one we host.  I also will list there if we have a ticket open up for any reason. We have a major amount of fun, get to expose the bloggers to really fantastic content to share back on their blogs, and do a ton of bonding. At the end of the day blogging can be very lonely if you isolate yourself. We use Brandcations to connect to brands, bloggers, and to finally meet up with some “co-workers” in a healthy non-competitive environment.

Thank you for every blogger that took the time to enter. We are humbled by your time and thoughtfulness and talent.

~Trisha

We sold out of Brandcation: Blog Lodge in a day and a half but have a surprise for interested in attending bloggers. We are sponsoring the last ticket, free of charge, and the lodging, free of charge courtesy of Minnesota blogger from Life with Levi, and $100 to help with your food and extra expenses/travel stipend courtesy of Toni from Just Stop Screaming to one lucky winner.

Information is below:

Three amazing and fun-filled nights with 33 of your favorite online bloggers building relationships based on memories, adventure, and blog talk.  Just like our last three Brandcations, there will be fantastic comps, lots of bonding, and as always lots of  local and national amazing brand introductions.

In the past we have done Blogggers on Bourbon (New Orleans), Bloggers Go Global (Orlando), and Bloggers Gone Coastal (Pensacola Beach). All the events were widely fun and have a solid reputation of providing a true bonding experience. Please note that while you may win your ticket and lodging, your transportation and  some meals are up to you. Please read all the details on our event page here and note the actual details and responsibilities of attending bloggers.

Here is a small sample of the weekend and is covered in your ticket:

• Thursday Dixie Stampede
• Friday Dollywood
• Sat Titanic Museum, The Old Mill, Wax Museum

WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN

To Enter To Win the LAST brandcation ticket (Worth $125) and the FREE Lodging (Worth $150) and a $100 travel/food stipend, we have a super easy entry!:

We want you to write a blog post and answer one of the two questions:

1) WHY you want to attend and what it would mean to you

or

2) WHY you want to go to Pigeon Forge and the place you are most excited to visit listed on our iten up there.

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NOTE: Please make sure link in your article per FTC rules that this giveaway is sponsored by MomDot (linking to this post is fine) , Minnesota Blogger Life with Levi  and Toni from Just Stop Screaming.

Once your article is done, please link the post on the linky tools below. Please note it may take a moment to load.

Details: Giveaway ends on July 13th. Winners will be selected by CREATIVITY and skill in the post, not random. We are looking for someone really excited to attend! Lodging and ticket is only useable for lodging and ticket and is paid directly to the event and has no cash value. Stipend for travel awarded to you after confirmation of attendance. Your ticket and lodging is not transferable if you choose not to attend will be awarded to a new winner chosen by our committee. Your travel stipend will be awarded at the event in cash (or up to 1 week prior in Paypal) to help you with food and related expenses.