Y.E.S. for Arkansas Expo Day

Congratulations to our 2017 Y.E.S. for Arkansas Top 25 Finalist Teams!  Click here for a list of the teams and their schools.

Finalists will now need to create a marketing piece and prepare a booth for the 12th annual Y.E.S. for Arkansas Expo Day, which will be Friday, January 27, 2017, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., at Park Plaza in Little Rock.

Sponsors will also need to be collecting T-shirt sizes and signed media releases for themselves and all team members participating in Expo Day. AEAF staff will coordinate this with sponsors following the Top 25 announcement.

At Expo Day, teams will have booths to display and demonstrate their business products and services for both Park Plaza patrons, and a new team of judges between 10:00 a.m. and noon. The judges will score the booths to determine winners in two more categories (click the links for the actual scorecards):

• 2017 Best Marketing Piece – The marketing piece can be a flyer or brochure, a video, a web page (offline only), or other visual to help students promote their products or services in their Expo Day booths.

• 2017 Best Retail Booth Display – In designing the booth, elements should include color, lighting, signage, and focus. Elements of booth display include: focus, showcasing features and benefits, props, streamlining displays, and professionalism of the presenter/s in the booth.  NOTE:  Each booth is 8 feet wide by 6 feet deep.  A skirted 6 foot table, two chairs, and electrical power drops will be provided for each booth. Each booth will have an 8 foot drape along the back of the booth with 3 feet of drape along the sides of the booth. Click here to see examples of team retail booths at previous Expo Day events.

• 2017 Most Innovative – We will have a separate group of two to three judges just for this category. They will visit the booths of the 10 teams that scored the highest in the Innovation Category in the first (written) round of the competition. They will ask only the question asked of teams in this section of the written round: “How is the product or service new or different from what is currently in the marketplace?” Be prepared to defend your answer with research and other factual information – and persuasion!

• 2017 Best Business Plan – The winners in this division have been decided in the written round. They will be announced along with the winners of the above three categories at the Expo Day Awards Ceremony.