Event Sponsorship Opportunity Finder

Find local tech and startup events, then rank them as sponsorship opportunities with component scores, evidence gaps, and a recommended next action.

The Actor is designed for B2B field marketing, partnerships, developer relations, recruiting, and community teams. It answers: which local events deserve outreach?

This is an opportunity finder, not a generic scraper. It scans public event listings itself, normalizes and deduplicates the events, then applies transparent sponsorship scoring inside the same Actor. Missing information becomes an evidence gap instead of a guess.

Why use this Actor?

• Search one or more cities without maintaining several event-source integrations.
• Rank local events against your company, audience, and preferred themes.
• Separate audience fit, sponsorability, and outreach timing.
• See why an event scored well and what still needs confirmation.
• Open the canonical event page to validate details and contact the organizer.
• Append results to an existing Apify dataset and schedule weekly searches.

The Actor may return a public listing image URL for review, but it does not download or republish image files, attendee profiles, or private contact data.

Use cases

• Field marketing: shortlist meetups and community events where buyers may gather.
• Partnerships: find communities for co-marketing, demos, or ecosystem relationships.
• Developer relations: identify events suited to talks, workshops, or technical sponsorships.
• Recruiting and agencies: choose relevant communities or run client-specific searches without collecting attendee identities.

How scoring works

Score	What it measures
audienceFitScore	Match between the expected event audience, sponsor profile, and themes.
sponsorshipPotentialScore	Public signals such as organizer, venue, format, audience-size signal, and event type.
timingScore	Whether enough lead time remains for outreach and activation planning.
opportunityScore	Weighted total: 50% audience fit, 35% sponsorability, and 15% timing.

The deterministic scoring model prioritizes research; it does not call an external AI model and does not predict sponsorship ROI. Audience size is returned only when a public listing contains a usable signal and is labeled heuristic_estimate, because public RSVPs are not verified attendance.

recommendedAction is one of contact_organizer, fast_track_outreach, research_sponsorship, attend_or_validate, or skip_for_now.

How do I run it?

1. Enter one to three cities where your team can act.
2. Describe the company, product, ideal audience, and sponsorship goal.
3. Add themes such as AI agents, developer tools, or B2B SaaS.
4. Choose a date range, or leave it blank for the next 60 days.
5. Start with five results, review the scoring, then increase the limit.
6. Open each event page and confirm sponsorship availability before committing budget.

{
  "cities": ["Lisbon"],
  "dateFrom": "2026-08-14",
  "dateTo": "2026-10-13",
  "sponsorProfile": "A B2B developer-tools company seeking AI founders, technical leaders, and senior engineers for product demos and partnerships.",
  "themes": ["AI", "startup founders", "developer tools"],
  "maxResults": 10,
  "runId": "lisbon-weekly-2026-08-14"
}

What input is accepted?

Field	Required	Description
cities	Yes	City names to search. One to three is recommended; up to ten are accepted.
sponsorProfile	Yes	Company, offer, audience, and sponsorship objective used for fit scoring.
themes	Yes	Topics that should appear in the event or expected audience.
dateFrom	No	Earliest event date in YYYY-MM-DD; defaults to today.
dateTo	No	Latest event date; defaults to 60 days after the start.
maxResults	No	Maximum ranked rows to save, from 1 to 100.
datasetId	No	Existing Apify dataset that should also receive every result.
runId	No	Workflow identifier copied to every output row.

Source selection, request limits, retries, and temporary state remain internal.

What data is returned?

Each row is one opportunity. Unavailable optional facts are omitted rather than returned as null; evidenceGaps explains what remains unknown.

{
  "eventName": "Startup Summit Lisbon 2026 | Founder, Startup & Investor Event",
  "startsAt": "2026-09-17T08:30:00.000Z",
  "endsAt": "2026-09-17T23:00:00.000Z",
  "city": "Lisbon",
  "venue": "Unicorn Factory Lisboa - Beato Innovation District",
  "attendanceMode": "in-person",
  "organizer": "Startup Summit",
  "eventSummary": "2,000+ founders, investors & innovators. Lisbon, Sept 17–18. 150+ speakers, 200+ booths, 40+ countries.",
  "imageUrl": "https://img.evbuc.com/event-image.jpg",
  "isFree": false,
  "priceFrom": 24.5,
  "currency": "EUR",
  "eventUrl": "https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/startup-summit-lisbon-2026-founder-startup-investor-event-tickets-1987781295364",
  "audienceSizeTier": "unknown",
  "audienceFitScore": 56,
  "sponsorshipPotentialScore": 76,
  "timingScore": 100,
  "opportunityScore": 70,
  "opportunityStatus": "promising",
  "recommendedAction": "research_sponsorship",
  "fitReasons": [
    "Theme match: startup founders",
    "Matches sponsor audience terms: startup, founders"
  ],
  "sponsorshipSignals": [
    "In-person event supports physical brand activation",
    "Named organizer provides a practical outreach path",
    "Named venue indicates concrete event planning",
    "Commercially useful event format: summit, founder, startup"
  ],
  "evidenceGaps": [
    "Audience size is not publicly evidenced",
    "Sponsorship availability and package pricing require organizer confirmation"
  ],
  "runId": "lisbon-weekly-2026-08-14"
}

RUN_SUMMARY and OUTPUT hold run-level diagnostics instead of adding error rows to the opportunity table:

{
  "status": "succeeded",
  "opportunitiesSaved": 10,
  "eventsEvaluated": 34,
  "cities": ["Lisbon"],
  "dateRange": { "from": "2026-08-14", "to": "2026-10-13" },
  "highPriorityCount": 2,
  "promisingCount": 5
}

A search with no matching events succeeds with succeeded_no_results.

API usage

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/trovevault~event-sponsorship-finder/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "cities": ["Berlin"],
    "sponsorProfile": "A B2B observability platform seeking platform engineers, developer-tool founders, and cloud infrastructure teams.",
    "themes": ["platform engineering", "developer tools", "cloud infrastructure"],
    "maxResults": 10
  }'

Poll the returned run ID, then download the default dataset. The Actor also works with Apify clients and the Apify MCP server. Use webhooks or a downstream integration for delivery.

Scheduling

Use an Apify Schedule for weekly searches. Every run returns the current shortlist so score changes remain visible. For new-only alerts, deduplicate by eventUrl downstream; datasetId and runId support that pattern.

Runtime and cost

The Actor is self-contained: it does not call another Actor or an external scoring service. It uses HTTP extraction where possible and browser rendering for dynamic public listings, so run time and compute usage increase with the number of cities and themes. Start with one city and five results.

Limitations

• Initial discovery focuses on local technology, AI, startup, founder, and developer events.
• Coverage varies by city, date, and the availability of public event listings.
• Listings may be changed, canceled, incomplete, promotional, or duplicated.
• Audience estimates are heuristic and are not verified attendance.
• A named organizer does not guarantee sponsorship inventory.
• The Actor does not retrieve sponsorship decks, package prices, private emails, attendee lists, or private communities.
• It does not contact organizers, purchase packages, register attendees, or publish event content.
• Verify dates, venue, audience, rights, and commercial terms on the event page.
• Do not use output for unsolicited bulk messaging or personal-data collection.

Troubleshooting

No results: broaden the window, simplify themes, or test a larger technology hub.

Relevant but not sponsorable: add audience roles and activation goals to sponsorProfile.

Scores are broad: replace generic themes such as technology with concrete topics, roles, or communities.

Scheduled runs repeat events: the Finder intentionally returns a current shortlist. Deduplicate by eventUrl downstream for new-only alerts.

One source returns fewer events: retry once, then open an issue with a redacted run ID. Other sources continue independently.

Responsible use

Respect copyright, contracts, privacy, local law, and publisher terms. Verify important claims and do not republish full descriptions or standalone images without permission.

FAQ

Finder or monitor?
Finder describes the product result. Apify Schedules provide recurring monitoring.

Does it guarantee sponsorship ROI?
No. Scores prioritize research. Confirm audience, packages, exclusivity, price, and deliverables with the organizer.

Why keep eventUrl?
Buyers need the canonical page to validate the opportunity and find the correct organizer route.

Where can I get help?
Open an issue with the run ID, city, date range, and expected result. Do not include API tokens or private information.

Changelog

0.1

• Initial city-level sponsorship opportunity finder.
• Added self-contained public event crawling, audience-fit, sponsorability, timing, weighted scores, evidence gaps, images, price signals, recommended actions, destination dataset support, and run summaries.