Hey there, Halo checking in, organizer for the Salt Lake City, Utah event. I just thought I would write down a few notes, being that I was a first time lead organizer. I was co-organizer for last year's CSTS. Sorry if this is long, but I wanted to give a full report.
So, we were the first CSTS event this year!
A week prior to the showing, one of our volunteers had gotten a local bar which does a monthly cosplay night to donate their cover charge for the night to us. They do it for a different charity every month. Of course, our Browncoats rocked it, we held a raffle at the event and we packed the bar with more than they had ever had for their cosplay night. Between the cover charge and the raffle we made about $600.
Cosplay Night 
Cosplay Night Raffle
Browncoats Assemble! We also got together a week before the showing and stuffed our goodie boxes. We used Chinese takeout boxes and filled them with some very cool things. We asked some of our sponsors if they could provide us with 160 of any item. We got Serenity soaps, Fruity Oaty Bars (relabeled granola bars) Serenity chocolates, a custom commemorative pendant and little drink parasols, among other things. A local comic shop gave us bookmarks, and we also gave away the Misbehave postcards for each box as well.
Goodie Boxes! 
Custom pendantThe night of the screening it had been raining torrentially all day. So although we were sold out, we had about 30 or so folks that didn't show up due to the weather. We started out in the lobby with our silent auction which closed about an hour before the movie started. We were able to be seated at about the time the silent auction ended. During the half hour before our theater program started, we raffled off items. While we were doing that, we rolled a presentation thanking our sponsors.
Seating and raffling
Goodie Boxes and Merch table, prior to starting
Cute Browncoats! 
The 47th represent! We started the theater program with a singalong of "The Hero of Canton" and the "Ballad of Serenity". Then we showed an easter egg from Done the Impossible with an introduction from Brian Wiser. Then we had our live auction for about 15-20 minutes. After the live auction, we rolled the intro video from CSTS and then the movie.
Following the movie, we had our costume contest and then the final items were raffled off.
TL:DR
SO. Much. Fun. Do it! It's such a blast. Totally worth all the stress, work and planning.
