Summer fete-what do you have at yours?

[Eddas]

We are going to be running a summer fete this year for the first time, previously another group in our village had run it and it has been a fairly small affair with some good stalls. However I felt, and other people mentioned, that it lacked something and was fairly small. This year it would be nice to have a few more things going on. The committee have come up with some ideas but I wanted to pick the collective brains of mn and see what you have at your summer fete that is good and makes money, after all that's why the fetes are run, to raise money!

Also, what do you think are essential must have stalls at a fete?

TIA

[Eddas]

bump

[AbigailS]

Plant stall, cake stall, guess the weight ...., tombola, etc. Sale of pocket money toys from Webb Ivory or the like. Classroom for craft activities.
Bouncy castle, beat the goalie, pin the tail on the donkey.
Local usborne books, body shop at home, Jamie at home reps and local small craft sellers pay to run a stall.
Hair weaves, tattoos and, star of the show, teachers doing face painting! We're pretty useless but the children love it.
Food and drink stalls, bbq.
Fire engine with fire men

[treas]

We've had a monorail and had a percentage of the takings.
Coconut shy
One year we managed to get a lot of really decent prizes that were too good for a raffle so had a Silent Auction instead. A4 paper headed up with the prize and how much it was really worth and a start bid price. People then wrote down their names and bids with a minimum increment per new bid. E.g. a £30 Silver necklace went for £20 etc. We ended up with £500 that we would never have had from a raffle.

[stoatsrevenge]

Rain

[AbigailS]

We seem to alternate between roasting hot and pouring rain. We're due for rain this year if my pattern follows. Luckily for me the face painting is under cover.

[Eddas]

Thanks for the posts so far, food for thought.


We have specifically set our date on a day when it will be lovely sunshine so that's all ok

[MillsAndDoom]

Biggest takings at ours came from the chocolate fountain - kids queueing for ages for it.

[Deaddei]

Tombolas-sweets and fizzy, toiletries
Swing boats, bouncy castle
Coconut shy
Korean food from parents
BBQ/bar-vital
Lucky dip or lollies
Gruesome dip- like lucky dip but a tub full of jelly, cooked spaghetti etc
£5 raffle-pay a fiver, name on a slip, winner gets half the pot
Candy floss

[lovecheese]

Cakes!!! biggest pull on the day
Fresh bread and cakes
BBQ
book stall
toy stall
second hand uniform
chocolatebola
tombola
bottlebola - another biggie
face painting
tattoos and nails
beat the goalie
ten pin bowling
miniature train
bouncy castles
raffle
PA to jiggy everything along
country dancing by pupils
street dancing likewise
most importantly stalls and games devised by and run by pupils

[Jezabelle]

dog show

[lovecheese]

seriously???

[savoycabbage]

Love the dog show idea! People would love that.

We have
colouring competition
cakes
lucky dip
teddy bear tombola
strawberries and cream
face painting
guess how many whatevers are in the jar
lucky bottle - get a raffle ticket win a bottle
badge making

[escape]

Hook a Duck!

[Eddas]

Thanks everyone

I'd appreciate any other inputs too please, the more the better so I can try to come up with a list of suggestions for the next meeting.

Thank you

[Eveiebaby]

Pimms and lemonade!

[stoatsrevenge]

pony rides

[AbigailS]

Ohhh! Think of the Risk ASsessments

[stoatsrevenge]

Yeah. They wrap the ponies in bubble wrap. Kids seem to enjoy it though.
All the manure washes away in the rain.

[IloveJudgeJudy]

Go-kart track
teachers selling sweets
tea and cake stall (parents from school to make/donate cakes)
pimms stall/tent
crockery smash
children from the school dancing (brings in the parents)
children from the school doing anything (brings in the parents)
ceramics table (they either pay for the table or give the school a percentage)
police dogs
fire engine (can't always promise these)
raffle with at least one quite big prize
laser quest tent (but make sure they don't sell sweets in competition with your sweet stall)
inflatable slide.
Someone dressed up as Micky and Minnie Mouse. That went down an absolute storm. Didn't actually bring in any money, but did bring a lot of joy to the children and maybe brought more people to the fete.

the only thing that limits what stall you can have is the amount of help you will get. In my DC's old school this was always a problem. We tried various ways - getting each class to be responsible for a particular stall and tried to get the parents to sign up to help in 30 minute batches.

I hope your fete goes well and that you have more luck with the help than we did.

[Furball]

stoatsrevenge aren't you missing a trick with the manure - you could bag it up and sell it!

[3rdnparty]

Euphemia, that obstacle course thing sounds good can you remember the name of the company?

last year as well as the norm we had;
cream teas - tables with cloths and bunting! - not too far away from the cake table as well so people could sit for a whie and just drink tea eat cake and watch the world go by...
chocolate fountain - what a mess!
table top stalls- where local people that made stuff paid £x think it was £10 and sold what they made
Sumo suits- won't do again due dislocated shoulder of child and other bashes and bumps....
yr 6 ran their own to raise money for their end of year party
Charity table- local charity has stall to do their stuff
Plant stall- gardening club and others donate plants we sell
Climbing wall - they were great split price of climb with us
Curry stall - local restaurant comes along and splits price with us.

hth

[BooToYouToo]

Similar to the curry stall, we have an international stall where the overseas parents donate food from Polish cakes to Indonesian curry.

We also charge entrance, think its 50p per person or £2 per family (bit controversial that one but raises a fortune). At the gates we also flog bags with the school logo on.

Agree with Judge Judy that help is a big problem. Definitely assign stalls to class reps and ask them to sort out manpower.

The biggest headache for us was always the toy stall. Sorting good stuff from junk and finding storage in the run up to the fair as well as pricing can take ages. This year someone had the great idea to have each class look after and price a category of toys (pre-school, dressing up, puzzles etc) and then one class will oversee and man the stall on the day.

[Jezabelle]

Dog show is the most popular/talked about event at our village carnival, (similar to fete but bigger and with procession at the end etc). Guess people are charged to enter dogs? (Not a dog owner or on carnival procession so not sure!)

Is there a toddler group in the village? Our toddler group sets up a tent and small fenced off area with ride-on toys for under 5s. Tent is for baby feeding and changing. Not a big fundraiser in itself but keeps it family friendly and means parents with LOs can stay longer and therefore spend more!

You could try looking up a bit of local history. Is there a long gone tradition that you could revive, (ie cheese throwing etc).

[Eddas]

jazabelle, I am LOVING the idea of a toddler area, brilliant! Definately going on my list to suggest.

Keep 'em coming!