School 'Summer' Fete... best indoor moneymakers!

[eBae]

Please, please hit me with your best ideas/experiences!

I want to do something that isn't a tombola, book stall or bric a brac, but popular/worthwhile. Feeling totally uninspired

Also open to hilarious ideas for parent-centric stalls. The more tongue-in-cheek the better

Wet sponges at teachers on stocks is alays popular here !

Throwing darts at pictures of the Tory leadership candidates?

Cake stall, glitter tattoos/ facepainting, coconut shy or similar, hook a duck in a paddling pool.

there was a coloured hair stall at ours a few years ago and it was a huge success. the parents on it had some cans of colourful hair spray (make sure they wash out after 1 wash!), some towels and a mirror. get the kids to pick a colour or two, and spray it on.

At our school, the clear winner was the stall selling home made glitter slime.

I did a good one that made loads. You sell raffle tickets for a pound - goes in a bucket at a certain time near he end of the event, you pull out a ticket and the winner receives a percentage (e.g.half) of what is in the bucket. Obviously you need to agree this at the start. You have to be ok approaching people and asking for money!

Hook a duck is always a winner with children. Or the game with the lollipops on the wall where if the stick is a certain colour they win a prize.

Guess the name of the teddy, how many sweets in the jar. Maybe for the adults a novelty gnome - guess the name? Or stick some googly eyes and a hat on a bottle of wine 😂

Oooh I like the 'guess the wine' idea! It could even be like a shit version of Cluedo...

"Pino Grigio, from Morrisons, 2017"

Nerf guns.

Our cake stall always makes a surprising amount, as does face painting (dp always gets this job as he is quite artistic).

Lucky dip. The kids go mental for it.

Balance a coin on an orange in a jug of water. Get double whatever you put on. If it balances for 10 seconds.

It looks easy. It is actually impossible.

Pick a Stick - if it has a coloured tip, you win a prize. £1 for 5 goes (or whatever number is the going rate these days)

I've seen that in various guises - nails in a bale of straw (cover the bale in plastic sheeting first). The Lollipop stick version was good as it had colour-codes for bigger prizes and everyone won a sweet no matter.

Buzzwire game - win a prize for doing it with no buzzes.

Penny-rolling on a prize board. Highest Scorer of the day wins a prize. Keep a Leader board so people come back to better their pals.

Blind bags
Face paints
Balloon animals

Mind, my kids love a tombola. Ds (4) lovingly cuddled the 4pack of tea towels he won all the way homea

Cake competition?
Biscuit decoration?
Nail painting?

My dc’s school brought a badge machine which proved popular.

At school fetes, kids could pay to design and make a badge, or colour in a pre-printed one.

Also, the PTA could make badges for participating in sports days etc.

There is an initial outlay, but it definitely re-coupled the money and made a profit.

badge machine

Re-couped, not re-coupled! Too much Love Island!

Ds (4) lovingly cuddled the 4pack of tea towels he won all the way home

Amazing!

They had a self portrait art stall with poster paints and A3 paper. They put them up on the wall and then had a prize for the best one in infants and in juniors. Was v popular

My dc love lucky dips & face painting!

The absolute big hitter at our school fete was a big tray (think 2 of those cardboard Apple crates from Tesco) with a big mesh on the top (Like a one inch square mesh/wire/chicken wire??!) - all the prizes inside, things like sweets, gliders etc and A few brown envelopes with £5 notes in. We use tokens at our fair, so the game was you throw your token into the crate, through the mesh, and if it lands on the prize, you win it. You could do it with 50p pieces too.

Honestly, they were literally queuing up in droves.

I've also seen one game where you have a brilliant prize in a cage that's locked with a padlock- guess the 4 numbers on the padlock and open it to win the prize!

The padlock one is great!

Also, a lot of the banks 'match fund' so if any parents work at a bank that does this, get them to help on the stall and the bank will match whatever is taken at the event
(Or they used to when I was on the pta a couple of years ago!)

Get water bottles or reusable cups printed with the school logo and sell them.

Tinsel that's a good shout. They could also be sold to new joiners' parents at info evenings