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

Get a load of bottle bags

each bag contains a bottle of something (vinegar, bucks fizz, water, soy sauce, can of pop, wine, cooking wine, prosecco, tomato sauce...you get the idea)

staple bags closed

Customers pay 50p/£1 (not allowed to touch bag)
they then choose one to keep.

I found this game a real money spinner and fun to play. (still have a the bottle of soy sauce n the cupboard somewhere)

Human fruit machine.

Guess the weight of the headmaster/headmistress.

A really popular thing for our children to sell loads of during their world of work week is ‘stress bslls’ (Which cause a lot of bloody stress indeed!) - non blown up balloons filled with flour with faces drawn on with sharpie. They sell loads of them and are super cheap to make.
The headache is flour ending up everywhere during the filling and the occasional burst one...

We get parents to fill jam jars with nice things small toys, toiletries, hair accessories and chocolates/sweets as a kind of tombola. Its the most popular stall. Second is splat a rat...

One year my dd's school decided to have the children run the stalls as a business, each class decided what they wanted to do. There'd be a prize for the class that made the most money.

Well, I'm quietly competitive so approached my dd's teacher with an idea of making named bead bracelets. Bit of investment getting enough beads (nice square wooden ones) from ebay, decent black string, then pick a name, thread it on, tie a knot, make a fortune. Which they did

The kids made up bracelets ahead of time of all their friends to display/sell on fete day. Beads we had left over were for kids to make their own on the day.

Wiped the floor with all the other stalls

My daughter's primary used to have a TA dress up as a fortune teller, complete with crystal ball. You could book her up in advance, and it was impossible to get a slot as she was always fully booked!
They also did a grow a sunflower one year, which was popular. Lots of sunflower seedlings, DC chose one. These were planted in the school garden, and a prize given to the one that had grown highest on a specified date. We used to get updates in the school newsletter!

If you sell water bottles make sure there’s a space for a name and offer naming them at the time if you have decent permanent marker and someone with decent handwriting. School will love you that they don’t have a load of identical unnamed bottles the next week/term...

If you have a long roll of paper and can have a smooth surface to put it... a roll the coin stall. If you have a theme you can tweak it to fit in. So say it’s Treasure island. Have a starting line, draw some little islands on close by, few more scattered about,with final targets at the end. If a coin lands exactly within an island they get a small prize (sweet, double their coin value, free second go, etc). Bit bigger prize if land exactly in a further target. Also mark distance and have prizes for furthest roll that doesn’t fall off and a couple of silly ones like exactly 67 cm or exactly the height of the head teacher.

Most people will roll 1p, 2p, 5p or 10p so offering 2 or 3x stake as a prize isn’t too expensive which means that kids like to have lots of goes and their grown up doesn’t mind too much. As it’s quite tricky you don’t pay out much but people want to improve their distance/accuracy or beat their mate so play lots of goes - and all the time you get to take in all the coins...

We also did the stress balls but used very cheap rice which isn’t quite as messy as flour!,,,…….

If you have someone who can go down to the bank afterwards and they will will change old £1 coins (check first!) advertise you will take them in for game tokens (not transferable back from tokens!) you may find people who still have them will bring them in to get rid of them and spend more otherwise.

Another good one is to get a big prop selfie Instagram or Polaroid frame - you can get them cheaply online or there might be local suppliers that would donate one if they can have their logo on it too.

Personalise it with the school logo and date (even a generic Summer Term). Then charge people 50p or a pound for you to take 3 pictures on their own phones with it. Hopefully you will end up with lots of groups of friends who will want different combinations of pictures because it’s nice to have pictures together with the logo and date, especially if they’re leaving.

If the kids are younger and the parents want to take the photo that’s fine - do it to a slow count of 3 or 5 rather than take ages getting it perfect. And see if they want another pic (for another pound!) with them in it.

Have some prices where for more money you do more pictures - 3 shots each of 3 different poses for a couple of pounds, or £3 for a family/group of 3 or 4 friends to get a group shot plus individual shots of everyone on one phone (they can share amongst themselves - different phone means paying again etc.

Anyway you get the idea - work out your prices to what you think you can get away with.

If you get a reasonably robust frame you can bring it out at other events too - at the Christmas Fair have a couple of Santa hats to hand and that goes down well - people like having a Christmassy picture to send out. You get the idea!

a big tray... with a big mesh on the top - all the prizes inside, things like sweets, gliders etc and A few brown envelopes with £5 notes in... you throw your token/coin into the crate, through the mesh, and if it lands on the prize, you win it.

Okay, I'm going to give this a go! I have squishies, sticker sheets, key covers, loom band packs... what else could I put in it? Thought about a couple of pieces of fruit

Not read the whole thread but stalls selling homemade
Candles
Soaps
etc .
I always used to head for those when my DCs were in primary.

We are selling inflatable unicorns and dinosaurs this year!

Got them for a good price at a wholesalers. (A few pence over £1 each)

Ebae we used anything that was basically flat, eg chocolate bars, sweets etc, don't fill it too full so there's some 'losers' too. We had a creme egg in ours which someone did actually manage to land on!

I saw one outdoor stall which offered people goes throwing a ball through a netball hoop, which could be lowered for younger children. For those who didn't fancy their chances at goal scoring, the stallholder (a keen shooter) would score the goals instead, and people would pay to squirt them with a water pistol to try and distract them, winning a prize if the stallholder missed any. This was quite popular!

I saw another one which I think was a novel idea: win a prize if the blindfolded volunteer behind the stall can answer your question correctly. People would have to ask a question about themselves, such as "what colour is my T-shirt?". The trick was to ask questions which would be easy to guess, such as "am I barefoot?". Punters could also be blindfolded and asked a question about their own outfit; this was surprisingly difficult.

You lot are brilliant - thanks for all the suggestions!

I'd have loved to do homemade soaps but there are so many cosmetics laws restricting how it's done now. Homemade candles, though...

Oooo... @widgetbeana which wholesalers did you use? Could you inbox me a website?

@piefacedClique pm sent! Just a warning, they are over 1m tall each!

We had rice cups, a stack of paper cups with various little prizes in the bottom and filled up with rice, people pay 50p or whatever and pick a cup to tip through a sieve, whatever is in the sieve you win. Have a couple of better prizes (and a stooge to win one early if necessary) and you can recycle the cups and rice throughout the day

One school I was on the pta at invested in their own candy floss stall and that always had a full queue for it. They used pta funds to buy the machine and found it very worthwhile, as was the pop corn machine.

You can sell a bag for 50p - £1 depending on size and the raw ingredients only cost pennies (especially if you can get through Costco or a catering supplier!) so huge profits.

I know you said no to a tombola but our bottle stall at the local gala raised £££ at the weekend. All near enough pure profit if you take away the couple quid spent on raffle ticket books.
We were raising money for our Beavers/Cubs/Scouts and prices were all donated. Was by far the busiest stall.

Best I've done are -

Temporary tattoos - a LOT quicker and easier than face painting but similar queues and appeals to older children who think they are too old for face paints. Really cheap to buy a selection in bulk and anyone can apply them

Decorate a biscuit - packs of rich tea biscuits, bowls of runny icing (coloured?) Cheap sweets, sprinkles, choc chips etc (B&M or home bargains can be good for these) bit messy but put the table on a disposable tablecloth, very popular with kids and parents are happy because you don't need to charge much and it's food and an activity in one. This is one they normally come back to as they want to make one for someone else, try a different design or make another one to eat

Ice pops / lolly ices - if the weather is nice these are so popular, especially ice pops because you can buy them so cheaply you can sell cheaply but still more than triple your money. Make sure the person selling them has scissors to open them

we had a free dress day and all the kids had to bring in a jar filled with something as payment- way in advance of the fair.

for the fair, each jar was given a number. Kids bought a raffle ticket (say 50p/a quid) and get the jar that corresponds. It was a real money spinner. No outlay (but for parents on dress up day). Kids loved it- some get craft/sweets/random crap but no one madly cared. Sold out within the first hour.

@widgetbeana sorry but would you mind sending me the link as well please??

Excellent! I'm going to have a go at teacup candles too.