What were the most profitable stalls at your school fete?

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And what wasn't really worth the effort?

Five weeks to go until our summer fete and it's all kicked off (again) at the PTA. Most of the members who were supposed to be organising and running the stalls have walked away from the PTA entirely (sadly, not the two people that I wish would leave, but heigh ho).

A bouncy castle and fairground ride have already been booked and I think the catering is mostly sorted, including a cake stall. And the person in charge of the raffle is staying. So, we just need some games stalls and probably a few stalls selling products.

What would you recommend, bear in mind that the number of volunteers we'll have on the day is likely to be limited due to the Old Guard's talent for pissing them all off. I thought about running away as well, but my kids love the fete and the school needs the money.

Candy floss machine absolute money spinner at ours. It always makes the most money after the bbq and the bar.

jolly jars is also pretty good: makes a fair amount, parents get to go through their house and get rid of a load of little bits of tat in the jars, and the kids go mad for it

On the flip side we tried a second hand clothing stall last year which was a ton of work to organise and then made next to nothing

Tombola definitely

At my son's it is by far throwing wet sponges at teachers. Followed closely by the BBQ and bouncy castle.

No alcohol allowed at my son's but that would definitely be popular too.

Hook a Bag
Each child is sent home from school the week prior with an empty Kraft bag to decorate and fill with small toys, sweets etc. Returned to school and the bags are set up on a table. For £2 the children use a 'hook-a-duck' pole to hook the handles of a bag. Always a queue and sells out.
Teddy Tombola
Soft toys are donated and used for the tombola. No tickets put on the toys, a 0 or a 5 wins and the children pick their winner.

Korean food
Bar
Win a cuddly tombola...we had literally 100s of soft toys. Divided them into small, medium, large. Ping pong balls in a bag labelled 1, 2 or 3. They could choose any toy from that category. Guaranteed to win.

For the alcohol you need a Temporary Event Licence from local council. Not difficult at all to do. Ours costs £21 and you need to give them a few weeks notice.

The most important thing to remember is that footfall is what drives the money. Can you ask the school choir to perform? What about a local drama group? If you ask them to come and do a ten-minute show, it brings all their kids and parents along with them. Anything you can think of to drive footfall will maximise the income that you get.

Beyond that, our most profitable stalls are probably those that have already been mentioned, like tombolas, either for jars of sweets that kids bring in on uniform day, or ask everybody to bring an old teddy from home, and then they basically get redistributed via the tombola. Stocks can be good. You put the teachers in the stocks, and kids pay money to chook wet sponges at them. Things like races, little mini five-a-side football games. You could organise a tournament if you've got use of the field.

Obviously, the bar is always a winner. Things like the mocktails already mentioned are good. Cans of G&T, that kind of thing. Our PTA also has two candy floss machines, which are really good. It needs a lot of volunteers to run those, though, as it's messy and slow, so the queues can get long if you don't practise ahead of time.

It’s a few years ago since I was on the PTA but I’m pretty sure it was the tombola by a mile. It always sold out half way through the day as well.
Kids had non uniform days before the event and each year group asked for a different donations - bottles, cakes etc.

I seem to remember splat a rat made a surprising amount because they charged 10p to do it and kids would hand over almost their entire fair budget and splat for ages.

Tombola. We used to get the kids to come in non uniform for a donation of a prize, and instead of spending hours and hours ticketing everything, let winners choose their own prize if they pick a ticket ending in a 5 or 0. The only outlay is a book of tickets.
Guess the sweets in the jar or guess the name of the teddy is easy to prep and popular.

The tombola was the most popular; you wouldn't believe the number of kids absolutely thrilled at winning something as mundane as a jar of coconut oil! Everything on the stand was donated (we didn't do toys or alcohol), every ticket won a prize. Queue was always the longest one around. Had the toy store separate for donated toys, but they were for sale (therefore avoiding the disappointment if you didn't win the one you wanted).

Think food was the most profitable, we did a BBQ, Pimm's stand (alcohol licence for a day is relatively easy to obtain), 'make your own' fruit kebabs (the adult did the making, but you choose what goes on), got a local ice cream place to give us tubs at cost price and ran a nice ice cream stall, plus sweet bakes and hot drinks.

Plant stall also went down well. Again ask people to donate cuttings, grow up some more established plants, indoor and outdoor ones.

Possibilities only limited by the number of volunteers!

We did sell second- hand uniform, just not other clothes.

Tombola type stalls are popular, present tomboys is always exciting, chocolate or bottle tombola.

guess the weight of the sweets, how many sweets in the jar, name of the teddy etc are also easy to organise and good money spinners.
our school had a non-uniform day in exchange for bringing items for the fair, which ensured we had plenty of “goods”

This, we used to ask parents to fill a jar, always popular at both Christmas and summer fetes.

Edited to add that each ticket picked guaranteed a jar which the children loved.

jam jar filled with sweets is always the sell out one. I’m normally on it as class rep

Def not a chocolate stall as ours is outside

we ask every year for no chocolate in the jam jars for sweets and always some knob heads who do and we have to check every jar we get given - which is time consuming

Hot dogs were always popular at ours and very profitable. Also face painting. There was always a queue at both those stalls. Definitely more cash made on the hot dog stall though due to the quicker turnover of customers.

We also had a few very sporting teachers who allowed themselves to have wet sponges hurled at them while they poked their heads through a hole in a wooden board. That was a very popular stall 😆

I used to run the bottle tombola. It was always a sell-out. Made loads of money.

Silent auction. Ask for donations from local businesses. On the day have a table with a sheet for each prize sticky taped to the table with a description of the prize and lines for people to write their name phone number and bid. Have a few rules eg bids must be at least 2 quid more than the previous bid. Also have a finish time.

Then all you need is someone to be available at the end of the auction time to stop any late bids and a few announcements over the day letting people know how much longer there is to go

Hook a duck. Hooks on the end of bamboo canes. Easy to screw in rings on a bunch of rubber ducks.

Higher or lower with an extra large pack of cards.

Skewers with some with a nail varnish coloured end buried in sand. You win if you pull one out with a coloured end.

The icecream van was always popular at ours. You could do a school version to maximise profits eg just buying ice lollies.

We also did a mocktail bar (just called a lemonade and juice bar at ours) we have a big Muslim population so we made it very clear it was alcohol free. We just did jugs of premade syrup/juice in a big cooler. Poured over ice and water/soda with an umbrella and straw and they advertised themselves as everyone wanted one once they saw other people holding them. Strawberry lemonade, mixed berry, raspberry and mango etc. it helps that it's usually scorching in June here.

Agree with anything that cheap to enter. The 50p insta-tombola. Where it was easy to win something with a few goes and the kids got to pick their prize was packed because the best things went first and kids were desperate to win certain things before they were gone.

Same with the lucky dip.

Massively popular at DD’s school were the decorated jamjars crammed full of sweets. They sold out pretty much straight away. The children decorated them.
Cakes
Bottles
Toys & Books

Same 😂

Biggest earners - tuck shop, especially Freddos! The kids loved them.

Bottle stall - £1 a go, tickets ending in 0 or 5 won a pick of the stall.

Anything that involved an adult, so beat the goalie, throwing wet sponges at them for 50p a go if the weather is nice, we had a basketball playing teacher once who the kids had to try and score against.

Oh and tattoos, the little ones that go on with water. You can get massive packs online very cheaply. It’s a lot quicker than face painting (also massively popular) but the kids loved both.

Not loved when doing it the night before school photos at one of the discos.

How much have people been charging for tickets for the Bottle Stall please ?

State primary - always the bottle tombola. We took bottles in a couple of weeks before. So basically zero cost and it was always busy and would sell out.

Also - plate smash. Get people to bring in old crockery. Then kids can pay to throw balls at them. (Obviously done outside in a well cordoned off area with tarps down/around so clean up was easy.

Jar hoopla also popular. Asked people to save jars and wash them out and then fill with wrapped sweets and little toys.