What were the most profitable stalls at your school fete?

[EstoyRobandoSuCasa]

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.

My school does this and loads of folk donate left over bits and pieces for party bags or art and craft supplies that are unused that their kids are no longer wanting. in a nice wee jar. So costs nothing. To the parents and the kids love it. They charge a pound a jar. One year I donated 23 jars full of unwanted craft stuff and left over party bag stuff. All it cost me was the time of getting labels off old jam jars and cleaning them. Not sure how profitable it was but the loss had a great time swapping their stash and made for a good atmosphere

I may be wrong but if bottles are in a raffle do you need a licence to sell alcohol? It’s been a while since school fetes…

anyway ‘Water into Wine’ was a hit as I remember. We asked for donations of wine and empty wine bottles, which were filled with water, all wrapped and laid out on a table, with boxes of bottles underneath to keep topped up. Helpers knew which ones were wine so kept them spaced out. £1 a ticket iirc

I like a lot of the ideas given apart from some that are mandatory - eg kids bringing stuff in to not wear uniform. I live in an inner city area and some families are really feeling the pinch. So much so the school was trying to help by running a food bank. When our washing machine broke I had to send my child to school in casual clothes as all his uniform was dirty. I let his teacher know and her first reaction was oh if you’d like you can use the washing machine in the school for as long as you need - I can let the office know. If you do things that are mandatory you could be excluding kids or taking away from a families meagre budget.

Dunno if it's the most profitable, but the Tombola sells out quickest, esp if its a bottle stall

Raffle and silent auction. Both had prizes from local businesses and the silent auction also had things like ‘4 hours of babysitting’ or ‘2 hours of gardening’ and various random donated items such as a signed football shirt.

Yes silent auction worked really well for us. Made much more money than raffle.

Bottle tombola always makes a killing! As long as there’s a few decent bottles among the pop and lesser bottles of wine. Some people spend over £20 trying to get a good bottle!

The highest profit stalls at our fete (and we used to take £20k pre Covid) were;
the bar
the BBQ
bottle tombola
jar tombola (you’ve probably not got time to do this but you ask the kids to get a clean jam jar and fill it up with something they’d like to win. Loads do sweets but others did mini Lego figures, rubbers, etc.)

I think the most profitable were always splat a teacher with a wet sponge, bottle tombola and the bar. I think we also had a waterslide one or two years that went down a treat.

We had several that were super low cost e.g. competition to feed as many marbles as possible into a flower pot using a teaspoon, competition to peg as many socks on a washing line as possible etc. all limited to e.g. 30s for 50p a pop with some sort of prize - I would probably be tempted to make the prize a share of takings but other options are obviously available.

Tombola, food, drink and raffles are really where you make real money. Soft toy and bottle tombola seem to be the best.

Chocolate tombola.

Tombola! We do a kids and adults one, it’s always a total scrum! Very glad that DD (last child) is now in S1 so I no longer have to be tombola lady. I may go this year just to mooch around as I’ve never been able to before 😂

Tombolas - 1 Chocolate and 1 Bottle all from donations and always a sell out.

Art - Every pupil drew a picture and we had them in folders by class and sold for ‘a donation’ as often people would put in anything from £1 to £10! Kids literally dragged parents and grandparents to the stall.

I remember running a chocolate tombola stall - really popular the only problem it was about 30c that day …………………..Lol!

Tea tent
Barbecue
Pimms stall
Candy floss
Plant stall
Raffles
Bouncy castle
Inflatable slide
Face painting
Balloon race
Cake stall
Wine win (few hundred empties and if the number on the bottom had a 0 or a 5, a bottle of wine was won)

Estate agents boards to advertise and which were sponsored.

Tombolas
Splat the rat
Tug of war
Lucky dips
Etc were fun made made tuppence ha'penny.

From what I remember my friends all enjoyed the stall which had baby pictures of all the teachers and you had to guess which one was which, I was under strict orders to not give away which one was my Mum. When I was much younger my Mum and i did a stall making pasta jewellery, cheap and cheerful and the stall where you got to throw wet sponges at the head always went down well. I recall doing a guess the teddies name competition. I grew up in the country so there was always someone doing pony rides and a couple of parents who were good at face painting.

Last school fete i went to i went with a friend i had nothing else to do.
It was shit ngl it was awful.

My sons' junior school had a chocolate tombola. The children had a non uniform day in return for bringing in some chocolate. They loved it. It was also my favourite stall as chocolate is my favourite thing in the world that I did not meet in a delivery room.

Card tombola
pack of cards pinned to a board (flat)
put a penny sweet on all the cards and some with 30p 50p etc
odd one with a pound
20p a shot and keep refreshing the prizes
kids LOVE it !
I know it’s gambling but all for a good cause

Oh yes they pick the cards from another pack of cards and take the corresponding prize !
oops

Bottle tombola
chocolate tombola
hamper raffle

Tombola, by a country mile but it was hellish hard work to prepare

Fortune teller, reading cards/tealeaves/crystal ball/palms/any old nonsense.

Raffle first - half the income.
Sweet tombola - we made £150 on that even when I bought all the sweets from the supermarket. Could have probably gone wholesale. We shifted 350 tickets at £1 each.
Face painting when run by volunteers £80
Selling drinks makes lots but you need the people so we had a bar in and took ten percent.

Games don't make much. If you run them for two hours you can get just about 50 turns. So at £1 a go minus what you spend on any prizes it starts to be a small amount. When someone insists everything should be 50p it leaves the volunteers who worked an hour for you thinking they could have given you a tenner and had the time with their children. Tin can alley when we get donated soft toys makes the most. Everything else makes £25-40 on a good day. So we do the games as part of making it a fun event.

Omg all those years of doing Teddy Tombola ... why did nobody tell me not to bother matching tickets !