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.

Donut game. Buy (or if you ask the right person tesco will usually donate) trays of ring donuts. Hang them from string under a parasol umbrella and charge £1 per go for people to eat the donut without using their hands.
Even if you have to buy the donuts (roughly £3 per tray of 12) you still make a good profit.

Teddy tombola here as well, it does need a lot of supervision because turn your back and parents are switching tags or grabbing something else entirely.

Bloody hell 😳

100% a bottle stall! £1 a ticket, and those ending in a 5 or 0 win. Anything from shampoo to Champagne! Definitely ask for pupil contributions - even buy the

Tombola is always good

Our two biggest stalls: Bottle raffle and chocolate raffle.
Ask everyone to donate a bottle of drink (alcohol or non alcohol) no bottles of anything else like shampoo.
Ask everyone to donate a bar of chocolate (any size bars, multipacks, boxes of chocs)
In return kids get a mufti day for each of these donation days.

On the day have plenty of volunteers as it will be busy. All raffle tickets ending in 5 and 0 are winners. Bottle £1 a ticket and chocolate 50p a ticket. I think Bottle was choose what you like. Chocolate was split into smaller bars and bigger ones.

@EstoyRobandoSuCasa the two most profitable stalls we had were the water and wine stall (collect empty screwtop wine bottles, ask for donations of wine, then fill empty wine bottles with water, wrap bottles with water and wine bottles in wrapping table and lay on a table, then people pay to choose a bottle, they may get the water or they may get the wine) also kerp some wine for the tombola. and the kid and adult tombola.

Maggot racing was very popular with the children but not so much with the adults. But we made more money than nearly all the other stalls’

Dds school did a teddy tombola too. Really popular!

Definitely some tombolas then! And so many other possibilities.

Those of you who say you'd pay money to never hear about the school fete again - don't your kids enjoy them, even if you don't? Mine would happily go to every school fete in town. 😂

We used to do a throw the hoop for the teddy tombola, ask the child which one they are aiming for and they always got it, it’s the loveliest stall the work on, the children really consider which one they want and it never the big flashy ones, heart warming and what is all about really

Get the school to do a non uniform day and ask the kids instead of money to bring in prizes and then either make up gift hampers up do a really good tombola. Things like that always go down well.

At our school too they let small
businesses have a stand aswell and charge them to be there so that’s money for nothing!

other ideas

• Photo Booth with props
• teddy tombola
• kids to make a craft and parents to then buy it at the fair
• Pimm’s and booze tent
• face painting & glitter tattoos

Does anyone have any tips for finding tents or small marquees? They look quite expensive to hire. But if we don't get anything and it rains all afternoon, then we're in trouble. 😬

It was a good while ago now, but my sweet starved kids were desperate for “guess how many sweets in the jar”!

Our school used to do a plastic toy amnesty where everyone donated party bag toys /pencils, bouncy balls etc they have at home - we got loads and it's a great way to recycle all the plastic living in your drawers at home .. then those were used as prizes for a lot of the stalls ...the money maker outside of the cake stall is - Pick-a-lolly .. always makes lots of money and is super easy- get a big piece of polystyrene and cover with foil.. then buy 400 cheap lolly's and then colour the stick of about half with a red marker.. and pop them in - £1 a go...if they choose a lolly with a red mark they get the lolly and a prize and if they get one without a mark - they just keep the lolly - everyone wins - the kids love it and keep coming back for more lollies... it's also super simple.. no wet feet from hook a duck , no fetching 100 nerf bullets etc!

The one selling alcohol. It was the only way to get through it.

Lots of families have small
gazebos at home - if you ask if people you'll find loads are happy for you to use them for the day.. it's what we have always done

Our kids pay top dollar the throw sopping wet sponges at the PE teacher who’s shackled into a pillory. It’s definitely our biggest money earner!

The jars are also a big one at our school. Kids are asked to bring in a decorated jar filled with sealed sweets or chocolates, then they’re labelled labelled like a tombola. One go for 50p, or three tickets for £1.

Genius 🤣

We once got the local dominos to come sell
pizza. They agreed split all takings 50:50. Sent 1 guy and he had to keep ringing to get them to send more pizza 🤣

Think we may over £100 and we didn’t have to do anything or find anyone to run the stall.

I was always like that too.

Until I noticed how much the children enjoyed those days and the community it built in the school.

So I put my testy self to one side, rolled up my sleeves and did a little.

Ours:

Auction of Principal for a Day (make announcements and so on) - big money on that one. No cost

Zombie stuffy - get donations of old stuffed toys. Cut them up - legs, heads, arms etc. Kids get to make their own Zombie stuffy - we had a parent or two run the stall and simply staple everything together. Massively popular. No cost

We got local coffee shops to donate coffee which we sold on. That went very well too - no cost.

Tombola

PS - year 2 on the zombie stuffy table we had a chess clock and gave a time allotment. Otherwise they stayed too long and the queue was a bother. They loved the race against time element!

Apologies if this has already been mentioned, but I’ve made a couple of these games now (one Christmas themed, and the other related to the school) when on the school PTA, and they are a guaranteed money spinner. I designed it to hold 100 cups on the last one.

I can’t now recall the ratios of winner to non-winning cups, but I do know it sold out very quickly. The idea is the person ‘punches’ the tissue covering the chosen cup, and there may be prize inside (one year, we hid a paper slip with a written prize at the bottom of the winning cups (‘a free slice of cake at the buffet/a free hotdog), and another time the cup had a winning sticker, and the person would then select an item from a box of prizes.

Our PTA sent out a flyer at the start of the year this year basically saying "We know our fundraising attempts are tedious, but we need money! Set up a regular or one off donation and ignore us for the rest of the year, guilt free!".

We've had over £3K in donations via that link.