to be surprised that we are being charged per ticket to go and see our dc's primary school christmas play?

[molyholy]

Is this normal? It is due to 'production costs' apparently. Never happened before. Parents supply the costumes.

Not normal but i know one school who tried it, and failed.

How much are you being charged?

Unless it is extortionate amounts I don't have a problem with using it as a fundraiser.

Normal in my kids school. About £2 a ticket I think.

Perfectly normal. Biggest fundraiser of the year.

Same at my child's school. I think it sucks

DCs school brought it in to stop greedy parents taking loads of tickets and then not bothering to turn up, stopping other parents from seeing the show

and if £3 means that the teachers are less out of pocket after buying stuff for the show, good thing.

Ours do. They buy a licenced play script so it goes towards the cost of that

I always paid for tickets. Good fund raiser. There are production costs, too - music, set, lots of possibilities. Not sure why anyone would expect not to pay, tbh.

DS's primary school tried this once, I think about 3 people actually ended up paying - me being one of them.

If they need to charge to raise funds I think they'd be better doing a raffle or something.

At my DS school it is about £2.50 per ticket. They lay on a lovely spread of refreshments after the show.

At my DD's show they absolutely rip the piss. £10 per adult ticket and £8 per child. I really object to that. It's not the bloody West End.

I don't think they charge at my kids school - can't remember but I hope not.

At DS play they had buckets for donations. Much better way I think. I would happily give a few quid to cover production costs etc, but for some parents, especially at Christmas, that few quid could make a big difference.

Ours do it, never heard anyone complain in 7 years. It's £1 IIRC.

Stopping parents grabbing all the tickets is done by allocating a certain number per family, and then you can ask for extras if there are some left over. Seems to work.

Ours do it, 50p per person, and it goes toward tea/coffee afterwards and raffle prizes.

I work in the school office and yes, the licensed productions cost £40-£50 to buy so that's why. Add in the coat of a few extra props / scenery / costumes and it soon adds up.

They shouldn't charge more than a pound or two though.

Yip my kids school goes to the local theatre once a year and it's 15 for an adult ticket and 10 for a child.

All the schools I taught in charged.

Never been charged on previous years. Not an extortionate amount. I assumed the school would have a budget for this as they take their christmas production a bit too seriously imho. We don't mind paying really. I had never heard of a school doing this before, but I see it's quite normal. So in conclusion, iwbu.

Very normal, I remeber having to take in money for my parents to see my school plays 20+ years ago, similarly school music evenings. Similarly at the school I was training at a few years ago.

It's normally under a fiver, as people have said its a fundraiser.

Normally if they are charging for tickets refreshments might be thrown in.

Ours has never charged. I think a lot of parents at our school would grumble about having to pay.

molyholy
I assumed the school would have a budget for this
State schools have absolutely no budget for such things now
especially with the living wage arriving in a few months bumping up the costs for all support staff

Our school charges 50p a ticket which goes towards a raffle at the end. They started it because when the tickets were free, you would get parents going seperately, getting 4 each (4 being the maximum you could have), so 8 for the whole family, and then not using them all. So there would be lots of unused seats and other parents missing out.

Funnily enough, it has stopped happening since they started charging.

We pay £2 each. I am happy to pay it. There is usually someone selling tea/coffee and I usually put more that the suggested 20p in there z

The money is going into the school so I am happy with it.