Bouncy castle £2 for 3mins at school fair?

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AIBU to think this is too much?

I was involved in the PTA for years but left the committee last year after taking on a full time job. For the last couple of years that I was there, decisions were made about hiking up prices to more money. For example, £1.50 for a cup of instant Nescafé at events, £1.50-£2 for homemade pieces of cake / cupcakes.
I don't agree and said my piece but was in the minority.
Today they had a Eid party in the playground. DD went with her friends and told me that they didn't go on the bouncy castle as it was £2 for 3mins which they thought was a rip off. A box of Biryani was a fiver too.
We live in a really economically diverse area with lots of children on FSMs, very active food banks alongside houses worth close to a million.
I just think the prices have gone a bit mad!

'Mixed bag of responses.' There were only 5 up to that point!

Anyway, £2 is OK, but 3 minutes is not enough. 5 or 6 minutes would be better.

3 minutes is a bit random, I would expect 5.

Coffee/cake prices sound normal

I think that's outrageous, even at expensive fun fairs it's normally 10 minutes. What can you possibly do in 3 minutes?! No way would I pay.

£4 for 10 minutes is fairer.

Pricing anything for PTAs is a minefield.
You want things to be accessible for less well off families, but you also need to make enough profit to be worth the organisation effort and volunteer time.

Whatever you do some people won't be happy.

Absolute rip off. Our local school gets a company to provide about 8 different bouncy castles and slides and they charge £7 for as long as you want . It’s packed with children from all over the area

Sounds about right to me, and I've gone to loads of fairs over the years with the kids going on bouncy castles!
Not sure why people saying it's expensive.

@CremeEggQueen for 3 measly minutes?

Yes it's too much. 50p is more suitable, unless the school is in an affluent area and there aren't a percentage of childrens' families on low incomes.

But how much does the school make on that? Quite possibly the castle company will pay a fixed fee and then keep all the takings.
I hated having externals as the pitch fees were never high enough and they took money away from our own home grown stalls where we kept all the takings.

I would not have a bouncy castle. It’s vital to check insurance. It’s like school firework displays. Not great if there’s an accident. £2 for 5 mins is more reasonable. However not having any contractors in gives you more money! I bet the price was determined by the contractor and they rented the pitch!

Just because you CAN rip people off doesnt mean you should.
3 minutes isn't even enough to get going.

I don't think some posters are realising how short 3 mins is on something like this, most fairs are 10 mins, I speak from lots of experience 🤣

That's sounds crazy expensive to me and not very inclusive to poorer families. My son's school does the cakes for 50p each and all the activities are 50p each like tombola, lucky dip etc. Bouncy castle I'm pretty sure was 50p for 5 minutes! There's a bar at they charge £3 for alcoholic drinks and £1 for fizzy drinks or fruit shoots. I think things like burgers were about £3-4.

Things are expensive so you need to charge a decent amount to make money or at least break even.

That seems totally fine - it’s fundraising after all!

Although it should be longer than 3 minutes.

Meh. It's a fundraising event.

I tend to decide how much I want to donate before I go, then elave when I've managed to spend enough. As I don't especially want to spend all day at a PTA fair, the higher the prices are the sooner I can leave. It's a win-win!

elave=leave

Went to a charity fair recently and it was £2 for 5 mins and £5 for unlimited (with wrist band). Imo things like this had a dual purpose of fundraising and entertainment and if it's going to cost you £20 for a bounce and a couple of cakes and tombola people won't bother.

£2 sounds reasonable to me tbf

At the full-on summer and Xmas fares they'd make well over £2000 so a really decent amount of money.

The mixed responses in this thread are so interesting. My 3rd child will be finishing primary soon so I've been around a long time and to / been involved in lots of events so the changing in pricing policy has saddened me a bit. I just don't think we're the type of area that should charge too much as it will be tricky for a lot of parents though certainly not for all.