Running a tombola is hard to plan!

[PinkFootstool]

I've been asked to support DH at a local Regatta by running a tombola at a stall. It's for a military veterans charity he volunteers at.

We don't have a pile of tat to use as prizes, so the plan (all above board, checked with the charity trustees etc) is to buy in stock for the tombola, recoup the costs at the end of the 2 days then the "profit" is what the charity gets.

I'm struggling to work out volumes of what to buy though! I canvassed the local Facebook group for ideas for what to have on the tombola, so it's going to be small sweets - Refreshers bars, small bags of Haribo, I'll look for vegan sweeties, and a few larger prizes to tempt people in.

So, busy Regatta, two days, would 5000 tickets be too many? How about 1000?

Winning tickets will be numbers 0 & 5, so 1:4 tickets will win, so I'll need to have the right proportions of prizes. Plus spares for inevitable cock ups / offering vegan or coeliac friendly prizes if people want them maybe?

HELP! I'M OVERTHINKING IT AND CONFUSING MYSELF!

The organisation I work for gets through 600 prizes for a 2 day Christmas fair, with some left over.

Its a 1:5 chance of winning, £1 for 5 tickets.

Well, you can have 'bottle' tombolas...and have it as a 1 in 10 chance, (only ending in a '0') or just charge a bit more ( eg £2 for 5 tickets) and order loads of wine/beer etc. They're always popular.

1 in 5 tickets will win.

You don't need proportions of prizes..... You need (say) 100 prizes. Then you make sure you have 100 pages of tickets.

You put in 100 strips of 5 raffle tickets in the spinning box (so 500 tickets in the spinner) from column 'A'

Then put the 5/0 from the column 'B' strips in the prizes. And chuck the remaining 1/2/3/4/6/8/9 Bs.

1 in 5 will win not 1 in 4 unless you aren't using full strips

In 2 hours at a reasonably busy Fayre we can get through upwards of 60 prizes.

5000 seems too high tbh. 1000 might be better.

If Day 1 over half the prizes have gone, you might have to do a quick Home Bargains run and redo all the ticketing

I’d be inclined to buy prizes which can easily be returned if they don’t all go, for a refund? Then only mark up half with winning tickets, you can add more prizes and tickets if you need them, return them if not?

I'm going to have to pay out of pocket up front, so decided bottles of alcohol were out. Also not sure about the licensing situation. Add on its a family day out, not sure many will want to lug a bottle of wine around? And I couldn't give them to kids, so it reduces my income I think? I could be wrong!

That's v useful about the numbers of prizes! And also terrifying!

I am crap at ratios and maths. In my head it's 1 wins, 4 loses on a strip of 5, so I've written the ratio wrong!

The most popular items with children at tombolas were cans of coke and packets of sweets. I'd keep the prizes quite small so buy bulk packs of things and split them up

People have to think the prizes are worth the cost as well. Most of ours are donated, but we buy some. We work on them being worth at least 80p to £1.

Yes, quite possibly a run to the shop in the evening! I have found lots of good prices at places like Bookers and Hancocks so I hope to keep costs down and profits up!

Definitely my line of thinking - I'd also forgotten about canned drinks, thank you.

@PuttingDownRoots my current maths (entirely happy to be told I'm wrong!) is a value of around 10-15p per prize in a cost to me at a wholesale rate where you'd normally pay 25-50p per prize in a shop?

30p for a single ticket
£1 for 5 tickets
£5 for 30 tickets

Refreshers bars, mini bags of Haribo etc - can all be doubled up where some of them are tiny!

https://www.hancocks.co.uk/haribo-starmix-10p
https://www.hancocks.co.uk/haribo-giant-strawbs-gone-mini-bags-16g
https://www.hancocks.co.uk/swizzels-refreshers-original-lemon-chew-bars-18g

DH says I'm not allowed to to order all the "weird Scottish sweeties" I liked as a kid - Wham bars, Irn Bru sweets, highland toffee 😂

you could keep it simpler by not ticketing individual prizes- so all 0’s and 5’a win a prize from the pile- winners get to
choose their prize. you could have special ticketed bigger prizes such as a chocolate
hamper or a gift voucher for say numbers 100, 200, 300 etc, a star prize for ticket 1000.

That's a great idea, I really like that!

Thank you!

If it's for a veterans charity, can't you put out a plea for prizes, many of us have something surplus at home (if you happen to be in N Somerset I have plenty, some is going to the church fare but I have lots following a house move)

You need to get donations
You won't make any money doing it this way.
Plus adults won't do a tombola for a packet of haribos and a childs tombola would need to be cheap. People won't pay 30p for a 1 in 5 chance of winning a 10p bag of haribos

Plus are you sure tha sweets are not being sold by another stall?

Go on next door and local Facebook and appeal for donations

Why don't you put out on your organisation's FB page that prize donations will be gratefully received. People love to donate and it will up your profits. And don't worry, you could always pick up more prizes at the supermarket in the evening for day 2 if you sell out on day 1 and if all the prizes go, then you just have to shut up shop and stick up a 'Thank You - we raised £xxx' sign on the stall.

It 80% minimum of the price of 5 tickets.. People won't pay 30p for the 1/5 chance to win a 30p packet of sweets when they can buy one.

Most tomolas make money through donations.

Often shops etc will give you donations for charity events.

The bottle tombola is always the most popular stall at the school fair. The prizes are donated and range from naff (a bottle of Asti or similar) to cheap (can of coke) to shower gel to a magnum of champagne. It is basically a licence to print money - it makes so much every year.

I think the chances of winning are smaller: if you put one prize out, with the number 5 on, the tickets that could be picked are 1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5 - so 1 in 9.

If you are doing it over a long period, keep your tickets and prizes in batches. Otherwise you waste a lot of time rummaging around your stall for individual prizes with the right number attached. So, for example, put out the prizes for 1-200 and put the tickets for 1-200 in the drum, and when it starts to look depleted, add the next batch of prizes to the stall and the corresponding tickets to the drum. Keep the batches in boxes under the stall. Also keep some unlabelled spare prizes because there will always be one prize you can't find.

Or, if you are doing lots of similar prizes, you could say you win sweets if your ticket ends in 0 and a drink if it ends in 5. This would save you lots of prep time. Also I'd have a few big prizes with individual ticket numbers on, to attract people to your stall.

And make sure you have a bin, preferably with a lid, for used tickets. It avoids litter and makes sure that tickets don't make their way back into your drum.

As a tip, arrange the prizes on the table in roughly numerical order. It saves a lot of time finding the winning prizes when it gets busy! And keep a few spare prizes you can offer if number 360 seems to have vanished already when they pull that ticket out. You may also want a backup of a box of lollipops or something if a little kid has a go and doesn't win something then gets very upset about it - time and a place for cruel lessons on mathematical chances, versus a bit of goodwill with the parents in keeping the child happy.

You can't offer discount tickets
You have to make sure everyone has a fair chance to win so if tickets are 30p each You can't change the odds for someone if they pay £1 and get more tickets

So I'm probably being too tight with the sweets - OK, I can look at that.

The 30p idea was to push people towards the £1 sale.... Also happy to bin it!

The issue with donations is that we have to carry all the stall stock and banners etc a long way to and from the site, with lots of steps etc so weight and size is an issue as trolleys will have to be carried. The local Facebook group is also run by the local maven who is constantly asking for items for her latest "thing" - less and less is being offered, and I'm sure the community are sick of being asked to donate. I'm trying to be a bit self sufficient.

I also want it to LOOK good and inviting, not just be another rubbish charity stand of everyone's tat that most people will walk past so I want to pimp it out a bit.....

The charity is a national one, but it's not THAT big, so the local Facebook page doesn't have many followers locally, and the national one has more people in the SE than around Cornwall.

A call to arms for donations is a hard thing to put onto the volunteer members of Cornwall when there's only a dozen of them and they attend events every week through the summer doing fundraising and community work.

I used to run the tombola every year as a child with my Nan. I’m struggling to find the difficult tbh.