How much would you pay to see Father Christmas?

[EnglishRose1320]

I'm part of a local community centre and we are hoping to raise some funds this Christmas. One idea is to have a grotto, lots of the usual local places that normally run one don't have the staffing this year. So locally I think there would be demand.
We want it to be a reasonable cost for families, considering the cost of living atm, but obviously enough to cover our costs and make a little profit.
We were thinking around £5 per child, with food and drinks available to purchase as extras.
The £5 would include, an entry room that had some Christmas games/colouring and a make a reindeer food making station, followed by going in to the grotto to see Father Christmas- with a small but decent age appropriate gift.
Does that sound reasonable?

The free santa here gave out book with a RRP of £5.99-£7.99 last year, they OBVIOUSLY dont pay that, they buying in bulk at greatly discounted rates... do people really not understand how businesses work?

When you buy a toy from smyths you are paying a lot more than smyths paid for it but its 'street' value is what you paid so if its 'worth' £5 of your money they likely only paid £1.50 a unit for them.

Of course people paying expect the value of a paid experiance to rival that of the free option.

I'd pay £5 for that set up.
We just booked our normal Santa we go visit and DS (3) was £30 but that's a proper grotto set up with a 'toy factory' where they can pick a gift.

I think yours is very reasonable for what you're offering.

I think £5 is cheap. I would not be expecting much from the gift at that price point because there are obviously other expenses making up the experience. Especially if it was a charity thing! A small gift or selection box is grand. I have paid a lot more for a visit that didn't include photos.

Lovely to have so much feedback.

Interesting to hear someone doesn't like the reindeer food. It seems a requirement at all grottos locally. As I said, I would only be doing one made with bird seed etc... no sparkles/glitter in it.

Suggestions of things like soft play just wouldn't be feasible in the set up we have.

Age range wise we were thinking around 2-12. Obviously younger babies would be welcome with siblings, but the activities would be geared for older than them. And I don't think many children over 12 still want to see Father Christmas, but I could be wrong.

Gift wise, it definitely won't be the value of entry, probably around half. We won't have enough buying power to buy in bulk enough to reduce the cost significantly. However they will be getting a magical trail of lights to walk through to enter, activities to do whilst they wait and then a decent, jolly Father Christmas, with a nice, non plastic tat gift.

I think the range of responses shows how tricky it is to hit the market at a point that suits everyone, but hopefully we will please the majority of people.

I don't think we have any free ones near us, some are a free gift at places like the local theme park but only after paying entrance prices.

From the title alone, I thought of 5 quid so I think that's absolutely fine. I wouldn't be too bothered about the gift being worth a fiver though as you're also paying for the experience.

I don’t think the gift needs to be on par with the cost but frankly I can’t see how you will make any money doing this .

I'd say £3-4 for that.
You can buy £1 books as gifts and reindeer food can be done for really cheap!

It's £10-£15 in my area - gift 'worth' about £5-£7 (usually a mini Lego set)

And I think that's cheap as I'm in London

I would do a bag of chocolate money plus a book from a bargain store (£1) age appropriate (so need 3-4 age ranges) cost under £2 then £5 for first child £4 for siblings if at the same time.

Oh and one idea - a weekday sen day ideally all day when adults/older teens with Sen are welcome too. Dsd with profound ld's likes to visit (in her 20's) but most grottos won't let her despite her not being loud or disruptive.

A bag of money or better still a box of malteasers would be the perfect gift for her. You could ask people to prebook including info that's useful, you may get a lot of takers. We would willingly pay extra too for a longer slot, she would love it

@Floralnomad, our only outgoings will be the cost of the presents and the bulk cost for the reindeer food ingredients. Everyone helping will be volunteers. We have free use of the hall (electricity costs will be low, would be in use already, so will only have to pay the difference)
Will obviously have to pay out for tea/coffee etc... but they always more than cover the cost of those with resale at any event.

All decorations/props/lights will be made by volunteers or borrowed.

@gogohmm we are hoping to run a daytime session, we won't be able to do a whole day though, we have a limited number of volunteers. For the SEN sessions, we were thinking 15 mins a session and only 5 families allowed in during each session. So far less crowded than usual sessions, which I think will be 15 mins but 10 families. Age wise, I wasn't planning on an upper limit for SEN and all the families I know would be happy with older people with SEN coming along.

If we can get enough interest and enough volunteers, I might do a 16+ plus SEN hour and people could stay for longer then.

Another idea for for entertaining kids that the santa we saw last year did is they had santas reindeers (was just stickers but you could use xmas orinments or teddies or anything you can think up) hidden around and each one had a letter on his collar.

You had to find them all and add the letter to the corrosponding reindeer (comet, cupid, donner etc... so the reindeer either has to say what it is or look different) on a sheet you where given by the elf and then it spelled a word that you then used as a password to get into see santa.

Hi OP, sounds lovely.

For the SEN session definitely short slots, not many people at the same time but also think about the sensory environment more generally - strip lights and loud music might be especially challenging (my DS struggles with village hall type acoustics so tent style screening, a rug, blankets etc may help to dampen them) so it's worth taking a good look around the area in the hall you'll be using and considering what may be tricky.

There are lots of brilliant bloggers and tweeters who use the #actuallyautistic hashtag and blog / tweet about sensory environments - think the same is true for other ND people too.

Errr make sure santas beard is real. There's not exactly a plethora of men with long white beards offering!

@EnglishRose1320 it's hard to know without knowing your local demographic. But here in the SE for a nice Santa Visit, I'd expect to pay at least £10, for a 'chocolate Santa' 'selection box' visit. Going up with 'real presents'. For £5 I'd expect a sticker 'you've been to visit Santa' and as long as the grotto was nice & Santa did his bit properly! I'd be more than happy with that. a Board with the year on us appreciated.

It sounds fine, I’d avoid food based gifts due to allergies and dietary needs though or have an alternative.

Books would be good, the works does 10 books for £10 and some are Christmas themed.

I’m not too fussed on the gift. Maybe a token gift that can be consumed (food or coloured bath bubbles). It’s more about the activity time. £5 for an hour’s entertainment (you said there are some activity things), sounds great. Especially with the younger ones, it’s great to have an event that tires them out!!

We’d be disappointed with any sort of food related gift. With allergies it’s already bad value and risky when there are food based activities. This includes birdseed. We don’t expect to be able to participate in every activity at a paid event because there is always something food based but it’s a shame when there’s absolutely nothing for my child.

@TooMuchToDoTooLittleInclination , a board with the year on is a good idea and easily achieveable.

For location reference- SW, really mixed area with a huge divide between some families with lots of disposable income and some families with little to none.

For those that mentioned allegies- good point, will take note. Whilst I don't think we have the budget to exclude all allergens, I will certainly make sure a gift in each category is suitable for those will allergies and try and keep the reindeer food table the same side as the food and drinks table, then the grotto and the craft and games the other side to make it easier for families with allergies.

Really like the idea of a hunt the reindeer/snowman etc... hidden around the room- probably wouldn't link it to a code to see Father Christmas because that might slow things down too much. But maybe a hidden word and they could get a sticker for working the word out?

Of course the gift shouldn't match the fee, how do people think businesses work?! You do realise the things you buy don't cost to make what you pay for them.....

So having read all the feed back, present wise I'm thinking of these options

1-3 years
Soft Toy
Book

4-6 years
Book
Colouring book with set of pens
Small wooden toy- dominoes set etc...

7-9 years
Book
Craft Set
Adventure toy- bug catcher/binoculars etc....

10+
Book
Circus skills toy- juggling balls/diabolo
Selection box

With the option for the parents to pick which category when they book.

Hopefully that will be a reasonable selection, that is affordable but not tat.

@gogohmm, just wondering do you think older teens/adults with SEN would be happy to come along to the main SEN session or prefer a dedicated slot for just that age range?