PTA Christmas Fair - What do you Charge?

[lennythelion]

Hi there, I'm helping organise our school Christmas Fair. We are trying to decide on pricing for entry to the Fair and cafe (ie. tea, coffee, juice, slice of cake etc.) We normally charge about 20p for each of these but I don't think we are charging enough.

I would be grateful to hear from others as to what they think is reasonable.

Also, new ideas for the Fair would be greatly appreciated. We tend to do stalls, grotto, cafe, raffle & tombola.

Many Thanks.

Personally I am very against charging anything for entry. It discriminates agaist larger families and just takes money out of the kids pockets that thet would have spent with you anyway. We have not attended some such events as the entry fee was too much.

We charge 50p per adult, nothing for children, which solves the large family problem mentioned by mummyrex.

We don't charge for entry. Tea/coffee/cakes/most activities are 25p. I think squash was 10p.

2 years ago everything was 20p and there was a certain amount of grumbling when it went up.

Most families seem to go with a certain amount they plan to spend.

I wouldn't charge for entry to something like that either. We would charge 50p for coffee/tea/fruit shoot thingy, 20p for water/juice, probably 50p/homemade cake (or maybe something like 65p/cake but £1 for tea+cake; sometimes differential prices, so 50p for homemade bun, up to £1 for lovely muffins made by a mum who runs a cake business).

Kid's lucky dip is always a big winner!

we don't charge to get into the fair.

we have a cafe, which also runs twice a term, and which I personally think is too expensive. Cake is £1, no idea on drinks.

Stalls
Grotto - £2.00 a go
Reindeer Food - 50p per bag
Tield Holly Bunches - £1.00 per bunch
Guess Weight of Cake - £1.00 per go
Games - 30 p a go
Craft - 10p, 20p, 30p and 50p a go
Christmas Tombola - 50p a go
Lucky Dip - 50p a go
Santa Game - 50p a go

At our school's last Christmas fair they even tried to charge for our sleeping 2 year old and a babe in arms.

Thanks so much for your responses - really helpful info.

50p per adult. Free for children.

No charge for entry but headteacher stands at the gate with raffle tickets Very few enter without buying a strip tbh.

?We are trying to decide on pricing for entry to the Fair?
With us it?s the same joke every year...
Nothing to get in
£1 to get out!

We find that people arrive with a certain amount of money and they spend it at the fair. It doesn?t matter if we charge to get in or not, the money that they bring is spent at the fair.

We did charge to get in once ? never again! We thought 20p was reasonable, people were giving us £10, £20 and £50 notes, people were delayed getting in and they were getting irritable, ?I?ve already paaaaaid?, we had to put someone on every door or restrict access. After ?opening time? we found it was better for the doorkeepers to help with running the fair itself.

WE charge 20p/adult, children free, but the headmaster's wife sells grand draw tickets at the entrance as well.

A lot of people just donate £1 rather than waiting for change.

Teas/coffes are 50p, squash 10 or 20p, irish coffee I think has gone up from £1.50 to £2.

Most of the stalls at DS's secondary school fete are 50p or £1. At the primary school fete we recently moved from 50p/go back to 20/30p a go (with cheaper prizes)- not sure how that affected the takings as I'm not treasurer there any more.

NB - As treasurer, I refuse to let people price things in multiples of 5p - it's either 20p or 30p, as 5p coins are a real pain to count/get enough of for float etc.

'No price ends with a 5'
excellent point, seimun, very important, I'd forgotten that

admission: 50p for adults, children free is fine IMO.

tea and coffee with biscuits, 50p

Cakes 50p or if very small 20p. Cakes sold too too cheaply at DS1's fair last Sat, 30p for lovely butter iced cupcakes.

Good to have some games etc which give kids something to do while waiting for Santa! other ideas: craft table; face painting?

YY to no 5p prices!

If you don't charge to get in, then you don't have to police entry so much, and you don't end up with a big queue here (people rummaging through bags for small change etc.). Then do charge 50p or so for Tea and Coffee (unless you have Costa or someone do it for you). Mulled wine at £1.50 ish is wonderful (Its how I get through the fair). Some small cakes at 20p (for the kids, made by kids) nicer ones at 50p, take home ones at £2+. 20p for juice 50p+ for cans.
We did at one time get people to buy books of tickets for most of the games, so most of the stalls didn't need money, just to collect one or two tickets.

Mulled wine ? Ahhh, you?ve reminded me of something else.

Put the Mulled wine in the entrance foyer, this means that it?s warm welcome there and a lovely smell as soon as you come in. Puts everyone in a good mood.

Mulled Wine - great idea! Am I right in thinking we don't need to get a Licence?

You do need a TEN license to sell Mulled Wine i'm afraid

We usually have a 'donations' bucket by the door - find most people contribute quite generously.

Don't charge for entry.

And - depending on your clientele/area/levels of affluence (pick your choice) do 'donations' for tea and coffee etc. We stopped doing set prices years ago and the takings went through the roof. People would put in £1 or 50p instead of 20p as requested. For every person who paid less than you would have charged, you would get twenty paying more. No change needed. Simple.

Also do donations only for such as second hand toy/book stalls too. People feel guilty when you say it's up to them and give a lot more.

As I said, not sure if it would work in every area, but certainly did for us (average in terms of affluence, I would say).

We don't charge for entry. I think you have to adjust your prices to the demographic of your school tbh. We had an outcry at our school when we increased our prices (for most things) from 15p to 20p - some of the prices quoted in here seem to be from a different world!

We don't charge for entry. Tea/coffee etc is something like £1.50, but is served in proper cups and saucers not plastic stuff! Think that mince pies are 50p. The Im is to raise money, so you need to charge enough to cover costs and make a profit!

We charge nothing for entry unless kids want to visit Santa. Then the ticket is £4 of course this leads to parental pressure. We normally charge about 50p for a tea or coffee and £2 for a mulled wine or Irish coffee. Cakes are about 20p. Got ours on Saturday and made sure dd had pocket money left over but will certainly be forking out £2 for myself. Will need it.

Reindeer food was a major seller at 50p and we give every child in the school a plastic bear glass with the instructions that it should be filled with toys and sweets or pencils, rubbers etc and they come back beautifully wrapped and we charge £1 each and they always sell out. Chocolate tombola also sells out and children need to return chocolates, cakes and bottles this week. I don't know whether it is most parents having Irish backgrounds (including me before I run for cover) but alcohol brings the parents in and keeps them there. We also have a hot dog stand outside for when the kids and parents starving after the mulled wine get hungry. It is one of our biggest fundraisers next only to the summer fair with the beer tent!

You charge for entry ? You wouldn't get any takers here if you did that.

I think seeing FC costs £2 and children get a chocolate gift out of that, too.

Most things are 20p/go. The tombola stall is 5 tickets for £1, with only 1/5 of tickets possible winners, which means 1/3 of £1 buys are no win at all. I LOATHE tombolas, can you tell? Everyone else seems to love them; the PTA run separate wine & chocolate tombolas as well as mixed prize ones.

That plastic bear glass sounds like it would have like £2 worth of stuff in it, parents wouldn't fill that here either, probably.

I think we ask for donations for tea / coffee / squash, and 20-30p/cake.

Gawd I make us sound like miserly loons. Am convinced DC school is very ordinary, though. I often wonder what it would be like to take DC to school in a Naice area.

If you are as miserly you use the sweets from Halloween left over and go through the kids stuff for things from party packs that have never been touched such as pencils and little crayons. We are a voluntary aided school so need to raise 10% of any building costs so parents more used to contributing to school as we have school fund and only half the kids return the glasses but it is enough.