Organising a barndance - to include children or not?

[gremlindolphin]

Anyone any experience of barn dances?

We are organising a barn dance at school and can't decide whether to start early so people can come with children or to start later and make it a grown ups evening? My dcs love this sort of thing but having been to one I can see that it would also be fun just with adults but then credit crunch-wise would it encourage people to come if the didn't have to find a babysitter?

Any thoughts appreciated!!

Personally, I'd love to have the chance of a barn dance with kids included. School evenings events are always a bit of a nightmare baby-sitting wise - I feel morally obliged to support them but all our baby sitters are also fellow-parents.

And barn dances are ideal for all ages to do together. Make sure you get a band with a caller that can make the instructions really clear and then you can have a real laugh as seven year olds and six-foot rugby players attempt to spin each other round and out-do each other's fancy footwork!

With kids xx

we did one last year with children. we did 6.30 - 9 on a Friday night iirc (is an infant school) and it was well attended and good fun.

we had a live band and a caller - if we'd had piped music it would have been a cheaper event to organise. we got a licence and had a bar - made money from this over and above the ticket sales.

If it's a fundraised I've always found pressure from the children adds to the ticket sales so I'd include kids (you know, "Mum have you got the barndance tickets yet. S and P and T are all going...")
The last school barn dance I went to included kids, many came with extended family groups at tables of 10. Much money was made.
A decent caller will do a few simpler dances for the youngers, and the kids love seeing the grown-ups all in a tizzy trying to keep up.

Fundraiser, of course.
Dog being silly and distracted me.

Start earlier and include children. We do one every year and it makes loads of money!

We went to a barndance with children recently. Many of them were pre-school and everyone had great fun!
However, it may be worth warning the band/caller as he did seem a bit surprised to see so many children and had to rack his brains a bit to come up with suitable dances. That said, he did a great job and even included the Hokey Cokey for the littlies!

definately involve kids, that way people who don't like dancing/joining in can dance with their kids to warm up.

i went to a barn dance when i was little and it was brilliant

Love barndances, especially with children. If you have a good caller, it will be great fun. At our wedding the band even let some of the children join in with tambourines etc.

And don't forget the raffle. And we do this thing where we get lots of envelopes, and anyone who wants to puts a pound coin in it and writes their name on it. At the end of the evening we put all the envelopes into a hat, pull one out and the winner gets half the money. Easy, fun, raises a bit of money and sends someone home really happy!

We were big barndance fans as children . Def include!

With. Had a ceilidh at our wedding and the children made it extra special.

Wow, -thank you so much for all your responses - with children it is then! My two will be delighted.