Tickets are the only way to go! It really does make life so much easier. For all the reasons that others have listed. It is so much easier to get a heads-up on what type of attendance you can expect by pre-selling.

Ten cents a ticket?? What rock did they crawl out of under? Tickets may be cheap to purchase, but if you're selling them for ten cents, then charge $1.00 for something, what a waste.

Well, I met with the Principle after school today. She wasn't surprised. She knew it was coming. She said that after PTO they had a parking lot conversation. I figured they would. She actually said she agrees with me totally about the ticket thing. Why didn't she say so last night? Support me a little. I brought up raise the price per ticket to .25 (it is now .10) so people don't need 10 tickets for a hot dog, but instead 4. They shot that down too. She agrees that's a good idea. She also said that some of the teachers have been coming up to her giving her reasons for why it's a good idea. After all of that she asked about the candy thing. I told her that I thought that the whole thing was unreasonable. I pointed out to her that she gives the children a button(they were right on her desk) to pin on their shirt for their birthday. I told her that's a liability. She also give them a pencil. You get the idea. She said she knows and afterward when she got to thinking about it she realized that it was unreasonable. I think she going to get my lollipop tree back for me. She told me to email her and tell her how I want this Carnival to be. She is going to have a meeting with them about how they treated me and handled the whole thing. I told her "if I were any other parent I would never come back and certainly never volunteer for anything, I'd want nothing to do with PTO ever again. It was scary!" I think I got my point across. But I'm not any other parent and I wouldn't back down and I'm going to do my best to make sure more people are welcome at PTO meetings in the future. I wish I'd accepted the President position. Oh well, it's in the bag for next year! VP is fine for now.

We sell tickets(the kind that come on a large roll) that are used for all food and game booths. I've never thought of this practice as "treating someone like a child". I think it keeps money-handling much easier. We have 2 tables where tickets can be purchased, and we bundle them up ahead of time, 20 plus one more free for $5. As they are used, booth workers re-bundle them in 21's. A Board member picks them up every once in awhile, keeping track of how many each booth has turned in. The re-bundled tickets are returned to the ticket table, and resold.
As for the Lollipop Tree, that is a traditional Kindergarten class booth. I would have been tarred and feathered if I had taken that away! Knock on wood, we've not had any problems with the safety of the lollipops.
I hope you can find help with the planning. We have 4 chairmen for the Carnival: Game Booths, Food Booths, Auction, and Classroom theme auction baskets. Thankfully, we get plenty of volunteers---well, most of the time. Some of the room parents have a hard time getting volunteers to work a 30 minute shift.

On the insurance topic: Our group has its own liability insurance. I think it cost us around $100 a year. Your group should look into it.

Thank you guys so much for your replies. It makes me feel so much better and it gives me strength. This morning I asked around to some of the teachers and got their opinions regarding all of this. I have a very positive relationship with all of them and they all know me. They often comment on how I am there more than they are! They were all supportive and one teacher in particular who always works the kitchen said it would be a big help. As for the candy-liability thing it is so ridiculous and even the teachers agree. They are sad the lollipop tree is gone and said there were candy prizes last year. As for the insurance I am meeting with the principal this afternoon and will be bring all of this up. I am planning on pointing out to her the many things that are done for students that could be liabilities. I am going to tell her that if this is going to be the framework for our events at the school we should consider insurance because this way lies madness!

We have used tickets for years. First, when you are outside, it keeps money from blowing away. Second, when someone is trying to run a game, it's hard to watch the 500 kids/adults running around you. Third, it keeps the money in one place, for a minimal number of people to watch it and you only have to worry about startup and making change for one place. We also give out prize tickets so kids can earn better prizes. I even made a list of all the booths and the number of tickets to participate in each one once and figured the $ amount to be spent to makeit easier for people to not have to come back to the ticket table more than once. Tell them that since no one else is helping you, you want to be able to limit the number of mishaps with important thing, like money. If they are worried about a liability, then tell them you will get an insurance quote to add to your expenses. It sounds like you hav emanaged to do something by yourself when no one else was willing to try and it scares them. Just ahng in there. If you need some ideas, shoot me an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. because the stuff I has is in document form and too big to post.