We sale (hospital) wristbands presale that have 5 free food tickets attached for $15.00. This allows for unlimited play all day at all booths and rides. We sell extra food tickets for 4 for $1.00 pre-sale and 3 for $1.00 day of.
For those families or individuals that don't purchase the band (very few I might add) we off booth tickets the day of the event for 4 for a $1.00. Each booth is labeled for how many tickets it will take to participate (ie cake walk 4 tickets, face painting 4 tickets, baseball toss 1 ticket, moonwalk 2 tickets)
Our food tickets are a different color and you cannot use food tickets for booth and visa versa
I have been involved in school carnivals for 25 years. Of course 10 of those years where as a student going to them. But that has givien me some insite also. You're right, they must be fun. And fun for all ages. A variety of games is a must. Not just games for 4-7 year olds. What age group are you having this for? Is it a k-12 shcool, elem, or jr high? Alot of the activities will depand on the age groups you are targeting. Is it going to be an inside event or an outside event? One of the biggest attraction we have used is the inflatable jumping systems. They generate alot of money. One of the biggest problems I have seen lately is wanting to charge the kids way to much to play a game and them give them a CHEAP prize. Spend a little money on some quality prizes, have some cheap jusnk also, but not all of it. We set up a ticket booth and sell tickets instead of the kids having to carry cash with them. This also eliminates having to provide change at each booth. We sell the tickets for 25 cents each or sell them in bulk and save. I think we sold 30 tickets for $20. You can buy just plain old tickets anywhere almost. Most walmart or office supply stores. We had it lucky because all our tickets were donated by an old theather that went out of business 25 years ago and they had the old style tickets.
The game booths are your biggest concern in making it a hit. Have a good variety. SInce you have all summer to work on it get some ideas in mind and have volunteers build some of the games. Ring toss, ping pong ball toss, plinko, their are hundreds of games that can be easily built. Another big hit we had was the petting zoo. Of course we are a rural area, not sure where you are, but we had a horse, goat, pig, rabbit, dog, cat and a few more. The kids loved this. Another big draw was our country store we set up. We used a large classroom and set up a store selling homemade arts and crafts, jellies, cakes and such. A cake walk and toy walk are also always big winners. I have plenty of ideas and information. But don't want to type forever so if you need anymore info just email me. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
our school is holding their first ever carnival next fall and needs advice on the does and don'ts this should be a fun day and we want it to be cheap for the families to come. Please help, what do you do?
