Like the others, we use tickets and do not refund for unused ones. However, we try to use signage, a program, or both at the ticket stations so people can see what things cost and try to estimate how much they might "spend" in the given time.
For breakfast with Santa, it's no big deal. People probably only spend $2-$5 tops. For our Spring Fling, a lot of people use any leftover tickets to buy tickets for the end-of-night raffles, so at least they don't totally go to waste.
Many of us buy tickets that don't get used. The event is a charitable fundraiser, so that's fine.
However, I do agree that with a complex event, like a carnival, you should probably have extra staff at the ticket stations counseling people if it looks like they are buying more than can be used in the time period, just to make sure they understand how it will work.
We use the same system as yellek and it works great. In fact, there have been times when we've run out of tickets and had to do some quick counting of the buckets to make more tickets available.
The only $ that is exchanged is for the lunchroom workers that ask if they can sell funnel cakes for their department. We have no problem with this and have no involvement in their project.
We use tickets every year and love it. Most games are 1 ticket(.25) and cake walk, basketball toss, and bouncy are all 2 tickets (.50). We sell them by 1.00 or 5.00 increments. They are gone in no time. We DO NOT refund them if they do not use them. If you use tickets that is all you need to do, don't do both. Have a ticket booth and they are the ones who keep the money and tickets. If you want to know what was a best game then have a collection bucket for tickets count them afterwards. If you use tickets for food then that is worked a little different. If it is like hot dog worth 3 tickets, soda 2 tickets, chips 1 or 2 tickets. etc. keep it reasonable. You sell more that way.
Ok here's my horror story. It is a given that each student gets two tickets for fall festival. This will get them 2 games. A teacher came up with the idea of using tickets all around. Sounded good at the time. I asked for a booth to set up for money exchange. It did not happen. A bunch of parents went around all morning switching money for tickets. Mistake #2 (besides the redemption booth), some kids had $20. Games are .25, food is under $1.00, and the haunted house that year was $2.00. They had less than two hours for the Fall Festival. They didn't have time to spend $20. We decided we would do money or tickets. My kid (and many others) held on to the tickets and spent their money. One of the volunteers accidently lost $5 worth of tickets we thought. She was extrememely sorry and paid back the kid which we later found out hadn't had any money to begin with(or something like that). Anyhow it was a simple mistake. I ended up telling someone to throw the Haunted House tickets away. So we did not know how much money we made on that. Everytime I turned around I was being called somewhere because I had the money. The treauser had other duties. So I barely got a glimpse of my son. At the bell I had about 20 parents on top of me wanting their money for the tickets their kids did not use. We were reimbursing tickets for a week.
My statement at the next PTO meeting was IF we ever do tickets again I will be on vacation. LOL! Seriously if we had of done them again there should be a limit (like $5) for tickets and they could use money also and there should be at least two redemption booths. Everyone agreed with the no ticket idea so we are back to the basics. The reason the teacher suggested that we use the tickets is because the teachers and volunteers that run the booths sometimes have to leave the money exposed making it easy to confuse and easy for little wondering hands. That rarely happens but it sounded like a good safeguard.
Tickets can work. It depends on your set up. I've read many posts on here through the years of successful ticket usage.
In the past we've sold separate tickets for food than games. Games sold 8 tickets for $1.00
We could soak the principal and school board members for .50 each ticket and we also set up a maze in the basement that was a HUGE hit and those tickets were also .50 Food tickets sold from .50 for drinks to 3.50 for italian sausage sandwiches.
This next year we are talking about one meal ticket with check off options- less paper that way. A concern was that kids could pay for their ticket then check off more items...I think NOT! LOL We're getting a special stamp so no cheating will be possible. We'll see what happens.
You might want to consider pre-selling tickets. I know one local school who sells food at Field Day sends home a lunch menu with prices and order forms and then they pre-order their tickets. Just a thought.
Shelly
