Momma,
Here is a link for a carnival that I used to work with when I was in college.
Reithoffer Shows
. I would caution you, work with a professional when it comes to your carnival. I think you will have a very unpleasant experience with the fly by night company's around. If my memory serves me "Big A" is another reputable carnival. Unfortunately I think your going to have to plan for next year. Most of the good shows already have their schedules set. Call anyway, I know the break up their units sometimes for smaller events. When you look at the pictures on Reithoffer's website your going to think that's to big for us. Don't be fooled, they can put that whole show together in about two days. I'm sure a good carnival will be pre-planned by their management. If you come to an agreement with a good one, they will send people out to survey your property and plan the set-up.
Here's another great fundraiser for you that can support your other events with. Pre-paid greeting cards. It's unique, and the fundraising support is awsome. It's easy to administer, there's no upfront expense, inventory, delivery, or other hassles. You can run perpetually or on a scheduled basis. The way it works is, your volunteers sell the pre-paid greeting cards, they collect the payment and information from the customer's. Then you just submit the addresses of the people who bought card's to GCI and they take care of the rest. They will even give you a free website where people can go to purchase the cards. I think your uncooperative parent's would be willing to help you with this because, it's not time consuming and it's a product everybody can use. One idea I had when I read your post was to create a greeting card campaign announcing your dinner and auction. That way you would be generating funds from the cards and advertising your dinner at the same time. You could do the same thing with a carnival.
Let me know if you have any other question's. I would be happy to answer them.
