I said it was fun, not cheap. Every year the PTO funds an Artist in Residence who comes and spends a week teaching all the classes a specific art skill. One year we had a gal who taight watercolors to all the kids. So the square dance band was actually that year's Artist in Residence, teaching square dancing. When we had the band leader for the week at school and the band for Friday night it was $1955. The next year we had just the band for Friday night and it was $850. The chicken dinner was just at cost, not to make money. Also, because the event was in the gym we could not sell refreshments because they do not allow food in the gym. The PTO decided that it would be a family fun activity so we covered the cost of the band.
I will be posting another post on another event we put on that wasn't as much money and was great fun, call Fear Factor BINGO.
For the past two years we have had a Barn Dance at our school with very good results. The first year we rented the band leader for a week to come in and teach the gym classes several square dances. Then on Friday we invited the whole school and their families to come to the Barn Dance that night.
To get people dressed up we got a donation of a free birthday hotel package from a brand new hotel. Then we raffled it off when the band was taking their break. To get tickets we told them they had to dress up for the Barn Dance. Every person who came to the barn dance got a ticket for showing up, and then if they wore different items of clothing they got more tickets. The items of clothing they had to wear were 1.) denim piece of clothing, 2.) bib overalls or suspenders, 3.) cowboy hat or straw hat, 4.) bandana, 5.) cowboy boots, 6.) plaid shirt. Then I got the raffle tickets that have numbers on two tickets, so you can keep one for the drawing and give one to the people. I got 7 volunteers and to enter the gym you had to walk by the 7 volunteers, and the first volunteer gave everyone a ticket for showing up, the second volunteer gave you a ticket if you wore a denim clothing, the third volunteer gave you a ticket if you had suspenders on etc. So each volunteer was only looking for 1 piece of clothing. The line moved pretty well, each volunteer had a sign that said their piece of clothing, so if people weren't wearing a hat they walked right on by. Some families of 4 came and only got 4 tickets, other families of 4 came decked out and got 20 tickets.
It was a really good time. We had an optional chicken dinner before in the cafeteria that you had to sign up for in advance. We also had a Spirit Week during the week where we had a different theme each day.
If anyone would like the flyers we sent out I can send them to you.
