The biggest thing is have a great caller-- especially when it come to the kids!
You have to Keep them entertained as well as have fun. Get someone that is funny, outgoing and has almost a gameshow host personality if you will.

Next, go to a party store or look in your area for game rentals-- these companies have paper bingo cards for sale.. they are not very expensive-- we take 8-10 cards and staple the corners together-- We pre-bag 2 person card sets, 4 person card sets and 6 person card sets with a crayon for each set, plus whatever coupon they would be getting (pop, ice cream, chips etc) We charge $4.00 per person-- an adult must accompany children to event.... their price includes bingo, drink, and ice cream or bag of chips snack- which we serve half-way through. We also put loose wrapped candy and bowls of chips, pretzels on the tables..

We have a prize table with 1,00 and under prizes-- and we have several people walking around during bingo to give out redemption ticket for a bingo.

Now we play-- our game host might say the first bingo gets 5 redemption tickers or 2 tickets-- this the kids love--
*We've played 4-corners-- X marks the winner-- Sit-down Bingo-- this is where everyone stands-- and as the caller calls out each number, if you have the number sit-down and the last one standing wins-- the kids love this one as well... and our game host might ask if there are 5 people standing if we give you 2 tickets, would you sit down-- some take it, some don't-- again this is what makes it fun--
We sell 50/50 tickets and raffle tickets as well during the event.

A fun time is had be all-- and we change the theme each year depending on the month we do the event. Good luck- let us know how you did.

First you need to check the laws in your state. Bingo is usually considered a game of chance (a form of gambling) and may require a permit. In your case it would be called "charitable bingo". Here in Texas, even if no entrance or card fees are charged, we are supposed to get a permit. Along those same lines, the law requires that we buy bingo cards from a state-certified source.

On the bingo cards, if you copy them from a game set, you will likely have multiple winners for each game (because of duplicates). You may want to buy disposable cards. There are tons of suppliers on the Internet. For those, you use a different color each game and clear/discard all the bingo papers between games. They are usually sold in pretty large quantities. But we called a local supplier and she sold us batches of cards from partial boxes that had been damaged at a big discount. We have cups of crayons on each table to use as markers.

We also have our master board as a transparency and use an overhead projector to display it, marking called numbers with a marker. (Several copies so you don't have to clean it quickly between games.0

We also had the rules posted in several places around the room and taped to every table.

Bingo is a big hit with the crowd and lots of fun.

I know many schools have done BINGO nights but our PTO never has. Can you share any pointers with me? Did you just make copies of cards from a game you bought? What are some of the different types of BINGO games (Round Robin, etc). We are going to have to divide ours by grades - the first for Pres - K, 1st & 2nd, etc. Anything you can share would be great!