On the one I referenced, it's a professional association dinner. (But could be replicated elsewhere.) So we have our hospitality/networking time and then dinner - all of which times the raffle is open. At the stated time, they give a warning then start awarding prizes. It's actually amazing how quickly it goes. Everyone is seated and the presenter has a microphone, so every can see/hear. He has about 4 helpers. The presenter calls a ticket number, the person raises their hand, a helper takes the prize into the crowd. The presenter does this very quickly. I'd guess it takes about 15-20 minutes. He doesn't waste anytime and is pretty much continuously calling numbers. Others do the running.
You could replicate this in a school setting, but you'd want space for the crowd to wait comfortably (ideally seated), you'd want to keep the presentation area clear, and you would need to make sure everyone could hear. You could also stagger the times as long as it was clear what prizes would be awarded when.
Oh! In that case, we do one, but it's our "ice cream social and kids' raffle." We made $4k or so last year. Most (90%) of the items for this raffle are donated by families in the school. There are some "red hot" items that need $1 tickets, and the rest are $0.50 tickets. The thing we're struggling with is, with so many items (50-100), how do you quickly and efficiently draw, call, and distribute?
These events go by a lot of names. We call ours a Bag Raffle. They used to be called "Chinese Auctions", but some consider that derogatory (although I've read the term came about simply because it sounded exotic, not because it was intended to imply any insult).
Anyway, this is usually the type of event where you have multiple prizes each with a container in front of it. (Jar, lunch bag, box, etc.) Attendees buy tickets and submit them for whatever prize(s) they want to try for. At the end of the night, a drawing is held for each prize from the container that collected tickets for that item.
You can do this as a simple extra with 3 or 4 items or with a whole room. I attend one at a professional association each year that has 80-100 prizes. A past participant in these forums said they had 400 prizes.
Here are a couple old threads that have some tips.
