Oh gosh..I don't know how much we made because our main goal for this was not really to raise alot of money. Our PTO did not benefit from the money--it went to the music department and the student council. I'll try and find out how much we made, though and get back to you.

It was GREAT fun and just got so many good reviews. The kids loved performing, the parents loved watching, and it was just a great night of family fun.
Shelly

I'm afraid the original post is over 2 months old but if you're out there, I have a few questions...I'm new to this site as well as to PTO council. I love your idea of a talent show and I was hoping you would be willing to share how much you were able to raise doing this type of event. Thanks.

The kids on the student council sold the refreshments. The "Junior Talent Show" ended about 6 p.m. and the regular talent show didn't start til 7 so we sold pizza, soft drinks, popcorn and candy from 6-7. It was a great atmosphere, kids running around, parents visiting, etc. Lots of great reviews and it helped to have the music department and the student council in on it.
Good luck!
Shelly

Did you sell refreshments at your talent show? This is a wonderful idea. I'll be taking this to the rest of the board to get on the calendar for next year. I'm hoping we can have more family involvement events this coming year. I feel that if the parents feel like they are more involved in the school w/their child w/fun events they would be more willing to volunteer at some of the other events.

And I probably wouldn't have taken it on if I hadn't gotten lots of good ideas from all of you. We are a school K3-8th grade and this is how ours worked: (and it worked out great).

We had kids from 1st-8th sign up and we held "try-outs" although no one was turned down; we just wanted to screen the acts. The children picked up an entry form and a set of rules and returned the form with a $10 entry fee. We then assigned them a "try-out" time. This was very efficient and there was minimal wait time (as opposed to saying try-outs are Friday afternoon at 4 pm.)

What was nice about the way ours worked is that 3 groups within the school worked on this. It was my idea to start it but the Music teacher then came on board and then the Student Council. The Music teacher and I really did the majority of the day to day work. We watched the try-outs etc. The student council managed all the concessions, created the program, did a skit and made posters for the event.

This is what worked well about our Talent Show: we had alot of children in grades 1-3 sign up PLUS lots more in grades 4-8 so we divided the Talent Show(or it would have been gruesomely long!) We had the "Junior Talent Show" at 5:00 p.m. and it was not a competition. This was wonderful for all involved. Grandparents could come and then leave when it was over. Every child in grades 1-3 got a little trophy ($3.95) and a school t-shirt (because we had so many left over from another event). They were just beside themselves. I think we had about 17 acts and it only took 45 minutes. Cute cute cute. What worked well was to have reserved seats on the front row for them and they just marched up to the stage, performed and came back to their seat. We didn't have to do any babysitting/crowd control with them, either. ;0) Plus they were very entertained.

Then, our regular Talent Show started at 7:00. We had a bit of a lull there for an hour but we sold pizza, popcorn, etc. We could have easily started it at 6:30 but we didn't know how quickly it would go.

We grouped our 4th & 5th grades together in the first half of the show. it works really well to group the children by age so you don't have a modestly talented 9-yr old right after an extremely talented 14 yr old. The talent levels slightly increased with age.

At intermission, we called for our 6th-8th graders to come back to the dressing rooms.

It all went off smoothly. Grades 4-8 took about 1 hr/45 minutes. We had "real" judges, local music professionals (the music teacher found them and they did it for free). After the event, they deliberated and then they announced prizes in 2 categories: grades 4 & 5 (1st,2nd,3rd) and then grades 6-8 plus about 5 cute honorable mentions: best hair, best music, etc. We had good prizes: gift cards from $25-$75 donated by the student council. Honorable mentions got free ice cream cards.

Everyone was raving about how wonderful the event was; it was good for school spirit, etc. The kids thought they were stars. It will take a devoted faculty member to help you pull this off. My role was alot of "managerial" and event planning and we were a good combination.

One other thing that worked well with rehearsals: We had 1 rehearsal on Tuesday. Arrival times were staggered by grade so you didn't have to just SIT for hours: grades 1-3 arrived at 3:15; grades 4 & 5 arrived at 4:15 and grades 6-8 came at 4:45. We had a dress rehearsal on Thursday, same time frame. it wasn't a tremendous time commitment on the part of the parents, I didn't think.

We charged $5 admission, using ticket wristbands. One big expense: our sound man. We had a professional sound man and he was worth every penny. He could adjust the microphone of each child depending on how loud they sang. I think he charged somewhere in the range of $100-$150 for two nights. Worth every penny. No screw-ups.

Anyway, thanks for all of your help with this. It was well worth it!
Shelly