I've tried to figure out a way to send you a messag without posting my email address, but I can't. Would you consider sharing your carnival excel program with me?
Thank you so much!
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Originally posted by PTA Renegade: I think I still have an Carnival Excel program that I wrote that uses formulas to compute attendance and how it affects how much to buy in food, prizes, candy and the like; If anyone reads this REALLY long post and wants a copy, I'll email it to you - LMK, but no email addresses in your post, please! Thanks!!
Hello...I am new to this site and I am really loving it. I have an idea for this topic that really helped us this year. Our school used food vendors. We had local restaurants come out and set up and sell food. We didn't have to staff it and we made 10% profit on their sales. It worked out great! We had 4 vendors selling water ice, pizza, hot dogs, roast beef sandwiches and more. All we needed to do was supply space and tables.
I hope this idea helps...
Stacey
I would love to also get a copy of the excel program if possible.
We had our first Family Fun Night last November (we couldn't call it a carnival because of insurance - weird). It was a huge success. We saved money by having businesses sponsor our games, which we ordered from carnivalgames.com, and some parents donated the inflatable. Our art teacher volunteered to do the face painting as well as one of our aides - huge hit with the kids of all ages. Our school is a K-8 with roughly 1400 students.
We also saved money by asking local vendors for donations of supplies. The manager of a local grocery chain has a granddaughter that goes to our school so we asked for donations or discounts from him. We listed all businesses in our school newsletter and sent them all a thank you letter.
Our fun night consisted of about 25 games, a DJ with roped lights for a dance floor, a sponge toss (we didn't want to pay for a dunk tank) at the principal and dean, a hayride behind the school, face painting, bounce house, polaroid pictures with a fall scene, food, and a basket raffle.
The biggest hit of the night for the parents and our biggest money maker was our basket raffle. We asked for each class to sponsor a themed basket to be raffled off that night. We had some great ideas from "family movie night" to "sports team". In all, we had about 35 different baskets and we charged $1.00 for each ticket entered in the raffle. Every basket had a labeled box in front of it so people could place their tickets in them. Every basket had at least 30 tickets placed in their box, some had as much as $100 (we're in FL and have a lot of Gator fans).
I'm not sure how everyone's schools are set up, but we chose to have everything set up outside. We used white Christmas lights to add to the feel and the kids absolutely loved it. Our PTO has had some problems getting some of our teachers to really want to do things with us, so using their classrooms for games was not an option. We did, however, get them to participate in a scarecrow decorating contest earlier in the week so that we had extra decorations around campus. That got the kids involved and they couldn't wait to see which class, one in elem. and one in middle, that would win the ice cream party for most creative scarecrow.
Please keep the ideas coming. We're hoping to add to our Fun Night this year. [img]smile.gif[/img]
Sorry it took so long to respond to the loolipop tree question. It's probably too late but here goes... We build our "sucker tree" out of styro foam to look like a tree. Approximatley 24"X 12" If you have a redemption room use redemption tickets as your prizes. If you don't have a redemption room use little trinkets as your prizes. Mark the bottom of the sucker sticks with a color. Then stick the suckers into the tree hiding the colors. The children pay 2 tickets to pick a sucker. If they pick one that has a white stick they only win the sucker. If they pick one with a colored stick they win a corresponding prize. We use a redemption room where the kids can spend the tickets they won when they played all the games. So our sucker tree runs like this; Purple = 1 redemption ticket, red = 2 redemption tickets, blue = 3 redemption tickets. Out of 100 suckers in the tree we leave 50 white, color 25 purple, 15 red, and 10 blue. If you don't have a redeption room, purchase little trinkets and place them in a purple, blue and red bin for the kids to pick their prizes from. Use any colors you have, and any suckers will work. We usually use blow pops, because they are bigger than the dum-dums. Our tickets cost .25 each so each player is paying .50 to pick a sucker, only half of them will win another prize. This game pays for itself in the long run. All the kids from K-8th grade play it, because most kids like suckers. Any more questions post again, and I will respond. I hope this made sense. Good Luck. Tara
The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating-in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life. --Anne Morris
