We just had our first carnival where we did our own games vs. paying a company to run it for us. It was a ton of work, but went very well. In preparation, I read a lot of posts about chuck-e-cheese style prizes vs. prizes at each game.
We decided to go with the prize booth, and contemplated how to count tickets. We came up with a punch pass that each kid wore around their neck. They thought they were pretty cool. They looked kind of like a backstage pass. They were numbered 1-50. On the back it listed to 2 prizes available at each point level. Each game attendant would punch the pass with what ever the winning prize was (1-3 punches). There were no tickets to count at the end. For the last 20 minutes we had 4-6 people in the prize booth. I think the longest the line was was 5 minutes. We only offered 2 prizes at each level, so it limited the choices. Most kids were able to decide quite quickly, or already knew what they wanted when they cashed out.
We had some prizes that were extremely popular, and 2 out of 12 that were not so popular. Overall, I think the kids loved it- they went home with basketballs, gumball machines, glider planes etc. instead of a pocket full of junk. The parents definitely loved it.
We will do it the same way next time!
