We are working still to get BestBuy to come out-- we had our movie night and gave out the fliers from PTO Today that gave a 10% coupon to everyone-- great promotional material--
It was a nice add-on---
but the game night is still in the works-- and we are trying to get BestBuy to sponsor a station at our fair for next year with a Wii game-- like Mario Cart....

We just did this as a reward for surviving the state mastery test. We called it "Wii survived CMTs"
We got the packet from PTO today and contacted our local Best Buy, they had no idea such a program was in place. LOL After much haggling and finally getting the right Best Buy Guy (media department lead) on the phone we were up and running. Since it was our first attempt at Game Day we just had 4 Wii's and an XBox 360. They brought in all new Wii's and had Wii Sports and Mario Kart, nice kid friendly games.

We brought the kids in one grade (3rd - 8th) at a time for 30 minute sessions. PTO and Admin provided waters and snacks for the kids on the way out. And we had all the kids sign a big thank you poster for the store.

the nice thing with Best Buy is they brought the equipment in, set up, and manned the stations. The only thing the school provided were the TVs.

It was a great success, the kids had a blast and we are having Best Buy come back to do a station for Field Day.
The Best Buy Guy said they would make up a kit with the Wii's they used to do future events.

If you need more info let me know. I can get the name of the Best Buy Guy from our store from our PTO Pres.

We let it be a Game / Chat night. Sometime this age group just wants to time to talk to friends and make new friends. Make sure you have video games, they are much more popular, but you need good close supervision as they are expensive and can be broken easily, so you might want a loan at your own risk policy or decide what you'll do if they do get broken ahead of time. Be sure to state limits of violence level allowed in games, etc.

I coordinated three of these at our elementary, but that was a few years ago. The first year we did the games in the gym and board games in the cafeteria and just provided light snacks and beverages. The second and third years we did dinner instead of snacks, had the PTOtoday suggested games in the gym and board games in the cafeteria for a certain length of time and then moved everyone to the cafeteria for bingo. We sent home flyers requesting RSVP so we would have an idea of how much food we would need. We used high school students and teachers to run the games, so parents would be free to play-after all that's the purpose of the night!!

If you have some specific questions, just post them!!

Has anyone ever hosted this?

I have the packet, and made contact with our local Best Buy. I'm hoping to schedule something like this at our middle school (probably just 5th and 6th for starters). I'd like to hear ideas from those who have done it, suggestions on how it was organized, etc.

thanks!