PTO Today

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!

That sounds like a good idea. We have prizes at each booth so the children (or parents) end up carrying all the trinkets around all night. We have several items to choose from and I feel this takes the children longer. I am going to suggest for next year we only offer 2-3 prizes per game. One for a win and one for a consolation. GAmes like plinko and duck pond have 3 options so those would have 3 prize buckets with equal value prizes. I like the prize booth idea, but I know our Board wouldn't go for it.
Glad to here you found something that worked well for your school and volunteers.

That sounds like a great idea. I think we're going to try a prize booth this year. We're doing a few new games this year and didn't want to confuse everyone with a new prize booth too.

I love your idea. Could you provide more detail? What were the prize levels, how did you determine prizes and where did you get them? We had a prize booth and found the kids redeeming after one or two winnings-it was crazy. Our expense to Oriental Trading was over $2,000 for junk! Thanks for sharing.

I have been trying to convince our PTO to do the prize redemption to add a little more excitment to the Carnival this spring. I would love to have a few more details on your prizes, levels, and budget amount. I have been debating the punch system or tickets, I think the punch pass is a great idea!

I like the punch pass idea--- we have done tickets for years and it would save a bunch of trees t do it this way instead-- thinking pro-active here.

We have purchased prizes from Fun services in our area-- and when you buy so many prizes they give you so many games for free-- it's a win-win-- the kids love it and we make up the showcase the week before the fair to entice the kids with some of the prizes they can win and how many tickets it takes-- next time how many punches--

We purchased our prizes from Rhode Island Novelty. I was pleased with the service we received, the timely delivery (less than 1 week for free shipping!)and for the most part, the quality of what we received. I was also pleased with the fact that we could return unopened packages for a small fee. We had prizes for 5,10,20,20,40, and 1 60 point prize. I used a formula found on this page to determine the number of prizes to order.

Schoolcarnivals.com Estimating quanitites for carnival prizes

We probably had about 1/3 of what we ordered left over. It was still a guessing game. I based our numbers off of last years ticket sales.

I found that quite a few kids got all 50 points. Next year I am recommending that we only have prizes to 50 points rather than 60. We had 15 kids out of 400 get the 60 point prize. I was surprised by the number of people we had choose 2 10 pt airplanes instead of a larger prize. I could get anyone the exact #'s of prizes we used, but it was based on our 480 person school. We rounded up for all of the kids when they were cashing in if they did not have an exact amount of points.

We borrowed games from another school that does their own carnival. We purchased a couple games and made some as well. We checked out the prizes at Fun Services, but found them to be quite expensive and junky compared to RIN, and were able to buy some games with money we saved. ustoy.com and goodtimeattractions.com have several games on them. Schoolcarnivals.com also has a nice list of game ideas.

I can try and post our point card in the share this file tonight. Hope this helps!

Our budget was based on our goal. We did not want to make money on the carnival, so I based the prize budget on how many games were played last year, and how many tickets they would cost this year. We ended up spending about $1400 on prizes and did a little better than breaking even. We have extra prizes left over for next year, so overall, we were pleased with how we came out in the end. The estimating website helps figure this out.