I personally like the Tricky Tray more than a "raffle," because with a general raffle you don't know which basket you're going to win, and with the Tricky Tray you get to pick which basket you'd like a shot at, and increase your chances of wnning.
I think having the Tricky Tray on its own is a better idea--less distraction, and they have more money to spend on YOU! [img]tongue.gif[/img]
As I said in my original post in this thread, we're just sending out our letters so we have yet to see who will give nationally, but as soon as I get responses I'll be sure to put them up. Coke and Wise already agreed to give product (10 cases of soda and wise was good for a gross of chips), and our local Coke plant even said they'd deliver if we called them a couple of weeks before hand. Our VP went to the local nursery and asked the "expert" there if he'd be willing to donate himself for a couple of hours to go over people's yards with them (things you're doing wrong, help with problem plants, trees etc) as a prize, and he was very flattered, and said he'd have to think about it, but was leaning towards "yes!" That's one I know my husband would LOVE to win!
I found that some companies (Estee Lauder comes to mind) actually have a a selection on their automated phone menu for donations.
Coprez....Do you advertise your event to people outside the school? We adverise in every paper in the area. We flyer all the store windows, and we get it advertised on one of the cable stations that just runs ads for events for non profit organizations.
I don't know where you live, but here in North Jersey we are very heavily populated. How successful is the fashion show portion of the night? I may be wrong, but I think that may detract from outsiders attending. The outside people that come here are people who love these auctions. They will go to an auction anywhere they can. The person who sold the tickets 2 years ago said she got phone calls this year from outside folks wanting to know when we were doing it again. With that in mind it makes me think that those people only want auctions and not fashion shows.
$18 is a great price for the tickets. We could never pull that off here. There is nowhere we could get a sit down meal in a banquet hall for that little money. 2 years ago the tickets for ours were $40. This year we got a better deal at a different hall & our ticket price will be $30. The banquet hall gets $23 a person, so we will make $7 a ticket.
The better the prizes the better you will do. People will come back year after year if you have a lot of prizes and they are good. I cannot even begin to tell you how many prizes we have...I would estimate somewhere near 300.
Serendipity - We do something similar ... a calendar party and chinese auction. How do you get so many people. We are pulling teeth to get 200+ people at the event. We do hold it at a banquet hall, fashion show and lunch/dinner included. How much do you charge (ours is $18)? Our chinese auction (oops I mean tricky tray) usually makes about $3,500.
I live in Florida and have never heard of a tricky tray. Would this be better than auctioning off baskets? Do you think it would work for a small town with a school of about 170 kids? thanks for any help.
I too live in Northern NJ and have done Tricky Trays at both banquet halls and at the school.
For the banquet halls- I've done them for my daughters Preschool and have combined it with a fashion show & dinner.Profits for the night ranged from $12,000 - $17,000. Last year we moved to a bigger place so more people can attend.
WHen I've done a tricky tray's for my other school, we've held it at the school and we've made anywhere from $8,000- $11,000. It really depends on how you advertise.We did have people coming from all over NJ for the event. Advertising is the key, you need to spend a little in order to make a lot!!!
I live in northern NJ as well and "tricky trays" are a seriously popular fundraiser among schools in this area. Parochial schools in particular seem to do many of them. As Serendipity said, so many people come from everywhere to go to these around here. You can make some very very good money on them. It does take a lot of time to organize a really good one though.
We have a Holiday event at our school in December and one of our rooms is a "tricky tray". It is the most popular room of the event. We do this as a fun event and do not set out to profit from this ( we don't want to loses our shirt either...hehehe)We make about $4000 on this room alone!
I do know that a lot of schools, etc... are now opting for a large banquet hall, or in our area, large hotels because they sell out of their tickets and do not have enough room in the schools. Usually there is a dinner and then the tricky tray prizes are called during the desert time.
