How To Run A Successful Summer Fete

Plan in advance

Set the date as far in advance as possible; the more planning time you have, the better it will be! It also means you’ve planned the event so that it doesn’t coincide with other school activities and events. It gives you time to get people involved and sort out licensing, health and safety, and insurance.

Decide what stalls and equipment you will need

You will need to offer a balance of stalls and activities to attract both adults and children – think cheap crowd-pleasers and thrilling money-spinners! If you’re stuck for ideas, bouncy castle hire is a great attraction for kids to play and have fun on! Hiring party entertainers and attractions such as dancers, face painters and the local fire engine needs to be carefully thought out.

Plan how to publicise the event

As much thought that goes into planning the event should go in to publicising it too! Try and find a local business to sponsor the production of the signs in exchange for their logo being on the signs, or create basic signs to go up around the local area.

Social media is free and easy to use. You can use Facebook to create event pages, and Twitter is great for sharing content and interacting with the local community. Find some localised accounts and see if they can write about the event.

Good old-fashioned leaflet-dropping to residents can really get the community involved too.

Most of all, have fun!

On the day, look after your volunteers and keep them informed of what is happening. Create a list of jobs and distribute information for each stall so that volunteers know the rules, how much to charge and what to do with the money they take.

Share your success and let people know how much money you’ve raised. Use photos and videos on social media to thank everyone to their help – it also gives you that feel-good factor!