Village flower shows--how much?

Hi people

I'm on our village hall committee and we're planning our annual flower and produce show.
We've been having discussions about how much to charge for entries and I thought I'd ask here to see what other people are charging.

At the moment we charge 40p per entry (free for under 16s). There are prizes of £2 (first), £1 (second) and 50p third. Half the cost of the prize money is a donation from another village organisation. Largely due to the cost of getting the trophies engraved we made a loss last year so are reconsidering the finances for this year.

We're quite a small village of about 600 people and most classes don't have more than two or three entries.

Thanks

Steve

 

Hi Steve

Unless you are willing to run at a loss and subsidise the trophy engraving every year, then entry fees need to be high enough to cover your costs.

Or consider charging the public to come in to watch the judging.

Or selling refreshments.

Or absorb the cost now with the idea to raise and recoup money later in the year.
Perhaps a garden and allotment open day. People can pay a pound to come in to visit the allotments and see the work going on. Provide drinks and ice creams and you could raise enough to pay for next year too. Tell the local paper.

Another possibility which will keep your entry costs down is finding a local sponsor- a local business would be best- a farm or village shop maybe?

Hope the ideas help

 

Wow - I was going to say I'd pay about £2-3. But actually, maybe if I was taking the whole family, that might be too much. Certainly £1 for adults and 20-50p for children doesn't seem too much, but might raise a bit more money.

Love Melinda's idea about sponsorship - and even if you can't find someone to sponsor the whole show, maybe they'd be willing to sponsor an individual class?

Could you maybe also have a plant stall to raise money as well?

How about combining it with garden open days in the village, and ask for donations at each garden as well? That way you might attract more visitors from outside the village?

 

10p per entry, under 16s free.

1st 50p, 2nd 30p, 3rd 20p, but some classes with £10/3/1, £5/2/1, £3/2/1, etc. within some categories such as vegetables, fruit, flowers, childrens clases, etc.

Local businesses sponsor prizes and there's also loads of manure as prizes plus 'Garden News' vouchers for DT Brown seeds.

Raffle & donated produce sale.

 

Maybe I didn't make myself clear in my original post!

It's not really ideas for other ways of getting the money in which I'm after (we sell teas, have an auction at the end, have had a raffle, get adverts for the programme and so on--it's a very small hall so we're a bit restricted on extras). We also have a separate, very successful Open Garden weekend every other year and need to keep that on its own. But thanks for all the suggestions!

What I was really after was what other people are charging for each class entry. Scrungee's 10p a go sounds like very good value!

S