A thought before you start. Some of these activities result in a winner to be announced at the end of the event. Forget how annoying YOU find it having to hang around until the end, just think of all the extra money you will raise if people can’t leave.

1 Bash the Rat.

Object of the game: The rat is dropped into the top of the drainpipe. Players have to hit it as it whizzes out of the bottom. Not as easy as it sounds as you can’t see it descend the pipe.

Materials: A length of drainpipe (about 6 ft), a rat, a rounders bat or cricket bat. Prizes for successful bashers.

Get a length of drainpipe (about 6ft is ideal) and fix it to a board using drainpipe fixers with about 2 ½ foot of board below the end of the pipe. (This last bit is important. People who bash successfully will trap the rat against the board, so it’s clear whether they have succeeded or not)  
Make a “rat” about 9 inches long. This can be a simple as a bean bag, or you can really go to town and add a tail, ears eyes and whiskers. It needs a bit of weight to get  it to whiz through the pipe.

2 Wet sponge the teacher

Always popular if your staff are game for a laugh. You can minimise their discomfort (and the need for a change of clothes)  and increase the laughs if you create seaside arcade type boards in comical poses with just a hole for the face. Of course you could go the whole hog and have olde worlde stocks. Make sure you have buckets of fresh clean water to rinse the sponges so not too much grit is getting slung. It also helps to lay plastic sheeting on the ground round the target so that sponges fall onto a clean surface.

3 Find the egg

Simple and cheap. The object is to find the whole eggs. The winners get to keep the eggs.

Materials: eggs (hard boiled if you prefer); a shallow box of sand ; egg shells

Fill the box with sand. Partly bury a selection of whole eggs and egg shells in the sand either pointy end up or round end up, so that you can’t tell whether they are egg shells or unbroken eggs.  Players simply take the egg of their choice and turn it over. If it’s empty, the shell goes back in the sand, if it’s a whole egg, they keep the egg.

Make sure you have a stock of eggs to replenish the box.

4 Welly wanging

Always popular with the fathers, this one – it takes a bit of skill, which is why they like showing off. Make sure you have a range of welly sizes so that kids and adults can have a good go.
Materials: wellies – one size for adults, one for children.
Cordoned off area.
Tape measure (for measuring distance)
Board to write results on.

Prize for the winners (Maybe have categories: men, women, boys, girls)

Object: to throw a welly as far as you can. Winner to be announced at the end

5 Gunge tanks

What is it about children and really nasty stuff? There are various variations on the gunge tank principle according to the age of your visitors.
Materials. Washing up bowls. Cardboard boxes to contain the bowls. Stuff that feels nasty.
Fill washing up bowls with substances e.g. cold spaghetti, wall paper paste, jelly. Put each bowl in cardboard boxes so its can’t be seen

Prizes

Participants stick their hands into unknown substances through a hole in the top of the cardboard box

Version 1
Guess what’s in the tanks. With a prize for the most correct answers at the end of the event.

Version 2
You need a team of dramatically inclined older pupils (yrs 12-14) to help for this. In a darkened room, visitors are guided from tank to tank sticking their hands into the substances while their guide feeds their imaginations by telling them a horror story that matches what they are feeling (spaghetti is someone’s guts spilling out, that kind of thing). Kids love it!

6 Drop penny.

Materials: a Large fish tank. Some £1 coins.
Method. Fill the tank with water. Put the £1 at the bottom
Object of the game. To drop a penny (or10p or whatever you want to charge) through the water so that it sits exactly on top of the £1. You win the £1 if you do it. Extremely tricky but make sure you have some spare £1 coins.

7. The Human Fruit Machine

This one is all the rage at the moment.

Materials: 3 dads dressed as outrageously as possible; fruit: 1 bunch bananas, 1 grapefruit; 1 pineapple for each dad; 3 cardboard boxes; a bell; slices of water melon as prizes.

Method:
Participant pays money
Rings the bell
When the bell rings the three dads spin round simultaneously and pick a fruit out of the cardboard box behind them. 3 identical fruits win a slice of watermelon.

(To avoid being entirely random and to ensure a reasonable number of winners, it helps if the dads can work out a code between them which fruit to pick)

8. Cheaper than a coconut shy

Coconuts aren’t as cheap as they were. The same principle can be done with cans of fizzy drinks on a shelf

Materials.
A shelf.
A back drop (plastic/ tarpaulin) to prevent lost balls
3 balls (tennis/ cricket)

Knock the can off with the ball to win. 3 goes for … however much/

9. Plant stall

One for the adults this. Most people given enough notice can find some spare seedlings to pot up

10 Face painters.

Professional face painters don’t come cheap. But you may get some volunteers amongst the year 12-14’s or the parents. One word of warning, face painting isn’t just about painting faces, it’s about small kids feeling good about themselves. Vet the personality of your face painter. It doesn’t matter how artistic they are if they scare the living daylights out of the kids (it has been known!)

Finally, remember your publicity. It doesn't matter how brilliant your fete is if people don't know about it. You can create a free listing on doNOWdo.