Every school fair committee has the same three problems: not enough volunteers, not enough space, and no idea until the day whether anyone will turn up.
Most fundraising ideas make at least one of those worse. A bouncy castle needs insurance, a delivery slot and someone watching it all afternoon. A tombola needs weeks of collecting donations. A cake sale needs a small army of parents baking on a Friday night.
This is a list of ideas that hold up when you are short on all three, ending with the one we build.
What actually makes money at a school fair
Before the ideas, the pattern worth knowing. The stalls that do well tend to share three things:
- A low price point. People will hand over a pound without thinking. Five pounds gets a decision.
- Repeat plays. The tombola works because losing makes people want another go.
- A queue that other people can see. Nothing sells a stall like a crowd around it.
The stalls that struggle are usually the ones that need a volunteer chained to them for four hours.
Fundraising ideas that earn their pitch
Guess the number
Cheap, requires one jar and one volunteer checking in occasionally. Reliable rather than exciting.
Sponsored events
The soapbox derby, the readathon, the sponsored silence. These raise the most per pupil but they need organising weeks ahead. We sponsored The Billericay School's Shark Attack cart at the 2026 Soapbox Derby, and the amount of work the students and teachers put in was obvious on race day.
Second-hand uniform and book stalls
Almost free to run, genuinely useful to families, and no licensing to think about. Modest takings.
Refreshments
Consistently the highest earner at most fairs. Also the most labour intensive by a distance.
Games of skill
Hook a duck, coconut shy, penalty shootout. These are the ones people remember, and the ones that build a queue. They are also the ones that need equipment, storage and a volunteer.
The problem with hiring an arcade machine
An arcade or claw machine is a reliable crowd-puller at a fair. Ask anyone who has hired one.
The trouble is everything around it. Traditional claw machine hire means a physical cabinet arriving on a lorry, a delivery window you have to be there for, floor space in the hall, a power supply within reach, someone to keep it stocked, and a collection slot afterwards. For a single afternoon that is a lot of logistics, and the cost usually reflects it.
You also cap your audience at the number of people who can physically stand in front of one machine. Everyone else queues, gets bored, and wanders off to the cake stall.
An online claw machine your families play from anywhere
This is what we built Claw Catcher for.
An online claw machine is a real, physical claw machine, sitting in our facility, that people control over the internet through a live video feed. Nothing is delivered to you. You get a link.
For a school fair that changes the shape of the stall completely:
- Nothing arrives and nothing leaves. No lorry, no floor space, no power lead across the hall.
- Nobody staffs it. We run and maintain the machine. There is no stall to sit behind.
- Everyone plays at once. Each person gets their own session on their own phone, so there is no queue.
- Grandparents can play. Anyone you send the link to can join in, including the families who could not make it on the day.
Guests scan a QR code on a poster, or tap a link in the class WhatsApp group. They see a live camera feed of a real machine, they get three goes at lining up the claw, and they find out straight away whether they caught it.
What the winners get
You choose. When someone catches a ball, a code appears on their screen. Schools tend to use that for something redeemable on the day, a free refreshment or entry into a bigger draw, but it is your campaign and your wording.
What you get back
Every play captures an email address, and your dashboard shows plays, wins and who took part. For a PTA that is a mailing list for the next event, which is usually worth more than the takings on the day.
Is it actually a real machine?
Yes, and this is the part people do not believe until they try it. There is no simulation and no algorithm deciding the outcome. It is a physical claw on real hardware, with the same grip, the same near misses and the same frustration as the one at the seafront. We wrote about how that works in are online claw machines real?
Try it before you decide
The quickest way to understand whether this suits your fair is to play one yourself. Play a real machine for free, 5 plays a day, no payment details.
If it looks like a fit, you can set up a campaign for your fair: choose your dates, your colours, what winners receive, and see the price before you publish anything.
For a comparison of this against traditional hire, including costs and logistics, read thinking of renting a claw machine?