A great way to make your event stand out and engage your guests is to create a theme or the night and everyone loves a GAME NIGHT! Even those people who “hate games” get caught up in the playfulness once the festivities get started. The best part about hosting a Game Night Themed Fundraiser is that you can use your game stations as a way to earn more revenue at your event!
I recently worked with one of our largest school districts in our state and they hosted a game night and they went all out!
Their centerpieces were giant versions of Monopoly pieces (simple and inexpensive to make).
They brought in an awesome Bar Trivia company to run a fun game during the program.
AND they had awesome game themed stations where they raised extra revenue and kept their guests engaged!
Revenue-Generating Games for your “Game Night” Themed Gala
There are so many games you can play at a gala to generate revenue.
Some of the most popular games are Heads & Tails, the Wine Pull, Punch Board, or the Golden Ticket, but this particular client had some fun takes on classic gala games!
Plinko
If you can get your hands on a plinko board or build one yourself this game is a great option to raise some money and use some of the smaller donations you received for the silent auction. Maybe a $10 gas card or a discounted service to some company in your community. You could also have them win cash prizes. You’ll see in the picture below that they had the prizes listed at the bottom of the Plinko board. When one of the non cash prizes was won, they’d remove the sign and replace it with a different prize. This is a great option for those items that were generously donated, but wouldn’t raise much revenue in the silent auction. Think of items that aren’t worth much or maybe don’t have a broad appeal. It’s still fun to win something, but you’ll end up raising more money in the long run!
“Sorry” Wine Pull
The wine pull is a crowd favorite and always one of the first games to sell out at galas (especially when the price is right. To learn the basics of a Wine Pull, visit this post or go here if you want to learn how to get wine and alcohol donated to your event. Now, let me tell you what made this wine pull so special.
Guests paid to play and everyone won.
When they paid to play, they rolled the dice.
All the wine bottles were wrapped to look like the pieces from the game “Sorry”
Guests picked the corresponding color that went with their roll.
This was a hit! All of the bottles were hidden and you didn’t know what you got until you unwrapped them. I’ll be honest, I even played this game a handful of times (we all have to do our part, right?).
“CLUE” Photobooth
While this was not a “pay to play” game, it was a fun way to give guests memories from the event. They had a giant “clue board in the background, a huge selection of “CLUE” themed props and a professional photographer there to snap a photo of the guests pretending to be their favorite clue characters. Most people pretended to murder their loved ones with a candlestick during the photos, which left them all laughing.
