We went to our local Labor Day Fair tonight, and there were almost no games. It led me to think about running one of my own next year, but I have no experience with it.
It seems like the highest-traffic and most fun would be the mouse/color game, but instead of a mouse, with a whiffle ball. Have 30 colors, spin the table and have a player throw the ball. 25 cents a play, pick as many colors as you want, etc.
Now, it seems too easy. I could certainly construct a table cheaply and easily enough, and whiffle balls are cheap. Customer counters would be trickier, but again, some 2x4s and skirting would put me in business, and my costs would be the prizes, maybe some high school kids to help out, and the booth rental.
What’s the catch? Does anyone have any experience with this? It seems like it wouldn’t be too bad of a gig, hitting 4 or 5 local fairs around here, with low booth rentals and overhead.
Short answer - no, I have never run a carnival game.
That said, I used to go to every carnival as a kid - and few years ago, there was a great series about carny workers that showed life on the road and the games, etc.
There are tons of places to buy cheap prizes - everything from the plastic squirt gun to the large stuffed animals - so that wouldn’t be a problem.
As far as the actual game - take into consideration the skill factor. You probably don’t want to go the route of rigged games (like 99% of those “knock over the milk cans with a baseball!” that have weights on the bottom), so you need to find a game that will not be so easy as to allow some clown with skills to come and win every damned prize in 30 minutes. However, you also don’t want a game that 99% of the people lose, as that will certainly kill a lot of business.
I would think some variation of “beer pong” might be a good idea - have several planks with some cups arranged at the very end. There might be one cup smaller than the others for a “big” prize, but give them 10 ping pong balls and say, “Get three in for a prize!” (the cheapest toy, so even little kids have a shot) and then have it set up that the more balls you get in the cups, the next level of prizes you get. Chances of getting all 10 would be relatively small, depending on the set up you have.
They used to do this with balloon/darts, and the more balloons you got, the better the prize…but I would strongly avoid darts/shooting galleries!
Here is a Wiki link, and scroll down and they give you a whole list of various games.
Good luck, and report back if you decide to do it!