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Fundraising made fun

School & Club Race Nights

A proper social night for parents, players and supporters that raises serious money for your school, PTA or sports club. No experience needed, no upfront cost, nothing for your committee to run on the night. I bring the lot and host it start to finish.

Book your night, 07593 659323 Check a date
30 years hosting race nights £100,000s raised for good causes No licence needed Fully insured & PAT tested Five star rated on Google
£1,000–£3,500
Typically raised in a night
£450
All in, one simple fee
£0
Upfront to book
Where the money comes from

Several ways to raise, all night long

A quiz or a raffle leans on one big push. A race night raises money in stages across the whole evening, so the atmosphere and the total keep climbing together. Schools, PTAs and sports clubs tend to do especially well, because your community is already right behind you and everyone knows everyone.

1
Before the night

Sponsors & pre-sell

Local businesses sponsor a race for £50, which is cheap advertising for them and pure profit for you. Then every horse gets an owner at £10 on the pre-sell sheets I give you, which is where most of the pre-sell money comes from. Parents and members love naming them, and it is all in before anyone walks through the door. Some groups also sell a trainer and a jockey on each horse at £5 apiece, though that is the exception rather than the rule.

Warms up the pot
2
Across the six races

The tote

This is the engine room. Bets are £1 a go, so nobody feels priced out and children can join in with a grown-up placing it. Half the pot goes back out to the winners and half stays with your funds, race after race. At one recent club night, forty-five guests placed fourteen hundred bets between them.

The engine room
3
The big finish

Auction race & raffle

For the seventh and final race the horses go under the hammer, and the bidding is always where the room gets loudest. Draw your raffle alongside it and you finish on a high with the total still climbing right to the line.

The grand finale
A real night

One night, forty-five people

Rather than a made-up example, here are the actual figures from a golf club fundraiser I ran in March 2026, taken straight off my tote system. Forty-five guests in the room. Nothing rounded, nothing flattered.

Ticket sales, forty-five at £20£900
The tote across the racing, after payouts£932
Auctioning the horses£303
Owners, sixty-four sold at £5£320
Race sponsors, three at £20£60
Raffle, not run£0
Trainers and jockeys, not sold£0
Gross raised£2,515
Less my all-in fee−£450
Straight to club funds£2,065

Two things worth noticing. Bets are £1 a go, and those forty-five people placed fourteen hundred of them across the evening, which is why the tote is the biggest line on the sheet. Then look at the zeros, and at the prices. Sponsors went at £20 rather than the £50 I suggest, owners at £5 rather than £10, and there was no raffle and no trainers or jockeys on the sheet. Even so, a room of forty-five cleared over two thousand pounds, and a school hall will usually hold a good deal more than that. Price it the way I recommend and fill the sheets, and the same evening is worth several hundred more.

Sussex Race Nights hosts and guests enjoying a fundraising race night
The atmosphereA proper night out for your whole community
Filling the room

Getting the whole school behind it

A race night lives or dies on how invested the room is before the first horse leaves the stalls. These three tricks cost nothing and they are the difference between a nice evening and a night people still talk about at the school gate.

1
Sell it right

Tables, not tickets

Ask each class rep, year group or team to fill a table of eight or ten. Tables fill far faster than individual seats, a table of friends bets more, and there is nothing like a bit of rivalry between Year 4 and Year 5 to get the shouting going.

Fills the hall
2
Get the children involved

Let them name the horses

Run a naming competition in class the week before, fifty pence an entry. The winning names go on the race cards, and suddenly every parent in the room desperately wants their child’s horse to come home first.

Free extra income
3
Pick a fight

Teachers against parents

Put the staff room up against the PTA, or the first team against the veterans, in one race of the night. It costs nothing, the whole room picks a side, and it is reliably the loudest race on the card.

Always the loudest
Everything handled

What you get for one simple fee

  • Professional host for the whole evening
  • Six pre-recorded races plus a live auction race
  • Fully compliant tote and betting system
  • All paperwork and legal compliance covered
  • Professional PA and big-screen projection, my own kit
  • Pre-sell and sponsorship sheets ready to go out
  • A planning call and honest advice on your total
  • Fully insured and PAT tested equipment
  • Setup, running and pack-down, all done for you
  • One person from first call to last box in the van
Guests placing tote bets at a Sussex Race Nights fundraising event with the race board on screen
Nobody is left guessing

What you do, and what I do

The commonest worry I hear from PTAs and club committees is that a race night sounds like a lot of work for volunteers who are already doing too much. It really is not. Here is the honest division of labour.

Your side

Six easy jobs

  • Pick a date and book the hall or clubhouse
  • Sell tables to parents, players and members
  • Ask a few local businesses to sponsor a race, I will show you how
  • Send round the pre-sell sheets I give you
  • Rustle up a couple of raffle prizes
  • Turn up and actually enjoy your own event
My side

Everything else

  • Arrive early and set the whole thing up
  • Brief your helpers so nobody is winging it
  • Host and compère the full evening
  • Run the tote and pay out the winners
  • Handle the compliance and the paperwork
  • Pack down and leave the hall as I found it
Getting ready

Six weeks to the off

You do not need six weeks, but it is a comfortable run-up and it is where the bigger totals come from. This is the plan I talk most PTAs and club committees through.

Six to eight weeks out

Lock the date

Book the hall and give me a call to check I am free. Term-time Fridays and Saturdays go early, and there is nothing to pay to hold a date.

Five weeks out

Get the sponsors in

Six races, six local businesses. The shops and trades on your high street are usually delighted to back the local school or club, and a quick ask in person lands far better than an email.

Four weeks out

Tables on sale

Out through the book bags, the team WhatsApp groups and the club noticeboard. Sell by the table and let class reps or team captains do the chasing for you.

Two weeks out

Pre-sell the horses, run the naming competition

The sheets go home with the children or round the clubhouse. Owners at £10 a horse is the one that matters, and forty-eight of them soon mounts up. Let people name their own horse, it always causes a laugh and it gets them invested long before they arrive.

The week of

Last bits

Raffle prizes in, bar and refreshments sorted, running order agreed. I will ring you to walk through exactly how the evening will go.

On the night

Let go of it

I arrive early, set up and take it from there. Your job is to enjoy the night your community turned up for.

Something a bit different

Blow up sheep racing

Not every fundraiser wants a big screen and a darkened room. Blow up sheep racing is our hands-on bit of daft fun, and a brilliant fit for school fetes, summer fairs and family fun days. The giant inflatable sheep are a proper crowd-pleaser for all ages, and it sets up indoors or out, so a spot of British weather need not stop play. Run it on its own as a fete attraction, or add it alongside an evening race night.

Blow up sheep racing set up at a school fete
Guests enjoying blow up sheep racing
Inflatable sheep racing, played indoors or outdoors
A night in pictures

See it in full swing

Two Sussex Race Nights hosts in jockey silks holding toy horses at a fundraising race night
Guests enjoying a Sussex Race Nights fundraising race night
A lively room at a Sussex Race Nights charity race night
Guests watching the racing on the big screen at a fundraising night
A packed crowd getting stuck into a Sussex Race Nights event
Sussex Race Nights host with the company logo
Good to know

School & club race night questions

Is a school or club race night legal?
Yes. The races are pre-recorded films, so there is no betting on live sporting events. Run as fundraising for a good cause, using the compliant tote system I bring, it sits comfortably within the rules for non-commercial gaming at a charity event. You do not need a licence, and I handle the paperwork. There is more detail on the is a race night legal page if your governors or committee want the full picture.
Can children come along?
Yes, and they usually love it. The betting itself is for over eighteens, so the grown-ups place the bets while the children pick the horses and do most of the shouting. Plenty of my school nights run as family events, and the naming competition gets the children involved weeks before the night itself.
How much can we realistically raise?
Most schools and clubs raise between £1,000 and £3,500 in a single evening. Four things move the number: how many people you get through the door, how many race sponsors you line up, how much you pre-sell beforehand, and how up for it your crowd is. School and club communities regularly reach the upper end because everyone already knows everyone. I will give you a realistic figure for your event rather than a flattering one.
Do we need a licence for the bar?
Nothing is needed for the racing itself. If you are serving alcohol in a school hall or a venue without its own licence, you will usually need a Temporary Event Notice from your local council. They are inexpensive and straightforward, but you need to apply at least ten working days ahead, so it is worth putting on the list early.
How many people do we need for it to be worth doing?
It works from around forty people upwards, and it really sings between eighty and a hundred and fifty. Below forty the tote pot gets thin, so I would usually suggest a fun money format instead and we keep the focus on the entertainment. Tell me your likely numbers and I will say honestly whether it stacks up.
What do we need to provide?
A room, whether that is the school hall or your clubhouse, plus tables, chairs and a keen crowd. That is genuinely it. I bring the PA, the screen, the races and all the kit. A bar and a few donated raffle prizes help the total, but neither is essential.
How long does the evening last?
The racing runs around two hours, with the auction race and prize giving at the end. Most nights sit comfortably inside a typical hall booking, and I am flexible around your bar times, your refreshments and anything else you have planned.
How far in advance should we book?
Six to eight weeks gives you a comfortable run-up and the best shot at a big total. Term-time Fridays and Saturdays go first, as do the weeks before Christmas, so if you have a date in mind it is worth a quick call now. It costs nothing to check availability and nothing to hold a date.
How far do you travel?
Based in West Sussex, I cover Sussex and the wider South East as standard, and I travel UK wide for larger events. If you are a little further out, just ask. I am usually happy to make the trip for the right night.
“
It took all the pressure off running the night, so we could focus on maximising the fundraising.
Tom · Upper Beeding Football Club Read more from organisers

Ready to raise money and have a laugh doing it?

Tell me your date, your school or club and rough numbers, and I will take care of the rest. No deposit to check availability.

Call 07593 659323 Check a date