Guide to Raising Money for the Groom (& Bride) at Your Stag Party

Here in Buffalo, we do bachelor parties, but we also do Stag Parties. If you’ve ever been to a stag, you know the drill, but we’re going to introduce the why behind the stag party and offer up some unique fundraising ideas to help you raise some money for the groom. The groom and his lovely bride are certainly going to need some help paying for the wedding, as things haven’t gotten any cheaper! No matter where you’re from, this stag party ritual works, and even if you only make $500, that’s $500 more than the groom had before, and the best part is, it’s FUN!

Here’s your guide to raising money with a Stag Party! Here are 8 ways you can make money on your stag party. For a full guide, check out our blog from a few years back! 

Ticket Sales

The first way you’re going to make money on your stag party is through ticket sales. Each groomsman should be tasked with inviting a handful of guys to the party. If you’re having a “Stag & Doe” party, you will also have women, which can mean more tickets and more participation, but if you’re just keeping it to the men, invite as many people as you can. Not everyone will show on the day of, but just purchasing the ticket helps get you going. Wherever you plan to hold the event is going to cost a bit to use, and food/drink costs are usually on a per/head basis. 

So, let’s say you sell 100 tickets at $25 a piece.

Each person will “cost” about $15-$20 a piece to get them fed and drunk, but you’re already up to $2500 in, with between we’ll say $1,500-$2,000 in expenses for the venue. This leaves between $500-$1,000 in profit, as an example. 

Door Prize

Part of the ticket sale is the incentives. Getting people to show up is going to require giving them a reason to, beyond, of course to support your boy. The food and drinks being included are a start, and you should consider 1 somewhat big door prize that anyone who buys a ticket has a chance to win. Think about things like a TV, a signed jersey, a grill, something over $150 or so. This helps to create some buzz and ensures people know there will be some good prizes. 

Raffle/Auction

You can decide how to do your raffle, but it’s essentially offering to sell tickets for a chance to win a prize. You’ll want the groomsmen to each bring at least one prize to the table, but you don’t need to make the prizes as big as the door prize. Think about quality and quantity, you want some smalls, some mediums, and a handful of “I WANT THAT’s”

You can do a silent auction, where people write down their bid on a piece of paper. You can do a “Chinese auction,” where you have baggies next to the prizes and people put as many tickets as they want, to give themselves a better chance, or you can just do a standard raffle with each person bidding 1 ticket to get an equal chance at a prize. 

You can make some good money on selling raffle tickets, but only if you have good prizes to bid on!

Let's say you sell ticket sheets for $10 a piece, and sell 100 guys 90 sheets. That's $900 right there.

50/50

You probably know this one. It’s pretty basic, but you should assign one of your better salesmen to do the 50/50. They will need to continuously sell it and resell it to the attendees at the party. The more money in the pot, the more money to the winner and the groom. Truth be told, this one is a classic because at these particular events, most of the time, the winner will donate some, if not all, back to the groom. 

Let's say there are just 25 guys at the party and you sell 30 50/50 "chances" at $10 a piece. That's $300 right there, and at least $150 back to the groom. 

Joker’s Wild Board.

This one is one of the easiest to get done and easiest to win. You take 52 cards, along with a Joker, and tape them all face down to a board. For whatever cost you determine, $1, $5, $10, you can create a chance for the winner to take home the whole thing. This is another offering that sometimes results in the winner either putting their winnings back in the pot into some other game, or donating it to the groom. 

If you sell the chances for $1, that's a $52 pot.

If you sell the chances at $5, that's a $260 pot.

If you sell the chances at $10, that's a $520 pot.

Black Jack

This one can be fruitful, but only if you have a dealer who knows what they’re doing. Casinos wouldn’t run blackjack tables if it wasn’t going to benefit the house, so why not consider bringing a little bit of fun to the party? Be careful of your local gambling laws, though, might not be something you want to do if you think you can get in trouble. You may need to find a workaround and use “monopoly” money as an example. 

You may not always make money with this one, but it has upside potential.

Tournaments

Another fun idea that can make things competitive and add some flavor to the party is a little winner-take-all, or 50/50 winner tournament. This could be anything that the groom likes, or that the group likes. You could do darts, cornhole, beer pong, heck, even a video game tournament. Bring some nostalgia to the party! Thinking about the old days of Madden tournaments, or FIFA, or NHL. Smash Bros? Whoever wants to compete can pay to get in the tourney, and you can either do a winner-take-all or offer some % back to the groom out of respect. 

This type of event can certainly increase the attendees' list and offer more people to participate, regardless of whether you do 50/50 or winner-take-all.

Get Creative!

Lastly, there are no rules when it comes to this. You can get creative and come up with your own game! Weather permitting, you can look at things like sports games like a closest to the pin contest. $3 a shot, or 3 shots for $5. You could set up some football targets if the groom’s into football and do the same type of deal. Frisbee golfer? Do a closest to the frolf pin!

These are some of the most tried and true methods for making money on your stag party. We recommend ensuring you have some proper gifts to give away, and if you didn’t realize, you can find some right here on the site! Happy staggin’ bros!