Introduction

Toy swaps are a great way to declutter, save money, and reduce waste while building community. 

This guide walks you through everything you need: from planning and promotion to on-the-day logistics. 

Step 1: Get clear on your vision

• Goal: What do you want to achieve from your event? Is it fundraising, about sustainability, supporting families who are struggling with the cost of living, building community…or a bit of all those things?

• Audience – who is your toy swap for?
  • Do you want to focus on a specific age group? E.g. babies and pre-schoolers, or primary school age children?
  • Is it for anyone, or just your friends or playgroup for example?
  • Is there a geographical location or specific community you are aiming to engage?

• Format: Will it be a one-off event, or recurring (e.g., quarterly swaps)?

• Vibe: what sort of atmosphere do you want your event to have?

• Extras: Can you do anything else that will attract people to come along? For example:
  • Run a raffle or prize draw (make sure you have sustainable prizes!)
  • Include a meal or cakes
  • Free drink 
  • Furoshiki (fabric wrapping) workshop
  • Repair station – invite your local repair cafe to join you
  • Crafting -you could team up with a local scrapstore to run some crafting e.g. christmas card making, wreaths or decorations.

Step 2: Pick a venue 

This could be a school hall, community center, church hall, library, local café,  a brewery or pub…

Things to consider: 

• How much space will you need? If you’re expecting 20+ people and some sizeable toys (think toy kitchens and toy bikes) you’ll need a decent amount of space to display everything and give people space to circulate.

• Hire costs – some venues will let you use their space for free if you’re bringing people who’ll buy drinks etc. Others will charge for hire.

• Costs for guests – if you’re hosting it at a cafe or bar check the costs of drinks and decide if that’s going to be ok for your audience.

• Atmosphere – will the space create the vibe you’re after? The school hall gives off a different feel to a brewery!

• Will the venue appeal to your audience? Is it the kind of place that people will be drawn to? (relating to the two points above).

• Accessibility – is the venue easy to get to with public transport, by foot/bike and/or does it have parking. Is it accessible to wheelchair users?

• Facilities – does the venue have tables, chairs, space for displays, toilets etc?

Tip – venues with a sustainability mindset and aligned values are often open to letting you use their space for free. We were given free venue hire by a Brewery and a local cafe for toy swaps because they wanted to support a local initiative.

Step 3: Choose a date and time

• Are you tying in with a particular time of year? E.g. Christmas, end of term or back to school?

• Will it be in the evening or daytime? If you want to make this a fun evening out for parents then an evening event is great. If you do it in the daytime then you’ll need to be ready for kids to come too!

Tip: We have found Thursday evenings work well. People aren’t tied up with weekend plans, but it’s nearly the end of the week and people are ready for an evening out. 

Step 4: Decide on your rules

• What to bring: clean toys, games, puzzles, books in good condition.

• What not to bring: broken, unsafe, or recalled toys. At our swaps we also request no stuffed toys (or you’ll be buried in them!).

• Swap system options:
  1. Token System: Use tokens to “buy” other toys. This can either be:
     • Get a token for every toy donated, and use one token for every toy taken
     • Small, medium, large tokens – people get more tokens for donating higher value items, so they can take away things of an equivalent value.
  2. Bring one, take what you need: Simple rule of thumb.
  3. Free for all: No tracking, just sharing.

We have always done the small, medium, large token system as this seems fairest – but it does carry a logistical overhead! 

On the night we always end up with too much stuff, so we might consider moving to a free for all model and see how that goes. 

Step 5: Sign up and costs

How will people sign up to your event, and will you ask them to pay? 

If you’re just doing something small for a group of friends or at a local playgroup – you don’t need to do this. A thumbs up on WhatsApp might be enough!

Ticketing platform

Definitely get people to register so you know who is coming and can communicate with them before and after your event. 

There are plenty of ticketing platforms you can use that allow you to promote events for free (if you’re not charging for tickets) or take a small commission if you are charging. 

Check out eventbrite, humantix and TryBooking as options. 

Make sure the platform you choose let’s you customise the sign up page and email attendees easily. 

Should you charge for tickets?

The first two years we ran a Toy Swap the tickets were free, but we found that about 30% of people didn’t come on the night.

Last year we decided to charge £5.50 to avoid so many no-shows, which worked well. We had less sign-ups but also less no-shows, which was better. It also deterred people from coming just to offload their clutter (without swapping). The fee covered the cost of their first drink – and leftover money was given to charity. 

Step 6: Promotion 

Key messages:

What will attract your audience to want to attend your event? 

Think about what they value…for example do they care about sustainability or is a cost saving message going to be more effective? 

List out the key points you want to get across in your promotional material. 

Create your sign-up page

• Avoid long text heavy paragraphs
• Use bullet points to share the benefits of attending 
• Think about what your audience values, and use that to entice them. E.g. saving money might be more important to some people than saving waste. 
• Share FAQs to tackle any questions up front
• Keep it to the point!

Download the template pack for suggested wording.

Promotional materials

Create images you can share on social media and flyers you can distribute. Be sure to make these enticing and include key info.

For anything printed include the web address and a QR code to sign up easily!

Promotional channels

Write a list of places you can reach your target audience. Here’s some inspiration:

• Local Facebook groups 
• Local parents WhatsApp groups
• Via local press
• School and nursery newsletters and notice boards
• Flyers at libraries, nurseries, playgroups
• Other local organisations with a shared audience e.g. play centres, craft cafes etc
• Local eco/sustainability groups

Social media tips

• Make sure your posts are set to public 
• Use eye catching images
• Make it as easy as possible to find the sign up page – add the link in your bio on Instagram and on the post on Facebook
• Add collaborators (e.g. the venue or other supporting organisations) to increase your reach
• Add the location to your posts
• Email / share the post with people and organisations who have reach with your audience and ask them to comment and share to help boost it’s reach. 

Step 7: Logistics & Supplies

Toy drop off

Will you collect toys in advance, or let people just bring them on the night? 

I have always encouraged people to drop off toys in advance so that I can set up the venue before everyone arrives and it feels less chaotic.

But, this may not be possible depending on whether you can store the stuff, transport it to the venue and juggle the handover of tokens! 

If you want people to bring on the night – consider having a window of time to drop off before anyone can ‘take’ – and have helpers to organise things during the event. 

Helpers

Make sure you have a few people lined up to help you! You’ll need:

• Someone to help set up (and pack away)
• Someone to welcome people and tell them how it’s going to work
• Someone to manage tokens (if you’re doing that)

Venue setup

• Tables for display (labeled by age group or toy type or token value).
• Registration desk (for check-in, handing in/out tokens if you’re using them).
• Screen – do they have a screen you can share messages on? E.g. promote other events, other sustainable christmas ideas, encourage them to sign The Kids Party Pact etc.

Leftover plan

What will you do with leftover toys? Have a plan because you will end up with a load of stuff! Make sure you’re able to transport them somewhere to donate e.g. charity, shelter, local play center etc.

Step 8: On the Day

Things to take with you:

• Any signs you’ll need (e.g. if you’re grouping toys in any way)
• A print out of your guest list so you know who is there
• Scissors, tape, marker pens, bluetak (you never know what you’ll need)
• Computer & cables to connect to screen (if needed)
• Phone/camera to take photos

Things to do:

• Set up early – tables, signage, welcome desk. Get organised with plenty of time so you can welcome your guests!

• Volunteers brief – roles for sorting, greeting, and managing swaps.

• Registration – welcome attendees, check them off your list, collect toys, hand out tokens (if using).

• Opening announcement – explain rules clearly and let people know you’ll be taking photos (ask them to tell you if they’d rather not be included)

• Swap time! – let people browse and choose.

• Take photos – share them on your socials (and don’t forget to tag @no.crap.parties!)

• Closing – thank participants, announce what will happen to leftovers.

Step 9: Follow-Up

• Thank attendees with an email and social media post ( remember to tag @no.crap.parties!)

• Share photos & impact stats (e.g., “We gave 300+ toys a new life and saved each other over £1,000 on Christmas gift shopping!”).

• Send a press release to your local newspaper.

• Invite people to the next swap or share other ways to engage with you.