Planning a charity carol concert
A ticketed carol concert is one of the few fundraising events that sells itself. People want to sing carols in a church in December, and they will pay to do it well. The work sits in the arrangements: finding a church on a date your supporters can reach, building a running order that holds a room for an hour, and putting the appeal where it lands rather than where it interrupts. This guide follows the sequence a charity events team works through, from the first venue enquiry in spring to the collection buckets on the night.
Finding and booking the church
Work out your date before you fall in love with a building. Most charities land on a weekday evening in the second or third week of December, which is also when every school, parish and rival charity wants the same church. Decide early whether you are chasing a particular venue or a particular date, because in December you will rarely get both.
Capacity
Aim for a church you can fill to about four-fifths. A hundred and twenty people in a church seating a hundred and fifty feels like an event; the same hundred and twenty in a six-hundred-seat church feels like a poor turnout, and the singing thins out with them. If you are unsure how many will come, take the smaller church and sell out. A queue at the door does more for next year’s ticket sales than empty pews at the back.
Acoustics
A stone church with a high roof gives you a couple of seconds of reverberation, which flatters congregational singing and covers a good deal. A modern church with a low ceiling and carpet is drier: the choir sounds closer and more exposed, and the audience hears itself, which makes some people sing more quietly. Visit at the hour your concert will run, sit at the back, and have someone speak from the chancel step. If you cannot follow them, your readers will need the church’s microphones and you will need to know whether anyone can work them.
What venue hire usually includes
Hire fees vary widely and what they cover varies more, so ask in writing. The questions that matter: is heating included, and how many hours does the building need to warm up; will a verger or churchwarden be there to open, steward and lock up; is the organ playable, recently tuned, and does the church expect its own organist to play it; is there a working sound system and someone who knows it; how much access time do you get before doors for a rehearsal; can you serve mulled wine in the aisle or is there a hall next door; and does the church want a flat fee or a share of the takings. Some churches waive the fee for a registered charity and ask for a retiring collection towards the fabric fund instead, so it is worth asking before you budget for the full amount.
Booking the date early
December church dates go quickly. The parish’s own carol services, the local primary school’s, and the charity that has run its concert in that building for twelve years are all in the diary before the year turns. Treat mid-September as the point at which the good dates have gone, and enquire in spring if you can. Ring with a second and third choice already agreed internally, because the conversation moves fast and the person holding the diary will not wait while you check with your trustees.
Building the running order
A carol concert carries two kinds of music, and the balance between them shapes the whole evening.
Carols the whole room sings
Congregational carols exist to involve the audience: O Come All Ye Faithful, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, O Little Town of Bethlehem, Ding Dong Merrily on High, Silent Night. An audience that has sung three times in the first twenty minutes is warm, invested, and much readier to give when you ask. Print every verse you intend to sing and check the version you are printing. Six of these across the evening is about right.
Choir-only pieces
The performance items are what a ticket buys. Harold Darke’s In the Bleak Midwinter, the Coventry Carol, a Rutter arrangement, Once in Royal David’s City opened by a solo treble if your choir has one. These give the room something to sit still for, and they are what makes the evening a concert rather than a singalong. Five or six alongside the congregational carols fills an hour comfortably. Our guide to the best Christmas carols for a carol service goes through the repertoire in more detail.
Where the readings sit
Readings break up the music and give you somewhere to put your speakers. Four is usually enough for an hour; six starts to feel like a service. The pattern that works is choir item, reading, congregational carol, and round again, so nobody sits passive for more than a few minutes at a time. Keep each reading short. Two minutes read aloud is plenty, and a lectern in a cold church is a lonely place at three. If you want the traditional nine-reading shape, our guide to Nine Lessons and Carols sets out the full sequence.
Where the appeal lands
The appeal is the reason for the evening. One speaker, three minutes, roughly two-thirds of the way through, after the room has sung and settled and before the last carol lifts everyone to their feet. Follow it straight away with the biggest congregational carol on the sheet; a quiet choir item at that point lets the room go flat. If you are taking a retiring collection, say so before the final piece so people can find a card or a note while they sing, and have buckets at every door to catch the rest.
Keeping it to a manageable length
An hour, or a little over, with no interval. A professional choir’s standard booking covers the length of a church service, so an hour-long concert sits inside what you are already paying for. A two-hour concert with an interval costs more, needs somewhere to serve drinks halfway through, and loses the people who came from work. Put the mulled wine and the conversation after the last carol, where they also keep your audience in the building next to your fundraising volunteers.
Readers, patrons and VIP supporters
Charities use readers for two reasons: to vary the texture of the evening, and to put a recognisable face on the platform. A patron who is an actor or a broadcaster will sell tickets. A trustee or the chief executive can carry the reading that sits next to the appeal. The reader people remember, though, is usually the one who has used your service and reads something short in their own words.
Brief them properly and they will do it well. A week ahead, send the exact text in large type on unstapled paper, the running order with their slot marked, the address of the church, the time to arrive, what other people will be wearing, and whether there is a microphone. On the night, walk each reader to the lectern before the doors open and let them hear their own voice in the building. Tell them where to look, and tell them that the pause before they start is not a mistake.
One practical caution. A well-known supporter will accept in October and then find a filming date has moved. Keep a trustee briefed on every text as a stand-in, and print “Reading” rather than the name on the service sheet, with an inserted slip on the day if you want the credit. Nobody notices the slip. Everybody notices a printed name attached to an empty lectern.
The music: choir, organ, or a cappella
A professional choir does two jobs in the same booking. Four to eight trained singers standing near the front will lead a room of strangers through a carol they half-remember, hold the harmony in the verses where the audience drops out, and stop the tempo sagging by verse four. Between the congregational carols, the same singers give you the listening items. If you are hiring, hire once and use them for both.
For congregational singing you want an organ and someone who plays for services rather than for recitals, because leading a hymn is a different skill from playing one. An organist added to the choir booking starts from £225. Ask your church whether its own organist expects to play for events in the building before you bring in your own; some do, and it is a courtesy either way.
If the church has no playable organ, or your concert is somewhere without one, a professional choir can carry the evening a cappella, congregational carols included. The audience sings a little more tentatively without an instrument underneath them, and the choir works harder to hold the pitch, but it works well and we do it regularly. A piano is the other option where a church has one and the organ is out of action.
Service sheets, song sheets and licensing
Print something for every seat. It tells people what is happening and it carries the words of every carol, so nobody is hunting for a hymn book in a dim church. A full order of service looks handsome and costs more; a single song sheet with the carol words on one side and your appeal on the other does the same job for a fraction of the price, and gives you somewhere to put a donation QR code. Number the verses, and mark clearly which ones the choir sings alone.
Copyright is worth a phone call rather than an assumption. The traditional carol texts and tunes are long out of copyright, but modern arrangements and twentieth-century carols may not be, and printing words in a sheet is a separate question from performing them. Most churches hold a copyright licence of some kind, and a ticketed concert is not always covered on the same terms as a Sunday service. Ask your venue what its licence covers before the sheets go to the printer. Any professional choir will bring properly purchased copies of its own music.
Ticketing and the night itself
Price the ticket to fill the church, not to cover the costs. Most charities make the money on the retiring collection, the raffle and the corporate supporter who takes thirty seats, and a ticket priced to be an easy yes gets more people through the door to be asked. Sell online, keep a small allocation on the door for people who decide at four o’clock that they would like to come, and count the audience with someone on a clicker so your report to the board carries a number.
Give the musicians the building to themselves before doors. A choir and organist need an hour or so uninterrupted to rehearse, set the balance, and work out where the sound goes, which means the mulled wine table is set up either before they arrive or in a room next door. Write that access time into the venue booking; a church running a Christingle rehearsal until six will not hand you the hour you had assumed. Readers practise at the lectern in the same window, one at a time.
Doors half an hour before the start, with the drinks going out as people arrive and stewards steering them towards the front before the back rows fill. An audience sitting together sings better and hears better. Put Gift Aid envelopes and a pen on every seat, take card as well as cash at the collection points, and tell the bucket-holders to stand still and smile; nobody gives more for being worked on the way out. Most people have decided what they will give while they were still singing.
Budgeting the concert
The music is usually the largest single line and the easiest to size accurately, because it comes as a fixed quote rather than a per-head cost. At The London Choral Service, a soloist or an organist starts from £250, a small choir of four singers from £1,150, a sextet from £1,600, a full choir of eight from £2,000, and a twelve-voice chorus from £3,000. Prices include all fees, taxes and travel within Greater London, and we do not charge more at Christmas than at any other time of year. The full ladder is on our pricing page.
Around that sit venue hire and heating, printing, wine and mince pies, and whatever your ticketing platform takes. Set the fundraising target against the total rather than against the choir fee. Then decide, before you sell a ticket, whether this concert exists to raise money or to raise profile, because the two answers lead to different decisions about how large a church you take and how hard you push the appeal.
How we work with charities
We sing at charity carol concerts across London and the rest of the UK every December, leading the congregational carols, giving you the performance items, and bringing an organist where the church has an instrument worth using. We handle the sheet music, the rehearsal and the liaison with your verger, and we quote a single all-inclusive fee so your budget line does not move. Our Christmas carol services page covers the season as a whole, and our information for charities goes through booking, invoicing and working alongside an events team.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a charity carol concert be?
Around an hour, or a little over, with no interval. That is roughly the length of a church service, and it holds eight or nine carols, four short readings and a fundraising appeal without testing anyone who came straight from work. Put the drinks and the socialising after the last carol.
Do you need a professional choir for a charity carol concert?
No. A school choir, a local amateur choir or a well-led congregation singing familiar carols will fill a church perfectly well. Hire professionals when you are selling tickets at a price that implies a standard, when the choir-only items are the draw, or when there is nobody to lead the congregational singing.
How much does the music cost for a charity carol concert?
At The London Choral Service a small choir of four singers starts from £1,150 and a full choir of eight from £2,000. An organist to accompany the congregational carols starts from £225 on top of the choir. Prices include all fees, taxes and travel within Greater London, and we do not charge more at Christmas.
When should a charity book its December church venue and choir?
Enquire in spring, and treat mid-September as the point at which the good December dates have gone. Churches keep December evenings for their own carol services and for the schools that book them every year, and professional choirs fill the second and third weeks of the month first. Have a second and third choice of date ready.
Tell us about your carol concert
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