Your Guide for a Successful School or Church Carnival

Pulling off a successful carnival can be a big job, but you can make the event manageable by tackling the planning one step at a time. The reward for all your hard work is when you see kids, parents, and teachers having a blast.

For an unforgettable and successful carnival, we created this step-by-step carnival planning guide.

Your Checklist to Success

1. Teamwork makes the dream work

Having a strong team also helps with problem-solving. Each person brings a unique perspective to the event that can appeal to more guests or help find creative solutions.

Many hands make light work, and working with people with a variety of skills can make planning an event less stressful.

Create a team of committees who will be in charge of budgeting, marketing, spotting a location for the event, food and decorations, activities, and prizes.

And assemble them whereby those responsible are comfortable to ask for help if needed but have room to get the job done in their own time.

2. Create SMART Goal Setting

Clearly defined goals and objectives help keep you on target throughout the event planning process.

You may have heard about S.M.A.R.T goals. These S.M.A.R.T goals stand for:

S-pecific

M-easurable

A-ttainable

R-ealistic

T-imebound

Remember that our event goals are our reasons for hosting an event. We have to make it S.M.A.R.T.

3. Nail down your budget

With a laundry list of expenses, it can be tempting to skip the planning and jump right to the next step. Though this may sound like the easy route, without setting a budget, you’re setting your school event to blow it.

An event budget should include things like marketing materials, decorations, food, entertainment, equipment rental, supplies, and health and safety measures (cleaning, barriers, additional COVID-19 procedures required by health officials) 

Whatever the size of your budget, look into ways to cut event costs. Common cost-saving strategies include: borrowing homemade carnival games from another school or asking parents to make and donate them.

Some parent groups defray costs with business sponsorships or donations. 

4. Create a captivating theme Idea

In Selecting a theme, you can base it on the season, like a traditional fall carnival, or make it creative, like an end-of-school circus.  

Before you pick an event theme at random, you should think about the reason for having a theme in the first place. Will it appeal to a certain audience?

Once you’ve decided on the theme for your event, it’s time to look at how you can incorporate it. The more elements you can include your theme in, the stronger and more memorable it will be.

Quirky invitations, decorations, and food are also more likely to get shared on social media.

5. Deciding on the best location

Choosing the perfect location for your school event is no easy task. You will be confronted in choosing between having it indoor or outdoor. If the event is held outdoors, work out a contingency plan in case of bad weather.

If you held it indoors, considering our current situation today you must make use of the space creatively to avoid overcrowding. You can stage each game in the hallway to prevent crowding.

6. Apply for Permits and Insurance

Check with local government offices to find out whether any permits will be required for your carnival. Many cities require permits for rides or inflatables, outdoor use of electricity, and food preparation and sales.

Liability insurance is often a requirement for obtaining a permit. Permit applications may be due 90 days or more before an event, so it’s important to find out your community’s rules early in the planning process.

7. Exceed your Marketing Goals

You’ll likely have an overall budget that includes food, decorations, entertainment, and more. A lot of the time your marketing budget will be whatever is left over once all your other expenses are accounted for. Once you have a dollar figure to assign to marketing, you can work out which channels work within your budget.

You can use your school website to advertise the upcoming festival, use email marketing, or social media like Facebook which is the easiest and great way to promote your event.

For example, in using Facebook, you can create and promote an event from your school’s page or using your Facebook Business Manager account.

If you’re looking to advertise your event outside of your school community, consider boosting your Facebook posts. You can boost posts from as little as $10, and target people based on demographics, location, and interests.

8. Let the good times roll with your Carnival’s Activities

Getting the students and the community if allowed to participate in a school or church carnival create a big difference in everyone’s life. Students gain valuable leadership skills and confidence.

Students are also taught the importance of community, creativity, caring about others, and improving the common environment. It also allows parents to get involved and play a more active role in their children’s lives.  

It’s also a great way to show children the value of doing things for others, creating or strengthening ties with the local community.

Here are some School Festival Ideas that you can rent for your school or church carnival:

• Photo Booth – There are fun photo booths and accessories for events and parties in Texas Sumo that you can choose from. Experience their world’s most interactive photo booth.

• Ring Toss – Ring the Unicorn-Ring Toss Game Rental is a whimsical carnival game rental. Getting the ring onto the unicorn’s horn is not an easy task.

• Bounce House – Inflatable Hump Houses from Texas Sumo with wide variety of bounce house rentals like: Tiger, cowboys, princess, puppy dogs, football, a carousel, obstacle courses and trains.

• Pirates Revenge Boat Ride – The Pirate’s Revenge is a swinging boat amusement or fair ride for both kids and adults! Great for company picnics, school events, church events and festivals. 

• Tubs of Fun – Similar to Classic Teacup Amusement Ride Tubs of Fun Twirls and Whirls Around One of the most popular rides at school carnivals or festivals. You can spin fast, slow or not at all, and still have a blast, while the whole ride rotates. 

• Mind Winder–Amusement Park Ride Rental, a spin ride, lights for night, Up to 16 riders for adults or kids. A Blue & silver carnival ride

• Amusement Park Rides– The Ballistic is a chair swing-style ride that holds up to 2 passengers in a seat, once strapped in the Ballistic starts slow. Then speeds up to a grinning, breezy 17 revolutions per minute.

Activities for Fund Raising

If your school or church is aiming to raise a fund from this school or church carnival, there are also some suggested games where the school or the church can get additional funds to help improve their facilities and programs.

Here are some of those:

• Popcorn Fundraiser– Unlike candy bars, popcorn is still a relatively healthy snack (unless loaded with too much sugar, salt, or butter). To make things even easier, there are many companies with whom you can work to organize a popcorn fundraiser for your school – they provide the gourmet popcorn, you sell it, and then you split the profit.

• Treasure Hunt– Treasure hunts are fun for students of all ages, but they are especially exciting for younger students. Students can pay to participate on their own or in teams. Think of a theme, potentially one related to the curriculum, and organize the treasure hunt. Make sure you have an award for the winning team. Bonus points for explorer outfits!

• Raffle– Sell tickets for the chance to win a donated prize (perhaps a hamper) or a local service, etc. This is one of the easiest fundraising ideas.

• The Big Clean Up– Who wouldn’t want to do something that’s both good for the environment and raises money? When organizing a community cleanup project, pledges are tied to a specific attainment goal such as the number of pounds of trash collected or the number of road miles cleaned of debris. Parents, alumni, and members of the local community pledge to support the students or member of the church cleaning up.

• Color Run– Color Runs make running more fun for schools or the church. Have them wear white tee shirts. At specific checkpoints, volunteers will spray them with water-based paint or throw water balloons containing paint at them. Raise money by charging a participation fee or by getting sponsors to pledge money for each lap completed.

• Egg Hunt -Children of all ages hunt for goodie-filled eggs. All you need is a large space with a few hiding spots, volunteers to set it up, eggs and treats (the numbers depend on the size of your event). Invite your congregation and the wider community, charge a fee per participant, and set them off!

9. Celebrate every flavor with food

The food is often the highlight of any event so taking the time to plan and prepare great food can help create a memorable food experience for guests.

Creative festival food planning ideas add a unique element or presentation that delights audiences.

You can use ideas such as finger foods, skewers, and appetizer bites with unexpected meats, try pop-up food trucks hosted by local restaurants to infuse a sense of community, and offer a unique experience to visitors and townies alike. 

You can also create menu options with eye-popping palettes and Instagram appeal such as red burger buns or neon blue donut ice cream sandwiches dipped in rainbow cereal pieces.

 10. Prizes Kids Will Love

The most thrilling part of having a school carnival is the prizes. Giving prizes to every finished task or every game won helps kids increase self-esteem and encouragement not only for that day that they are in the carnival but in their everyday lives.

School carnivals are not only for fun but also for developing a child’s behavior towards the things that you want her to do at home or school.

Kids like prizes. And it doesn’t seem to matter if the prizes are big or small and inexpensive. For us to save more on our budget and make use of it for other purposes we can always create our Do-It-Yourself prizes.

Here are some other methods for handling prizes at carnivals:

•  Instead of giving small prizes at each game, give students a “passport” that is stamped at each station. Students bring the filled passport to the treasure box, where they can choose a single, higher-value prize.
• Volunteers running each game give students a ticket after they play. Students collect tickets throughout the event, then redeem them at a prize table. (If your parent group sells tickets that are used to play games, use two different colors of tickets, one for playing games and one for earning prizes.)
• Fill goodie bags with assorted carnival prizes and hand a bag to each student as they leave the event.
• Instead of buying prizes and consolation prizes for each game, make up one small prize packet for every child, and put them all into a big basket. As each game is played, award points to the winner and runner up, and write them on a big chart or whiteboard. If you like you can make up extra reasons to award points, such as nice behaviour or lucky seats.
• Instead of prizes for each game, make some certificates on the computer and print them out on to coloured card. You could change the wording of each certificate to match the game and the theme of your party.
• Medals can be made out of coloured card also, but for a real medal look, use silver spray paint to decorate jam jar lids. Punch a hole in the lid using a hammer and nail, and then thread through a coloured ribbon so that the medal can be hung around the child’s neck.
• If you want to buy prizes for every game, the most cost-effective way is to buy bulk packets of items, split them up, and combine them with other bits and pieces. Each prize may consist of 4 or 5 tiny prizes, tied together to make one goody bag or prize. Work out the total amount you want to spend on prizes, and then buy 3 or 4 bags of tiny prizes – keeping within your budget. Mix and match items from each packet, so that not all the goody bags are the same. You can mix and match items such as erasers, pencils, sticker sheets, lollipops, bracelets, hair ties, hair clips, small cars, packets of glitter, or colored beads.

Remember, keep prizes in perspective. Carnivals are all about having fun, and there is more to carnival than the size of the goody bag.

Bring your carnival to the next level

Having a structured school or church event planning process can help streamline the planning and ensure that no detail gets forgotten.

Now that you have a better understanding of what it takes to plan a successful event, start setting your goals and planning your future event.

Remember to develop a clear vision as a guide, which will ensure you stay on track and deliver the exceptional event experience you are striving for. 

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