How to plan the perfect school carnival!
School carnivals are popular twice a year usually as end of school year events in the spring and fall festivals in the fall. While everyone loves going to their child’s school carnival, what are the things to keep in mind for the perfect school carnival? What things can you do at your next school school carnival to take it to the next level, raise more money or increase attendance?
The first step in planning any event is choosing a date and location for your event. Location decisions are usually pretty easy for most school carnivals as they take place on school grounds. When selecting a date it is important to keep in mind that many schools plan their events in the same couple weeks of school ending or the month of October for fall festivals. It’s always best to select your dates early in the school year and make sure to get on our books as soon as possible to ensure the best equipment availability for your event.
The next step is to select what time you’d like to have the event. We find that most of our school carnivals happen during school hours but our best carnivals usually happen in the evening after school. This allows parents and siblings to attend the event as well, which makes for better attendance if you’re using your carnival as a fundraising opportunity. Make sure to read our blog post about how to use your next school carnival or fall festival as a fundraising opportunity.
After selecting the location, date and time, it’s time to decide what attractions you’d like to provide your attendees. Do you have a specific theme you’d like to plan your event around? We usually find the carnival midway theme gives the best overall carnival experience for your guests! We have the only selection of carnival tents and games to complete that perfect midway experience in the Brunswick, GA and Jacksonville, FL markets!
So you have your date, location, time and theme. Let’s starting talking about equipment selection. We’re not going to push specific items in this post but we will give you some pointers on what items to steer clear of and what items to make sure to include on your list. The most important item to keep in mind when selecting attractions for most school carnivals and fall festivals is equipment throughput. Throughput is defined as the amount of riders or players that the attraction is able to accomodate per hour. This is especially important if you are using your event as a fundraiser as the more participants you can push through a given attraction the more tickets you can collect and the more money you can raise!
Pieces with excellent throughput are going to include inflatables such as slides and obstacle courses. These pieces allow for participants to run through or climb and slide quickly. Most have multiple lanes as well to allow more than one rider at once. From our mechanical rides section they’re going to include items like our ballistic carnival swing, bungee trampoline and meltdown. Carnival booths with carnival games offer excellent throughput as well. We offer throughput information on every item page on our website to make the selection process as simple as possible!
The final step is to let everyone know about the event! What’s an event without any attendance? The more the merrier is our motto! Flyers going home to parents with students are a great way to notify attendees for in school events. If you’re doing an after hours event, we can help with a school carnival website that even tracks attendance and offers online pre-sale! Our on staff graphics artists can assist with creating any flyer, brochure or posters to help make your event a great success!
At Bounce It Out Events, we produce hundreds of school carnivals and festivals a year. Let us help plan your next event to make it as easy and stress free as possible! We promise to make your next event the BEST EVENT EVER!