Best Fall Carnival Games & Fall Festival ideas to make your carnival the best ever!!

Free E-book, Carnival Game Ideas, Hints and Tips for your Fall Event

Fall carnivals (and Halloween carnivals) are great for schools, communities, churches and congregations to bring people together, have fun, and maybe even make a little or a lot of money -- it all depends on the goals of the carnival. When our school brought back the autumn carnival, it was a lot of work, but it's turned into the most kid-friendly fundraiser we have, and builds so much community spirit that now parents are excited to put it on every year.

We've published a free ebook that helps you put on the best (and most profitable) carnival games, carnival booths and activities -- staffed and ready for the day with free online sign up sheets.  Click the link to download your free E-book! Fall Carnival Game Ideas, Hints, and Tips

 

Carnival games are the key to a fall carnival’s plan to maximize revenues. Some things you absolutely have to rent, like jumpy castles / bounce houses, dunking booths and battling padded sumo suits. For more information on turning your carnival into a seriously profitable fundraiser, scroll down to learn about a comprehensive carnival money-making guide.

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But if your fall carnival games are more focused on fun than profit, there are a lot of creative and well-loved activities that can be put together with very little money. The only thing that costs money is prizes -- and even some of those can be free, I’ll tell you how. So in the spirit of economic downturns (and maximizing profits!), here’s a big list to get started. 

Free or Nearly Free Activities

1. Ring Toss – easy to build a ring toss setup with 2 liter soda bottles.
2. Tug of War: all this takes is a big length of rope – might even be available from the PE department of the school. Moms vs Dads, Brothers vs Sisters, 4^th grade vs 5^th grade, boys vs girls are all great ways to drum up fall carnival games enthusiasm.
3. Flocking Sales and Insurance – Sell the opportunity to have a flock of plastic flamingos (or 50 pumpkins or scarecrows or potted plants or whatever else you can come up with) placed on someone’s front lawn – and sell insurance policies against being flocked. Also, sell insurance against having your name revealed as someone who’s flocked someone else. It’s like toilet papering someone's yard, but way easier to clean up!!
4. Toy Swap – bring a toy and drop it off upon entering the carnival – get one swap ticket for each toy brought.  Collect toys up until a certain point in the carnival day. At a designated time, open the toy swap to everyone who’s brought something. This is a great fall carnival game for these tough times, when lots of people have things to give, but not much money.
5. Giant musical chairs – Start with 40 people and 30 chairs and work down to one big winner who gets a prize ribbon.
6. Guess what?: Have strange substances in containers and participants have to guess what it is either by smell, touch or sound. (Make sure to have allergy information on ingredients at hand.) This is especially fun as part of a spooky fall carnival game area.
7. Exile Island – People can buy a chance to send a friend to the carnival's "Exile Island” and while there they can find clues to a mystery prize hidden somewhere in the carnival.
8. Beading booth – One roll of thin cord and some creative beading ideas can occupy carnival goers for a long time. Beads can be made ahead of time out of natural materials, rockets tied with wire, clay glazed and fired ahead of time, macaroni for little kids – the beads don’t have to cost much,  if anything, and the fun is in putting together your own cool necklace! Sell tickets by the necklace or in 10 minute increments.
9. Hula Hoop Contest - Play some fun music and invite kids and adults to compete in many categories such as  longest time hooping, most hoops, best trick, holding-hands, etc.
10. Karaoke 'Idol' Stage - Decorate a stage like the popular TV show, American Idol, and have kids and adults entertain the entire carnival.  Charge a certain number of tickets per song and let the audience vote for who stays and who goes.

Free or nearly free prizes

1. Ribbon Rewards – Cut 5 inch lengths of satin ribbon and tie them to a large safety pin. Each time a child participates in an activity, tie a new colored ribbon to the safety pin. Each booth has a different color. The most active and involved (and ticket-spending) kids will end up with a chest full of ribbons, and a pretty neat keepsake from that year’s carnival. You can even add a special prize offering to the kid who collects the most ribbons.
2. Fall carnival passports – Each kid gets a passport to be stamped at each activity booth – six or more stamps per card. Once the passport is filled it can be entered into a drawing to win a bigger door prize – another way to drum up more booth ticket sales!
3. Lunch with the principal or pastor– A special opportunity to sit down for a meal with the leader can be a drawing prize. It can be a casual lunch or something nicer, donated by a local restaurant.
4. Clean out the closet favor bag – Send out a notice asking for parents to donate leftover party favor prizes – this alone can fill up most of the needs of the fair for prizes.

If your carnival goal is profit, check out this comprehensive eBook by the folks at Everybody Hates Fundraising - It's an 180-page Carnival Money-Making Guide!  Up to $10 of your purchase supports VolunteerSpot.

We know you've got your own great ideas -- so please join us on Facebook and share your creative and fun fall carnival ideas.  Click here

Comments

[BellaB]

Silly-string coral! We buy the little cans online in bulk and charge a few dollars a can. Rope off a section of the field and let the kids go wild. It's one of our most popular carnival games.

[Skymaker]

We have an old fashioned pie-eating contest - small pies for kids, big pies for parents. It's a huge draw, just provide lots of paper towels.

[Marissa]

We have a pumpkin decorating table for the little ones. They pick a mini pumpkin from our 'patch' and get to draw faces using colored sharpies.

[christine w.]

kids love the straw bale maze

[Nike Shox Clearance]

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[Deborah Johns]

I found a lot of great information on www.carnivaltoys.com They have carnival game ideas and great prizes!

[MARGUERITE]

This is our first carnival at our school, and what I want to know is there anymore fun ideas out there.We are trying to get the community involved and also let the children have fun.We do not have alot of funds at this time but we know we can have things together by the fall.

[BUBBLEBLOW988]

What about a witch idea? Like musical brooms! The idea of musical is basically like musical chairs, except you use brooms. The winner at the end of the game gets a prize. Please try it, it is very fun! :)