The ONE Thing That Makes or Breaks Your School Carnival...

Updated 8/1/24

There are so many details that pull you in a myriad of directions when planning a fundraising carnival!

Of course, you need to plan exciting carnival games, prizes, and activities for the kids. This includes adding new games each year and ditching the games that were not a hit from last year. And, you must ensure there are engaging activities for the adults, too (such as a silent auction). There is also planning required to handle decorations, volunteer management, parking, and feeding hundreds of carnival-goers.

But we want to keep you focused on the PRIMARY factor that makes or breaks your fundraising carnival, and if you look at our picture above you will see it is missing one important thing...

 Getting Folks to Show Up at Your Carnival!

You want a HUGE Crowd! It is so easy to get sidetracked by all the details of planning a carnival that you overlook the primary focus: ensure people show up at your big event! The hardest part about planning a fundraising carnival is not the planning itself but rather getting carnival-goers to commit and show up. 

What happens if nobody shows up?

Think of a fundraising carnival as a party. If you plan a party, but nobody comes, it is a waste of money and time. You could have the world's best carnival, with amazing decorations, unique carnival games & great prizes for the kids - but unfortunately, if not enough people show up, you won't make a profit. Of course, if not enough people attend your carnival, you'll lose hundreds of dollars due to food, clean-up, booth, and prize expenses! 

You might also like:

• 3 Items Every Carnival Booth CAN'T Survive Without
• Does Your Planning Team Have This Much Needed Volunteer?
• 4 Quick Tips to Getting a Flood of Volunteers for Your Carnival!

There are many factors you can tweak to ensure carnival-goers will attend your exciting event. See our six quick tips below to ensure you have a carnival packed with tons of carnival-goers for fun and profit! 

The above image shows parent volunteers at a school carnival booth.

 Get Folks Involved! 

The #1 SECRET to attracting enough carnival-goers to your event is to...

...Get your entire organization, school, or church involved. 

Everyone at your school or church should be looking forward to your upcoming carnival. Carnivals are fun and exciting, and they are fantastic fundraisers, of course! 

Encourage all your organization members to be on board by involving as many people as possible! For example, for a school carnival, be sure to include administrators, teachers, children, parents, and extended family.

If you're having a school carnival, ask the room parent from each classroom to organize a pre-assigned game or activity booth at your carnival by getting volunteers to sign up for a one-hour time slot. 

In addition, you can even have the kids take part in the booth decorations! Ask kids to donate to their individual Classroom Basket Raffles. We've worked with one school that asked the kids to donate 2-liter soda bottles for their Cola Ring Toss game. (Click here to see how they were able to get significant participation and ended up with 905 sodas from their students!) 

Note: We recommend NOT having the room-parent do the purchasing of prizes and booth supplies for one booth. (Carnival purchasing is best done by just one person. See why here!) 

The above image shows a ticket sales table at an outdoor Carnival.

 Have A Ticket Pre-Sale

This tip is a close runner-up to tip number one!

Pre-sale tickets help in a few different ways. First, folks who purchase tickets are making a commitment to come to your event. It is easy to then count the pre-sale ticket sales and estimate how many people will attend your carnival. This is a huge bonus, and makes it much easier on the carnival planners involved! 

A ticket pre-sale also helps to shorten the ticket booth lines on your carnival day, meaning carnival goers spend less time in line and more time having fun! Also, your volunteers can help out at other booths for a more extended period of time instead of having 4 or 5 people taking money for tickets.

QUICK TIP: Remember to offer a discount to encourage folks to buy the presale tickets. It could be as simple as a free drink ticket with 20 tickets ordered or an extra five with 25 tickets ordered. Just give them a reason to buy their tickets early!

In addition, if you have a pre-sale for food items you are serving, then this also allows you to plan the amount of food and drink to serve for the big event! 

Click to see our discount selection of Carnival Tickets!

The above image shows fundraising posters made by students displayed on the schoolyard fence.

 Flyers & Signs As Advertisements 

Here are three ways to utilize this method: 

A.) It may sound unnecessary to have flyers and signs for your carnival in 2025 but trust us on this one. People are bombarded with constant to-do lists and reminders, so your carnival's date and time will likely slip their minds. Be sure to have plenty of flyers and signs for your carnival as a fantastic way to have folks "save the date" for your fabulous upcoming carnival! 

B.) Also, if your school has social media, consider posting these flyers on social media, too. Involved parents and the community can repost on their own social media and spread the word about your carnival throughout their community this way.

C.) Teachers involved with your carnival can give flyers to children and ask them to show their parents once they get home.

The above image shows teen volunteers posing at an outdoor school carnival.

  Find "Outside" Volunteers  

Another way to get more involvement in your big event is to look for volunteers from outside the organization. For example, if you are an elementary school, ask for teen volunteers from the local middle and high schools. 

There are plenty of other ways to get volunteers at your carnival. We recommend asking teachers to ask all parents in their classrooms to volunteer just one hour at your carnival. Most parents can afford an hour or two on the weekend with plenty of warning in advance, but if they are unable to attend, ask if they'll instead donate a few dollars to help with carnival costs.

Be sure to contact local middle and high school administrators and ask them if any of their students need volunteer hours! Many school organizations require 5-30 volunteer hours a year for students. 

Encourage students who need volunteer hours to donate some of their time at your carnival; it's a fun way for them to get a few volunteer hours down! Here at Carnival Savers, we especially LOVE having youth football players volunteer at carnivals, and you can see the adorable reason here!  

The above image shows a colorful smoothie food truck at a school carnival.

 Invite Your Neighborhood & Community 

Ask school parents and kids to invite their entire family and some friends, too!

Carnivals are a fantastic event to invite grandparents to; they'll love spending time with their family and grandchildren. 

And don't forget to invite the entire community to attend your carnival by, again, posting flyers nearby and on social media. Don't forget there are always some children living close by who are home-schooled or attend a private school. 

One elementary school in Texas put up yard signs in the surrounding neighborhood and at local businesses (with permission, of course) and found that many neighbors who did not have children at the elementary school came to their Friday evening carnival!

Why? This school told everyone to come out for an "easy Friday night dinner" conveniently located right around the corner with popular food trucks! Once the neighbors came out to eat, they had signs to tell folks about their silent auction inside, which helped increase sales at their auction as well! It is a win/win for this community!

So please don't sleep on your opportunity to get your local neighbors involved and ensure they know they are also invited! 

The above image shows a little league team and coach huddled in the grass.

 Choose Your Carnival Date CAREFULLY! 

Many of our readers are planning for carnivals that already have a date and are coming up soon. However, timing is a huge part of attendance at a fundraising carnival.

For example, if the kids have other activities, parents may want to come to your carnival but simply are unable to (or only be able to stay an hour) due to prior commitments. When planning your carnival, look for other large community events. For example, you do not want to compete against a large, popular music festival, opening season for youth sports, or a community-wide event like a library opening.

We are aware of one school in the southern U.S. that has its annual carnival in February - well before all the youth sports games like baseball, softball, and soccer have started playing. The school PTA does not need to worry about extracurricular sports getting in the way and preventing folks from staying at their 5-hour-long carnival. So, be sure to check your calendar carefully to look at typical weather, community activities, holidays, sports seasons, and other events that can interfere with your upcoming carnival.

Thank you for reading the Carnival Savers blog. We hope we have helped you to keep your focus and know the most important thing to keep in mind when planning your big fundraising carnival!