How to Host a Halloween Carnival at Church

As parents struggle with letting their children knock on strangers’ doors and question the religious implications of celebrating a so-called pagan holiday, more churches are hosting family-friendly carnivals on Halloween. Follow these steps to organize a festival of your own.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Volunteers
• Budget

1. Set your budget. Before dreaming of a dunking booth and bouncy house for the kids, research how much money the church can donate to the event.

2. Choose a date and time. If Halloween falls on a school night, you may want to consider having your carnival the weekend before. If you want to attract families who still want their kids to have time for trick-or-treating, consider hosting the festival earlier in the afternoon or the night before.

3. Discuss possible limitations with other church members. Should you call the event a Fall Festival or limit the type of costumes to keep from offending your most conservative attendees? Will the carnival be free, or should you charge a few dollars per visitor to help cover your costs?

4. Recruit a volunteer to handle each booth. The more people you can get involved, the less work and stress will fall on you. Delegate one person to handle the crafts, signs, donations, setup and breakdown of each activity. The individual who is in charge of the Cake Walk, for example, will be responsible for designing and setting up the game, collecting cakes and other baked goods made by church members, and facilitating the game throughout the evening.

5. Utilize your membership for snacks and door prizes. If church members know their business could get promoted throughout the evening by donating signs, snacks or paper products, they may be more willing to get involved.

6. Promote the event in the community. This is where many churches fall short--expecting their membership to attend based on regular church newsletter and email announcements and not reaching out to the rest of the neighborhood. Have members put signs promoting the carnival in their yards and contact area newspapers and magazines about utilizing their free calendar listings.

7. Get the youth group involved. Most youth organizations are in need of unique ways to raise money for missions and other trips throughout the year, so requesting they sell slices of pizza for raffle tickets is an easy way to increase your pool of volunteers.

Tips & Warnings

• Make sure the activities at your festival cater to all ages. Toddlers and other young children will respond better to interactive games like a ring toss. Teenagers may be more drawn to creative outlets like a pumpkin carving table.
• If you announce your activity to the public, keep a few volunteers on hand for safety duty. You can never be too careful about who is mingling among the children.