"Halloween Alternative/Carnival/Falls Fest"
"Halloween Alternative/Carnival/Falls Fest"
As you can see from the sub-title, I've never really know what to call this event. Most of our families have enjoyed the fun of the traditional American Halloween holiday, which we never connected to evil or evil practices but fun and fantasy. This page is not a debate for or against Halloween, or reasons to or not to do other seasonal activities. This page will share with you what I've been doing for years and what's worked and what hasn't for our annual Halloween alternative/carnival which I call Fun Fest. We have for the past eight years offered a safe, family alternative to trick or treating. Some families do both, some spend the whole time with us.
When I started eight years ago, very few churches seemed to be doing things for families on Halloween, or at least advertised something for families. We have gone through several ideas along the way to reach what we are doing now. One year all our booths and games were from Bible stories. For example, we did a mummy wrap, but called it the Lazarus Wrap. We used skeletons for the Valley of Dry Bones and so on. It was a little cheesy and a few individuals became a little preachy trying to teach stories rather than having fun, which didn't go with the outreach feel and family fun I was looking for and also bogged down the flow of the booths.
Now we have a fun, crazy night of carnival games, and family fun. The whole church has gotten involved from bringing the candy, to working the booths. And I mean the whole church! We have teens to our Senior members working. We don't charge, unlike most of the churches in town, and see hundreds come through our doors and let them catch us having fun and doing something for their kids.
The main elements for our set up are two 10ft x 20ft temporary car garage. It's an aluminum frame with a plastic canvas top, ends and sides. We bought one and then another was donated. We put them end to end, with the roofs on them. We use the ends, which Velcro on, to create dividers - we don't necessarily use them on the ends. We also use the sides to block off sides so kids must walk around the structure to visit all the booths. I will post some pictures of this for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about. Oh, and I purchased our tent or actually the car garage at our local SAMS Club.
We have done apple bobbing (we've actually stopped doing in 2006 with the fear of spreading illnesses), a cake walk, ring toss, and other typical carnival-midway games. We also have shooting basket (basketball) and football throw and a laser tag room with smoke machine and black lights. We used to use strobe lights for our laser tag room and maze but strobe lights can trigger seizers in some kids so as a preventative measure, we do not use them. We have had a karaoke booth (watch your music if not using Christian music), remote controlled race cars and this year we added a snowboarding video game booth. We also have popcorn and punch to drink.
We advertise for free with local Christian radio stations, and also secular radio and television stations. We have had an ad in the local newspaper's Halloween activity mail out before, but really saw no real benefit and have stopped.
If you're looking for a quick start on your own Halloween Carnival/Alternative, check out my Fun Fest Kit I use each year.