Organizing a school fall festival is a wonderful way to build community and raise crucial funds for your school.
What goes into pulling off such an event isn’t second nature for most, so it’s a good thing you’re here to get ideas for planning this classic family fun event.
I’m laying out all of the fall festival ideas with all details you need to know about organizing and planning a fabulous family fun for your school community in this article, so let’s get to it.
Form a Fall Festival Committee
The quickest path to fall festival organizer burnout is trying to be a one or two person show.
Before you look at calendars or buy a single pumpkin, you need to recruit your core committee to pull this event off.
Here are the specific event volunteer roles to fill for a fall festival committee, along with a short description of duties:
Committee Chair: Keeps the big picture in mind, tracks deadlines, coordinates other volunteers, and acts as the main liaison with the rest of the PTO and the school Principal.
Logistics Coordinator: Handles the physical layout (in coordination with the Games Coordinator), maps out electricity needs, coordinates with custodians, and develops the rain plan if outside activities are planned.
Volunteer Coordinator: Aside from ensuring fun and games are on-site, this is arguably the most critical fall festival volunteer role.
Their sole job is recruiting, scheduling, and managing the parents and students who run the games and activities.
Kitchen Coordinator: Reaches out to vendors, books food trucks, coordinates food offerings and manages the on-site kitchen for the day.
Games and Entertainment Coordinator: Plans games and prizes, secures inflatables, and manages the music or DJ.
Day of Role for Fall Festival Committee Members
On the day of the festival, outside of the Kitchen Coordinator, core committee members should never be tied down to running a specific game or booth.
They must be free to address things that come up throughout the day like covering a volunteer’s bathroom break, restocking prizes, cleaning up spilled drinks, etc.
Having a few floaters available to fix the hiccups will help the overall day run more smoothly.
Timing the Fall Festival
Aim to start planning this event at least 8-12 weeks out from the chosen date.
It takes a lot more time than you think to organize this sort of an event because of all of the details involved.
Look at the school and PTO calendar to figure out the best date to hold the festival.
If your school includes high school students, be sure to check the athletics calendar to ensure you’re not scheduling during playoffs or another game where half the school will be attending.
Fall Festival Ideas for Games and Activities
The best fall festivals feature a mix of classic, low-cost games and activities and a few “wow” factors.
The Cake Walk: Hands down, this is always a crowd favorite. Parents donate baked goods, kids walk on numbered squares to music, and when the music stops, a number is drawn to win a treat.
Pumpkin Painting: Skip the messy carving. Buy mini pumpkins in bulk and set up tables with washable paint, stickers, and markers.
Ring Toss: Buy plastic cones or witch hats and use glow-stick necklaces or pool rings as hoops.
Fall Photo Booth: Set up a couple of hay bales, corn stalks, and a few scarecrows. It costs next to nothing if you ask for decor donations, and parents love the photo-op.
Inflatables: A bounce house or obstacle course provides instant crowd-pleasing scale.
Be sure to ask your school in advance if bounce houses are okay.
You may need to get additional insurance to cover potential injuries.
Dunk the Principal/Teacher: If you want to draw a massive crowd, rent a dunk tank and persuade beloved staff members to take the plunge.
Want even more activity ideas?
This post has over 35 fall festival game and activity ideas, so be sure to check it out for more inspiration!
Fall Festival Prize Ideas
Prizes are the main event for most kids at a fall festival!
The secret to a great prize selection is offering a balance: cheap, crowd-pleasing novelties for every player, step-up prizes for game winners, and a few high-value items at your central prize center to keep kids excited and playing.
Ask your in local Buy Nothing groups as well as the entire school community a few months in advance of your event for donations of new/unused toys sitting in their closets.
You’ll probably be shocked at how many prizes you can collect for free!
Here’s a breakdown of the best prize ideas by tier, including zero-cost options that kids absolutely love.
1. Participation Prizes (Budget: $0.05 – $0.25 per item)
- Vinyl Stickers: Buy trendy, kid-safe vinyl stickers in bulk (animals, food with faces, funny memes). Kids love putting these on water bottles, notebooks, and laptops.
- Squishies: These are consistently one of the highest-demand small prizes for elementary kids.
- Slap Bracelets: Autumn or Halloween themed, glittery, or silicone slap bracelets are a classic choice.
- Glow Necklaces & Bracelets: Buy a cylinder of 100 glow sticks. They double as fun festival wear for evening events.
- Temporary Tattoos: Fall, Halloween, or funny monster tattoos. Set up an Application Station nearby so kids can put them on immediately.
- Pop-It Keychains: Small mini-pop fidget toys that clip onto backpacks.
- Fun sized candy and lollipops
2. Mid-Tier Game Winner Prizes (Budget: $0.50 – $1.50 per item)
- Mini Plush Clip-ons / “Squishmallow” Clones: Plushies are always a hit.
- LED Light-Up Glasses or Rings: Light-up items add great energy to an evening event and sell out fast.
- Mini Foam Sports Balls: Footballs, basketballs, and soccer balls designed for indoor or backyard play.
- Novelty Stationery: Giant multicolored pens, pencils, funny animal erasers, or scented markers.
- Giant Bubble Wands: Keeps younger kids entertained right on the blacktop.
3. Grand Prizes for High Skill Games (Budget: $3.00 – $10.00+ per item)
- Medium to Giant Plush Toys: You only need a handful of these displayed prominently at the top of your Prize Center to create an excitement anchor.
- Small LEGO or Craft Sets: A few $5–$10 building sets or tie-dye kits are huge motivators for older kids (3rd–6th grade).
- Local Treat Gift Cards: $5 gift cards to local ice cream shops, boba spots, or donut stores.
- Outdoor Lawn Games: Frisbees, sidewalk chalk giant sets, or jump rope bundles.
4. Experience Prizes (Cost: $0.00)
Never underestimate the power of school privileges!
You can create coupons for kids to redeem with their tickets.
- Homework Pass: Get permission from teachers to issue a “1 Free Homework Pass.”
- VIP Lunch Line Pass: A coupon that lets a student (and a friend) jump to the front of the cafeteria line for the day.
- Principal for the Morning: A grand prize voucher to make morning announcements over the school PA system.
- Sit at the Teacher’s Desk: A pass allowing a student to sit in the teacher’s rolling chair for an entire day.
- Extra Recess for the Class: A pass given to a student that earns their entire classroom an extra 15 minutes of outdoor play.
Fall Festival Ideas for Food & Drinks
Hungry and tired kids means parents will cut their visit short if there isn’t good food available.
The easiest route to take to ensure hot food is available throughout the event is to invite a local food truck to park at the event.
This eliminates your need to prep or handle food safely.
If a food truck isn’t available, DIY the food court with a mix of these food options:
- Hot dogs
- Pizza by the slice
- Walking tacos
- Baked potato bar
- Chili bar
- Caramel apple nachos
- Pumpkin spice Rice Krispie treats
- Apple cider donuts
- Cotton candy
- Popcorn
Check out the profit-guaranteed strategy an elementary school PTO uses for food at carnivals.
Be sure to have gluten free and vegan food options available and label everything so no one suffers an allergic reaction from eating an allergen unintentionally.
Ticket Pricing
How you charge for tickets dictates the overall vibe and flow of your event.
Are you throwing a Community Builder (keeping ticket prices low, focusing on free games, and aiming to break even) or a Fundraiser (aiming to raise thousands for new playground equipment or other PTO initiative)?
Getting crystal clear on the goal of the fall festival will dictate your ticketing strategy, either a flat admission fee or selling individual tickets.
A flat admission fee is easier since it keeps the ticket booth line short and eliminates the hassles of collecting tickets at booths and determining each game’s ticket price.
But there’s less potential for earning money from high interest, in demand games.
Selling individual tickets (in strips of 5, 10 and 25) can bring in more money overall if fall festival attendance is good.
Offer a discount on 10 and 25 strip tickets to encourage more sales.
Coordinate with the Games and Entertainment Coordinator to ensure that ticket sales will cover prize costs.
Recruiting Fall Festival Volunteers
Big events like school fall festivals can’t happen without many hands pitching in.
The Volunteer Coordinator will need to start recruiting volunteers early to ensure the event can happen.
Don’t have enough adult volunteers?
A school fall festival is a fantastic event to get high schoolers involved in.
Members of service clubs like National Honor Society and Key Club always need volunteer hours, so reach out to these groups of students to fill the volunteer slots.
Day of Volunteer Roles
Here are the volunteer roles to be filled for the day of the event:
Set Up Crew: Help to set up all aspects of the event, including games, activities, and the food court.
Game Attendants: Run the game and activity booths and hand out prizes for 1-2 hours time slots.
Cash Box Coordinators: Identify two or three trusted PTO adult volunteers to handle all cash and the cash box the day of the event.
Clean Up Crew: This day of event job only ensures the space is clean, packed up, and cleared after the event ends.
Over to You
Just like a school carnival, a fall festival will create lots of core memories for everyone involved.
A PTO sponsored school fall festival certainly has the potential to be a big event, but it’s just the sort of thing you can trial for a year and then scale to fit your group’s needs and capacity.
So don’t let the details of what’s involved in planning a fall festival scare your group off from considering this sort of family fun event.
More Resources for Fall Festival Planning
Make sure everyone knows about your PTO’s fall festival by promoting it with an eye catching flyer.
Our two page fall festival flyer design makes it easy for parents to step up as helpers and eases coordinating volunteers and donations:
