Building a Carnival Theme
Creating a Carnival Theme for a Company Picnic isn’t too difficult. Think bright colors and you’re practically there! To create Carnival booths, you’ll need some pop-up canopies which can be purchased from promotional product companies or rented from local event supply companies. Ideally, line up booths facing each other to create an aisle which adds potential for decorating between and across booths (like a large welcome banner at the entrance). It can also help create more of an air of excitement with activities all around. Use some curtain material in bold colors or balloon imprinted backdrops to line the walls and back of the booths. Booths need signs to identify the games so make them look like something you'd find at a Carnival by using fun and colorful fonts on custom banners. Yes, you can make signs using poster board and paints but remember, bold large signs support the theme rather than print outs on copy paper! Add some colorful garland to stream across the aisles between the booths, include brightly colored tissue balls and clown cut-out decorations! Serving ice cream? Add a tissue ice cream cone over the ice cream station for some three dimensional effect! Get a few
toss ice coolers designed to look like
toss events (e.g. football toss) to keep with the theme!
Of course, you’ll need a lot of custom logo balloons and helium! Don’t forget plenty of raffle tickets for participants to win at the booths and later exchange for prizes. Another great options is to design some
custom coins for the event. The coins not only can be used instead of tickets but will be great keepsakes after the event.
Promoting the Carnival Themed Company Picnic
Using the raffle ticket concept, why not create a custom poster designed to look like an oversized raffle ticket to send to employees as the invitation for the event. Send it to their home in a roll-type poster container to make it all the more special. The same posters can be placed around the office as reminders. They could even be used as tray liners in the company cafeteria! Incorporate the same design into that welcome banner at the entrance of the event!
Carnival Themed Activities
Fortunately, it can be pretty easy to create carnival booth games just like those at real carnivals. In many cases, the props used for the games can also become giveaway items and prizes at the end of the event. And, best of all, carnival games tend to attract people of all ages so they’ll be great for the entire family. Of course, you’ll want to have some prizes that will be suitable for the various age groups.
Get some
customized soda bottle shaped stress relievers and custom bracelet rings for a Ring Toss Booth. With a few water guns and more of those same stress relievers, you’ve got a Target Practice Booth! As an alternative to water guns, try a foam dart gun instead!
With plenty of those balloons on hand for the decorations, attach some of them to a cork board backing and add some logo darts and you’ve got a Balloon Pop Booth. The Fish Bowl Toss Booth is another great game and all you need are some custom fish bowls and some customized ping pong balls! For the youngest of participants, you’ve got to have the Duck Booth featuring floating rubber ducks!
For the older participants some mainstream sport games are always a hit like a Football Toss Booth with a custom football and football cut-out prop or a Basketball Toss Booth with a customized hoop & backboard and logo basketball! And, then of course, you could go all out with an inflatable driving range! Don’t forget the cotton candy!
Carnival Themed Giveaways
One thing about the Carnival Theme, you’ve got to have plenty of giveaways. You can award prizes at each both or give out coins or tickets which can be redeemed later at a prize booth. Either way, you’ve got to have giveaways at different prize levels.
For the lower levels and younger crowd, consider custom crayons and a logo coloring book. Maybe a customized piggy bank. For higher levels, you’ve got to have some custom plush stuffed toys of varying sizes, shapes and colors! Clown or juggling clown lapel pins can also make for good prizes. For the older crowd, how about a customized Rubik cube featuring the company's logo or a logoed FM Radio/Pedometer combo with a mp3 player for a high level prize.
Remembering the Carnival Themed Picnic
Hand out custom disposable cameras to everyone at the picnic to take pictures of their family and their coworkers families. Then, after the event, give them back the developed pictures they took along with a
custom logo flip photo album. Employees can then use the pictures for their photo albums or share them with their coworkers for their albums!
