Recommended for school cultural festivals! Stall ideas that let you enjoy a traditional fair atmosphere
The festival fairs often held at shrines are packed with game and food stalls, and they’re so much fun, aren’t they?
Why not bring some of those fair games and foods into your own school or campus festival?
In this article, we’ll share recommended ideas that let you capture a festive atmosphere at cultural and school festivals.
We’ve gathered not only classic games and foods you’d see at real fairs, but also some unique, offbeat stall ideas.
All of them fit in small, booth-sized spaces, so you can set them up indoors or outdoors.
If you’re unsure what to do for your cultural festival, be sure to use these ideas for inspiration!
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Recommended for school culture festivals! Booth ideas (1–10) to enjoy a traditional festival atmosphere
Target shooting
Players use toy guns to shoot targets and aim to win the corresponding prizes.
The fun isn’t just in going for the prize; lining up your shot at the target is a highlight too.
It’s standard to use small boards or candy boxes as targets and design them so it’s obvious when they’ve been knocked over.
The classic approach is that the more luxurious the prize, the harder the target is to knock down—adjust the difficulty with the target’s size and weight.
It could also be fun to place a joke target that’s glued down and literally can’t be knocked over, paired with an obviously unavailable, extravagant prize to signal that it’s not actually winnable.
Candy and toy fishing
A simple game where you use a fishing rod to hook and lift the treats or toys you want from those available on the spot.
You can customize and adjust the difficulty in various ways, such as by changing the length of the rod, the weight of the prizes, or the mechanism for catching the target.
An easy-to-understand approach is to attach magnets to the end of the fishing line and to the prizes, then pick them up by sticking them together.
By mixing stronger and weaker magnets, you can also enjoy the added challenge of not always being able to catch what you want as easily.
Super Ball scooping
A game where you scoop up super balls floating in a pool using a poi—a tool with paper that dissolves easily in water.
It’s essentially like goldfish scooping but with super balls instead of live fish, making preparation simple because no animals are involved.
Since the targets don’t move like goldfish, create a current in the pool and prepare colorful super balls to make it look lively.
It’s also recommended to add a challenge by including super balls of various sizes and other higher-difficulty elements.
Recommended for school culture festivals! Stall ideas (11–20) that let you enjoy a traditional festival atmosphere
Basketball
You often see challenge segments using basketball hoops on TV variety shows too, right? And of course, large arcades always have basketball game machines installed.
It’s funny how just seeing a hoop makes everyone want to sink a shot, isn’t it? I’m sure it would be a popular booth at a school festival as well.
Give the basketball club a handicap, let girls shoot from a bit closer, and give little kids a bonus ball—make it so people can score and happily take home a prize.
If you don’t have a portable hoop, it could be fun to build one together!
Whac-A-Mole
It’s a game where several holes are in front of you, and you hit randomly popping-up target moles with a hammer.
The tricky part is figuring out how to make the moles pop out of the holes, but having a person inside the box who presents targets at random might be the easiest to understand.
If you use both hands, you can only present up to two at a time, so it would be better to devise a mechanism—like using rods—to allow more moles to appear, which would make the game more exciting.
How quickly you can pop the moles is a key point for keeping players focused on the game.
Cotton candy making
Cotton candy stands are a staple at temple fairs and festivals, aren’t they? Among all the stalls, fluffy, sweet cotton candy has always been a popular treat.
There are also “evolved” versions that became a hot topic not long ago, like rainbow cotton candy in pink and green.
There are even machines that let you easily make cotton candy at home, so why not try running a stall yourself? If your cotton candy shop is a hit, it might attract attention throughout the whole school.
Beigoma (spinning top)
How about incorporating traditional Japanese games into your booths for a school or cultural festival? For example, with beigoma, people of all ages can play together.
Beigoma is a game where you spin small iron tops without axles on a platform and compete to see whose top keeps spinning the longest.
Since several people spin their tops on the same platform, the tops naturally collide.
Staying on the platform without being knocked off is another key to winning.
Because of this, there are several ways to wind the string for beigoma.
It’s likely to create a friendly atmosphere where everyone teaches each other how to wind the string and shares tips on throwing.