Stage performance ideas to excite a cultural or school festival
When it comes to school festivals, one of the biggest highlights—beyond all the food stalls and games—is the live shows and performances on stage! Instrumental music, singing, dancing, theater, juggling, and more…
The festival stage is the perfect place to showcase activities you’ve been practicing regularly.
And since it’s a special occasion, you might be thinking, “I want to practice something new and show it off!” For those of you who feel that way, here are plenty of recommended show ideas for your school festival! Show a different side of yourself and help make the festival even more exciting!
- Ideas for stage events and attractions that will liven up a school festival
- Cultural Festival: Ranking of Popular Booth Ideas
- [For High School Students] A roundup of recommended attractions for the school festival
- Recommended plays for a high school cultural festival: popular, crowd-pleasing ideas
- [Middle School] Cultural Festival Attractions: A roundup of popular exhibits, games, and stage performances
- A roundup of recreational activities to liven up cultural and school festivals
- Magic that excites crowds at cultural and school festivals
- A show-stopping party trick that energizes the crowd at a school cultural festival
- [Non-food] Cultural festival attractions: from classroom exhibits to stage events
- Costume and cosplay ideas to heat up your school cultural festival
- [By Genre] Cultural Festival / School Festival Booth Catalog [2026]
- Ideas for exhibits recommended for school culture festivals. Film screenings, too.
- Recommended Plays and Musicals for Cultural Festivals, School Festivals, and School Performances
Stage performance ideas that excite audiences at school culture festivals (61–70)
Tate-dō (The Way of Stage Combat)
Tate, the choreographed sword fighting you often see in period dramas—hand-to-hand combat or sword duels—that’s the one.
How about performing that as a showcase? Wearing costumes like samurai hakama and using music inspired by period dramas would make it even more exciting.
Historical-themed anime are popular too, right? It might be fun to base it on anime characters and match the music accordingly.
For people who love cosplay, it’s a perfect two-for-one: it boosts the mood and makes for a great performance (lol).
Yosakoi
Yosakoi is a dance that originally started at the Yosakoi Festival in Kochi Prefecture, but today there are Yosakoi clubs and teams at universities and high schools all over Japan.
With its vibrant costumes and flashy choreography, it’s perfect for the main stage at a school festival and is sure to hype up the crowd! It’s absolutely fine to use the festival as a chance to give it a try for the first time, too!
a cappella
The highlight of the show is not just singing without instruments, but recreating all the instrument sounds and rhythms using only your mouth.
It takes an enormous amount of practice, but if you love singing and are good at it, it shouldn’t be a burden! It’s also important to incorporate dance and get creative with costumes.
Acrobat show
An acrobatics show features various performances that use the body, such as backflips and cartwheels.
It looks flashy and really stands out on stage.
It’s highly recommended for those confident in their athletic ability.
It might also be nice to combine it with dance.
cheer dance
These days, more and more school clubs and community groups are doing cheer dance.
Cheer dance is often associated with women, but all-male cheer dance teams have been gaining momentum recently as well.
It takes practice, but the sense of accomplishment when you’re done is immeasurable, and it makes for great memories too.
papercutting
Papercutting is one of Japan’s traditional performing arts that has long been loved.
Using a pair of scissors, an artist swiftly cuts into a single sheet of paper, and in no time a cutout picture is complete.
In classic papercutting performances, the artist may take requests from the audience, but at a school culture festival it’s more than enough to amaze people by presenting themes you’ve practiced in advance.
In papercutting, the skill of completing the cutout on the spot is important, but so is the patter that keeps the audience entertained while you cut—it’s an indispensable part of the performance.
Be sure to practice not only your cutting technique but also some witty patter, and captivate a large crowd!
Celebrity talk show
The highlight of the school festival will probably be a talk show and live performance featuring celebrities or popular artists, right? It will cost money, but as the executive committee, negotiating with the school and booking well-known, popular figures within the budget will surely be a great experience! Invite a hot, in-demand guest and make it a school festival to remember!