[By Genre] Cultural Festival / School Festival Booth Catalog [2026]
Food stalls, class exhibits, and stage events are essential for cultural and school festivals, but once preparations start, it’s easy to get stuck on what to do! You definitely want to avoid choosing a standard attraction that ends up overlapping with other classes, and ideally, you want something that visitors will enjoy and that will become a lasting memory for your group—but once you start thinking about it, the possibilities seem endless.
In this article, we’ll introduce recommended ideas for cultural festival attractions, organized by genre.
If you already have a general direction, try jumping to the headings that interest you from the table of contents.
If you haven’t decided anything yet, we recommend going through the ideas listed at the top of each section in order—you’ll likely find them helpful!
- Cultural Festival: Ranking of Popular Booth Ideas
- Unusual attractions you can do in a classroom for a cultural or school festival
- [For High School Students] A roundup of recommended attractions for the school festival
- Games that rival street festivals and variety shows!? Crowd-pleasers for school cultural festivals
- [Non-food] Cultural festival attractions: from classroom exhibits to stage events
- Festival booth menu items that can be served without cooking and without using fire
- Ideas for stage events and attractions that will liven up a school festival
- Attraction Ideas for School Festivals That Only High Schoolers Can Pull Off?
- A catalog of recommended festival booths for school culture festivals, with ideas that will shine on social media.
- A roundup of recreational activities to liven up cultural and school festivals
- Stage performance ideas to excite a cultural or school festival
- Ideas for exhibits recommended for school culture festivals. Film screenings, too.
- Better than a theme park! Attractions perfect for school cultural festivals
Photo spots (1–10)
Optical illusion art
If you create a photo spot using trompe-l’œil (trick art), it’s sure to become a hot topic on campus! In recent years, trick art exhibitions have been held frequently and are getting a lot of attention on social media.
While large-scale trick art that requires elaborate sets can be challenging, trompe-l’œil that uses perspective—like drawing stairs on the floor—seems doable even for a school festival.
Look at various examples of trick art for inspiration and try making your own.
neon sign
Neon signs that create a dreamy, fantastical atmosphere are also recommended.
A neon sign refers to signs made with neon tubes.
They were originally devised to stand out even in the darkness of night, but today they draw attention for their distinctive look.
However, shaping neon tubes is quite complicated.
So if you’re making one yourself, using EL wire is a great option.
You can easily create your preferred colors and shapes, and there’s a wide range of colors available.
The low cost is another nice plus.
Umbrella Sky
You’ve probably started seeing umbrella skies more often over the past few years! They’re displayed at tourist spots, theme parks, and botanical gardens, and more and more students are incorporating them into school festivals.
When creating an umbrella sky for a school festival, we recommend painting inexpensive vinyl umbrellas and lining them up densely on the walls or ceiling.
There’s something stylish and sophisticated about umbrellas arranged in a colorful, orderly way.
Let’s create a beautiful umbrella sky so you can take some cool photos.
Lanterns and paper lanterns
This is a photo spot that uses paper lanterns.
Its hallmark is the softly glowing, gentle light, and lining up multiple lanterns instantly creates a charming atmosphere.
When decorating with lanterns, gathering a variety of shapes and colors makes it even more photogenic.
Depending on the style of lanterns you choose, you can freely create a traditional Japanese vibe or evoke an exotic, Taiwan-like ambience.
Try designing it while imagining the kind of photo spot you want to create.
addition
It’s a photo spot featuring nothing but a simple “+,” “=,” and a “♡.” On its own, it’s a bit puzzling, but if close friends or a couple stand together in front of this equation… it completes a lovely formula: “Me + You = ♡”! The simplicity actually creates a stylish impression.
You could swap the “♡” for another symbol or word to make it more original, too.
Performances you can enjoy with peace of mind even during the COVID-19 pandemic (11–20)
Not only for COVID-19 but also for infectious disease prevention
After the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s awareness around infection control has changed significantly—avoiding crowds, paying attention to hygiene, and so on. It feels like these changes in awareness have continued even after the pandemic eased. With that in mind, from here we’ll introduce activities that avoid crowding and can be done with peace of mind from a hygiene standpoint. If you’re thinking, “We want to offer activities that participants can join with confidence!” please use this as a reference. Related articles:List of attractions you can safely hold at a school festival even during the COVID-19 pandemic
Attractions you can enjoy with peace of mind even during the COVID-19 pandemic (1–10)
Where’s Wally?
Many of you were probably obsessed with the Where’s Wally? books.
This is an attempt to bring that experience to life inside the school building.
To keep the crowd manageable, we plan to limit entry as we go.
In this real-life version, you can earn hints—such as who Wally is and where he might be—by answering quiz questions.
Put your answers into the submission box on the wall to receive clues.
You’re probably curious not only about where he is, but also about what the real, non-picture-book Wally is like, right?
Photo spot (e.g., balloon arch)
Photo spots at school festivals are among the most popular places.
If you create a great photo spot and have people take turns so it doesn’t get crowded, you can capture memorable festival photos.
In this video, they use balloons to create a chic, glamorous setting, but with a bit of creativity you could make all kinds of photo spots.
You could even use this as inspiration to build the festival gate.
It might be interesting to have the art club handle it—they could come up with something really cool.