![[For High School Students] A roundup of recommended attractions for the school festival](https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/-XLjZ8sJQlk/maxresdefault.webp)
[For High School Students] A roundup of recommended attractions for the school festival
High school cultural festivals usually offer more freedom than in junior high—things like attractions and food stalls—so you can try all kinds of ideas, right?
Since it only happens once a year, I’m sure many students are thinking, “We want to create a memorable, amazing attraction!”
In this article, we’ll introduce a wide range of recommended ideas for high school cultural festivals, from the classics to the unconventional.
You can go with a tried-and-true crowd-pleaser, or take on a unique idea that won’t overlap with other classes!
As you consider factors like preparation time and budget, use this as a reference to decide which attraction to choose.
[For High School Students] Recommended Booth Ideas for a School Festival (1–10)
coffee cup
The gentle amusement park ride known as the “coffee cups” — could you really recreate that for a school festival? You can! In fact, more and more schools are building coffee-cup rides for their festivals now.
The version made at the University of Tsukuba Senior High School in 2012 is considered the original “school festival coffee cups.” It’s a fairly large-scale project since it’s built by combining steel frames and pipes, but there are helpful videos on video-sharing sites, so be sure to check them out.
Get help from your homeroom teacher and club advisors, and make it a success together! It might just become the top main attraction at your school festival.
balloon art
Balloon art is a perfect fit for a lively and festive school culture festival.
Let’s plan together what we want to make with balloons and share our ideas with sketches or drawings.
The location of the decorations will also be an important point! By dividing up the tasks and creating things together, you’ll likely build a stronger sense of teamwork.
Make your own original balloon art pieces, deepen your bonds with your friends, and create a culture festival you’ll always remember! If you start planning and creating a little early, you’ll be able to move forward with plenty of time to spare.
Escape Game
Have you ever played Mystery House, often called the ancestor of escape games? These days, “escape games” are booming not only as video games but also as hands-on attractions.
It could be fun to make one together! If you can use an auditorium or multipurpose room that’s a bit bigger than a classroom, even better.
Let’s create the ultimate escape game as a class.
The basics are a maze and puzzles, so start by building a rough maze using cardboard or desks.
If you add doors that open when a puzzle is solved and keys that are central to the story, it will really start to feel like an escape game.
Just make sure the content is friendly and easy so everyone can enjoy it!
LEGO brick art
Let me introduce LEGO brick art that’s perfect for a high school cultural festival.
With LEGO brick art, you can create all kinds of things—animals and plants, dioramas, even QR codes! Putting the pieces together in three dimensions using your fingertips requires concentration, but by planning with your teammates and dividing up the work by parts, you can create something wonderful.
By sharing what everyone wants to make and setting a goal together, you might end up with a moving, unforgettable creation.
festival day
Just hearing the word “ennichi” (festival fair) makes you feel giddy, doesn’t it? If the school’s cultural festival is open to the public, it seems like lots of neighborhood kids would come by.
As long as you have scoops for goldfish scooping, you can set that up right away—and if live animals are prohibited, you can quickly switch to super ball scooping.
Buying candy at a dagashi shop and running a “shooting gallery” is pretty easy, too.
If there’s a big rental shop, maybe you could even rent equipment for “smart ball”? Lining up lots of stalls to create a festival fair road could be a surprisingly fun plan!
roller coaster
Do you know about the “Roller Coaster” at Hyogo Prefectural Amagasaki Kita High School? It’s been featured multiple times on news and current affairs programs, so some of you may have heard of it.
As a cultural festival attraction, they actually built a real, rideable roller coaster inside a classroom! This idea has been spreading, and high schools in Gifu and Hiroshima have also built roller coasters.
The design plans are publicly available, so if any school thinks, “We can do this!!,” we’d love to see you take on the challenge.
However, it apparently takes several months of preparation, so plan carefully—like securing a place to store materials, and so on.
Mosaic art
Mosaic art is created by sticking together lots of small pieces of paper or photos to form one large picture.
It’s a classic choice for cultural festival murals, and you often see scenes of people making them on TV programs, too! While it’s great to simply keep attaching small colored squares, if possible, it would be even better to collect many memorable photos of school life from all the students and teachers and use them to create a large mosaic artwork.
By all means, work together and create a wonderful piece!
short movie
Let’s try making a short film by handling everything ourselves—from writing the script to shooting and editing—and then screen it.
Unlike stage plays, which are one-shot performances, film lets you redo scenes as many times as you need, giving you a different kind of tension and sense of accomplishment.
You might think a camera and computer are essential for shooting and editing, but these days a smartphone is enough to capture high-quality footage, and you can edit solidly with apps.
Your story doesn’t have to be completely original, either—you can take inspiration from popular dramas and novels.
Filmmaking is easier to jump into than you might imagine, yet once you start getting particular, there’s no end to how detailed you can get.
Coordinate with your production schedule and budget, and work together to achieve the best possible quality within your means!
Haunted house
I wondered, “Are haunted houses something originally from Japan?” When I looked it up, I found that there are actually many similar attractions overseas.
In English-speaking countries, they’re called haunted attractions.
Come to think of it, Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion is essentially a haunted house done in Disney style.
Let’s try scaring everyone at school with a classic haunted house.
The three key elements are visuals, sound, and cast.
Combine scary visuals, atmosphere-building audio, and performers playing ghosts, and be sure to use a mix of slow and fast pacing.
There are tons of special-effects makeup techniques posted online—be sure to check them out for reference!
band performance
Pre-festival and post-festival events are staples of school culture festivals, and lots of volunteer bands really amp up the festivities.
Some schools even ban bands because things get a little too lively.
If performances are allowed, why not steal the show with a “band live” set? If you can play guitar or keyboard, forming a band for the first time just for the culture festival has its own charm.
It’s not uncommon for bands formed during student days to go on to become top artists.
A future superstar might be born at your culture festival!