[Non-food] Cultural festival attractions: from classroom exhibits to stage events
Are you struggling to decide what to do for your school festival booth—other than food? Let’s energize the venue with unique ideas that are a bit different from the usual food stalls! From hands-on attractions like those at amusement parks, to photo spots, to performances your whole class can take on together, this article is packed with ideas that will win over your visitors.
We’ll also share helpful tips from preparation through day-of operations, so use this as a guide to create a booth that’s uniquely yours.
- 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
- Cultural Festival: Ranking of Popular Booth Ideas
- [Middle School] Cultural Festival Attractions: A roundup of popular exhibits, games, and stage performances
- 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?
- Games that rival street festivals and variety shows!? Crowd-pleasers for school cultural festivals
- Ideas for class projects at the school festival: A roundup of popular attractions
- [For Elementary Schools] Recommended Exhibits and Recreational Activities for a Cultural Festival
- [By Genre] Cultural Festival / School Festival Booth Catalog [2026]
- [Cultural Festival / School Festival Theme] Carefully Selected High-Impact Recommended Phrases!
- Festival booth menu items that can be served without cooking and without using fire
- A catalog of recommended festival booths for school culture festivals, with ideas that will shine on social media.
Attractions (11–20)
VR Coaster
Building a roller coaster inside a classroom is a popular choice for school festivals, but if you want to add an extra twist and make yours stand out, this VR coaster is highly recommended.
Create a video from the perspective of someone riding the coaster, have riders wear VR goggles, and let them board the coaster you built while watching the video you produced.
You’ll need to handle both the analog side of building the coaster and the digital side of video production, but try dividing the tasks among classmates and take on the challenge of creating a high-quality VR coaster.
planetarium
A planetarium might be the perfect attraction for a school festival—not only does it offer an extraordinary experience, but it also provides learning opportunities.
While you can make your own projector to display the stars—an essential part of any planetarium—if time is limited, renting one is recommended.
If you’re projecting in a classroom, you can cover the windows with cardboard or even build a handmade dome.
Adding original narration to explain the constellations will likely make it easier for visitors to understand and enjoy.
Rotating seesaw
Handmade attractions and human-powered rides offer a unique kind of thrill, don’t they? This is a human-powered seesaw with both rotation and vertical motion, boasting quality that surpasses even that thrill.
To make it work as a proper attraction, safety awareness is crucial—such as considering the number of pipes used—and you should especially prioritize strength for load-bearing parts like the vertical supports.
From the design stage, aim for a safe and sturdy seesaw; it’s also recommended to get advice from someone knowledgeable about design or from a teacher.
Balloon pool
A booth that lets you make full use of the classroom and have fun is a balloon pool.
All you need to do is inflate colorful balloons and cover the classroom floor, so it takes less time and effort than a large-scale attraction.
Mixing in some jumbo balloons or character balloons among the many regular ones will likely delight children visiting the school festival.
If the classroom is too big, you can section off one area to set it up.
You could also add a game element, like hiding treasures inside the balloons for people to find—wouldn’t that make it even more fun?
projection mapping
Projection mapping is a three-dimensional visual expression that uses projectors.
When visuals overlap with the structure of the space being projected onto, they can create a grand world where it looks as if buildings are transforming.
From simple visuals like spotlights and movies to surprising three-dimensional imagery, it can deliver a sense of wonder to viewers.
While it requires composition skills and technical expertise, it’s a beautiful attraction that suits the free-spirited vibe of a school festival and conveys a sense of expanding possibilities.
merry-go-round
A rotating attraction like a merry-go-round or spinning teacups is an essential element of any amusement park, isn’t it? How about recreating such spin-filled attractions by hand? Adding layered motions—like smaller spins within a larger rotation—or incorporating vertical movement are great ways to create accents within the overall rotation and heighten the fun.
The more moving parts you add, the more operators you’ll need to run them, so it’s important to design with balance in mind.
Attractions (21–30)
American casino
https://www.tiktok.com/@user6676075114657/video/7419669491036015879When it comes to American casinos, places like Las Vegas and Atlantic City are famous.
In particular, many Las Vegas casinos are integrated with hotels, and their glamorous atmosphere is a major draw.
Let’s try to recreate that kind of casino with classroom decorations.
For example, a black-and-white floor made by cutting and pasting plastic bags, colored neon lights glowing in a dim space, and a room decorated in American colors—red, blue, and white—would all help create a luxurious, playful mood.
That would be a lot of fun.
