Five Simple Ways to Make Carnivals More Fun

I love carnivals at camp. We call them open camps or station games because they tend to be more than just carnivals, but the games we are talking about have a bunch of stations that individual campers can walk around and go play.

Below are five simple ways to add some more juice to these types of games. If you love this kinda stuff we have a few all camp games in the Free Stuff section of the website and I am leading an online All Camp Games Workshop in February. Check em out.

Let’s get into it!

1) Add Money

Money is fun to play with. Monopoly is a terrible game, but wildly popular. Why? Because you get to play with fake money. Adding some form of currency to games is pretty easy.

Idea: Kids earn between 1 and 5 dollars for every station they complete. With the money, they can buy starbursts or access to another area like the inside of the rec hall for a dance party.

Sheets of Fake Money We Have Used. Use them or make your own.
Tower Money — Castle Money — Laura Money (Might be weird if you use this one…)

2) Design Stations for Different Avatars

Making up stations for games is all about thinking about who is going to play them. You know your camp better than anyone. When we design for Stomping Ground we think of about 4-7 real-life kids in the offseason, then as we get to see the kids that are at camp each week we adjust for the different personalities each week.

Some Potential Avatars

1. Johnny - Rambunctious 8-year-old, high energy, low attention span, loves running around

2. Teagan - Kinda too cool for school 13-year-old, doesn’t tend to love our games, but does care about younger kids, no sports, creating things is fun, very concerned about their social standing

3. Gary - 11-year-old, loves pushing people’s buttons, loves RPG style video games, favorite games involve some form of leveling up with friends he can choose

4. Sarah - 9-year-old, loves the counselors, loves pop music, happy with pretty much anything where she can be silly and interact with staff

You get the idea. How can you design stations that are for the people playing not just for some nebulous group? Johnny will love if there is some form of dodgeball. Teagan will be hesitant to join. How can we make a station that involves just sitting and chilling with their friends?

Here is a quick avatar creation handout we made for a camp training a couple years ago.

3) Create an Unfolding Narrative

Gary, above, will be fine playing most station games but would love if there was something more going on. Think of the Stranger Things kids at a carnival. They aren’t just playing games, they are trying to unearth clues in a much larger story. This is the world we can create for an hour with Gary.

Example: When you get to the fortuneteller’s tent, the fortune teller breaks character to tell kids that the whole carnival has been taken over by aliens. You can tell who the aliens are by looking closely at their left ears. Sure enough, half the staff leading stations have green paint dripping out of their ears. The fortune teller explains that we need to get rid of the aliens and to go see the “maintenance guy” who has been going around picking up trash. Hijinx ensues. Maybe they need to get into the rec hall from above to learn more about the aliens. Maybe there are two ways in. They can pay to get in like everyone else or there is a secret entrance that they can have the maintenance guy’s assistant help them get in if they do a task for him.

4) Costumes - For Kids

Kids love costumes. Have a station where kids can get in costume and take pictures. Maybe they stay in costume. MAYBE! With money earned from above they can buy costumes. MAYBE! You need a costume to enter the rec hall so you have to buy a costume to get in.

OH ALSO! I read this again after I wrote it and realized this made an assumption that the staff were already in costume. If we don’t have your staff get dressed up for these kinds of things please do. They love it and it adds such a layer of depth to all games and is so fun.

5) Epic Music

This is a super simple one. Set up speakers and play music the whole time. Whatever the theme is just download a corresponding movie’s soundtrack from Spotify.

1. Having a Ren Faire? Lord of the Rings

2. Space? Star Wars

3. Disney? OK just tons of Disney Songs

Awesome composers have already done the work for us. Music adds an enormous level of immersion just by being on we are having a shared experience.

Let’s Make Awesome Stuff Together

Stations during these events are really fun, and for some number of kids that’s all they need to make friends and build memories. But we have an opportunity each time we run something like this to make it the best moment of camp for some kids let’s take it. What are some of your favorite additions to open camps? Comment below.

Looking to take your all camp games to the next level? Love talking about these kinds of things? Join Our All Camp Games Workshop this February.

ALL CAMP GAMES WORKSHOP

Make up a new game for yourself. Get access to the rest of the cohorts new games. But most of all start to think differently about game creation.

JACK SCHOTT
DIRECTOR CAMP STOMPING GROUND
CO-FOUNDER THE SUMMER CAMP SOCIETY
JACK@THESUMMERCAMPSOCIETY.COM
STOMPING GROUND ORIGIN STORY