5 tips for successfully organising a children’s event

There are many dif­fer­ent types of children’s events, but to organ­ise them suc­cess­ful­ly there are some essen­tial aspects you should always keep in mind.

Fol­low the tips and ideas in this arti­cle to organ­ise a suc­cess­ful children’s event and make chil­dren and adults want to repeat the expe­ri­ence.

Content

1. 1. Get­ting start­ed with organ­is­ing your children’s event
   2. Man­ag­ing reg­is­tra­tions for your event
   3. Design­ing the per­fect event for chil­dren
   4. Com­mu­ni­cat­ing about your children’s event
   5. Don’t for­get the adults

1. Getting started with organising your children’s event

Organ­is­ing an event for chil­dren requires detailed plan­ning, just like any oth­er event, but the audience’s spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics must be tak­en into account in every detail of the event’s organ­is­ing. Of course, par­tic­u­lar atten­tion should be paid to safe­ty, and organ­is­ing an event for chil­dren requires keep­ing in mind the children’s per­spec­tives (and size).

a) Find a theme or common thread

Some children’s par­ties will have a theme defined by their own nature, espe­cial­ly if they are direct­ly linked to the date of the event, such as Christ­mas or East­er. Oth­er children’s events, whether tied to cul­ture, edu­ca­tion, leisure or enter­tain­ment, can ben­e­fit from a theme that acts as a thread. This will moti­vate the chil­dren and, as the organ­is­er, it will help you add coher­ence to the event with­out too much effort.

When an event has a theme, the food, dec­o­ra­tion and cos­tumes (includ­ing those of the atten­dees) fol­low a com­mon thread that will allow you to move the event for­ward, make com­mu­ni­ca­tion more attrac­tive and encour­age greater involve­ment from the chil­dren and accom­pa­ny­ing adults.

b) Choose the venue

When choos­ing the ide­al venue for your event, think about the num­ber of atten­dees expect­ed. Make sure that the chil­dren can move and run around the space safe­ly and com­fort­ably. Depend­ing on the time of year, an out­door event is a great option.

Make sure that acces­si­bil­i­ty is good, both for get­ting there by car or pub­lic trans­port and for access­ing the venue via pushchair.

c) Choose the date

The most impor­tant thing to do when set­ting the date for your children’s event is to do this well in advance.

Also take into account the school cal­en­dar, oth­er events in your area and exam sea­sons (depend­ing on the age of your audi­ence). You can also take advan­tage of an impor­tant date to organ­ise a themed event around it.

d) Determine the duration

A show isn’t the same as a trip to a hol­i­day resort, but in gen­er­al it’s bet­ter to keep your event short. At the very least, make sure that all the activ­i­ties on offer are brief. This will be par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant with young chil­dren and will vary accord­ing to age. Remem­ber that children’s atten­tion spans are very lim­it­ed and the activ­i­ties at your event should not strain them.

2. Managing registrations for your event

You’ll need to know how many peo­ple are expect­ed to attend and you’ll also prob­a­bly need to col­lect data such as the children’s ages, num­ber of adults attend­ing, dietary require­ments, etc. In addi­tion, if you are charg­ing for tick­ets, you will need to man­age the col­lec­tion of reg­is­tra­tion fees or the sale of tick­ets.

An online tick­et­ing and reg­is­tra­tion solu­tion will make this task much eas­i­er, while also sim­pli­fy­ing the process for the respon­si­ble adults. With Weezevent, you can cre­ate an event in just a few clicks, with dif­fer­ent ses­sions if nec­es­sary (e.g. for shows that are repeat­ed at dif­fer­ent times), col­lect the data you need thanks to the pur­chase or reg­is­tra­tion form, man­age pay­ment by card and, on the day of the event, man­age access con­trol.

3. Designing the perfect event for children

a) Food

If your event is going to last for sev­er­al hours, you will like­ly need to pro­vide food. Con­sid­er the children’s tastes, their ages and oth­er prac­ti­cal details such as how easy it is to eat. For exam­ple, any­thing that can be eat­en with a stick will work well, e.g. tof­fee apples, can­dy floss, ice cream. This means they’ll only need to use one hand, avoids mess and is fun for them to eat.

At a children’s event, visu­als play an impor­tant role, espe­cial­ly if your event has a spe­cif­ic theme, so play with shapes and colours. Doing so will make the chil­dren more like­ly to be inter­est­ed in the food you offer.

This is par­tic­u­lar­ly use­ful for encour­ag­ing them to eat healthy food. Cut­ting fruit into pieces makes eat­ing play­ful and fun!
You can use this as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to include the prepa­ra­tion in an activ­i­ty, so that the chil­dren are inter­est­ed and involved in prepar­ing what they are going to eat.

b) Games and activities

To start with, it’s a good idea to pre­pare some sim­ple activ­i­ties to enter­tain the first chil­dren to arrive, while wait­ing for the oth­ers.

One of the keys to the suc­cess of your event is ensur­ing that the games and activ­i­ties are well thought out accord­ing to the age range of the atten­dees — it’s impor­tant that you have this infor­ma­tion in advance, either by lim­it­ing your event to a par­tic­u­lar age range or by ask­ing for this infor­ma­tion on the reg­is­tra­tion form!

For exam­ple, activ­i­ties such as songs, pup­pet shows and fan­cy dress work well for 1–4 year olds. Chil­dren aged 5 to 8 will enjoy themed events, mag­ic shows, danc­ing, face paint­ing, and so on. Final­ly, chil­dren aged 9 to 12 will pre­fer more organ­ised events such as trea­sure hunts. Arts and crafts are also pop­u­lar with this age group.

c) Safety

With chil­dren, safe­ty is para­mount. Make sure there are no dan­ger­ous objects with­in their reach and that the space itself is safe. Fol­low the safe­ty rules for any event and remem­ber to have a first aid kit avail­able.

To ensure safe­ty at all times, it’s impor­tant that all activ­i­ties are super­vised and that enough adults accom­pa­ny the chil­dren dur­ing activ­i­ties.

It’s also rec­om­mend­ed that you take out pub­lic lia­bil­i­ty insur­ance for your event.

d) Goody bags

Chil­dren love treats that they can take home after the event. A bag con­tain­ing var­i­ous sweets and small gifts will make them very hap­py and will help to end the event on a pos­i­tive note for the chil­dren. This will increase the chances of them want­i­ng to return for future events!

4. Communicating about your children’s event

You need to com­mu­ni­cate to attract atten­dees to your event. With children’s events, it’s impor­tant that you pro­mote them in spaces and com­mu­ni­ties where chil­dren can be found, such as nurs­eries, schools and children’s after-school cen­tres. You should also think about spaces where par­ents will be, whether in child-relat­ed places like clothes or toy shops, or in non-child-relat­ed places such as gyms, super­mar­kets and, of course, social net­works.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion should con­tin­ue in order to inform par­ents who have already reg­is­tered their chil­dren, as they’ll need to be reas­sured and pro­vid­ed with the right infor­ma­tion. Explain how the event will be run, whether it is nec­es­sary (or pos­si­ble) for par­ents to be with their chil­dren dur­ing the event or whether it’s for chil­dren only, the timetable, what they should bring, etc. Take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to intro­duce your­self and the facil­i­ta­tors who will be at the event. The more the par­ents know about your event, the more they’ll trust you enough to bring their chil­dren and rec­om­mend you to oth­er par­ents.

After the event, keep in touch with the par­ents. For instance, you can send them the video of the song that was a hit with the chil­dren and thank them for attend­ing your event. From there, you can build a rela­tion­ship and invite them to your future events.

For all this com­mu­ni­ca­tion, don’t hes­i­tate to use a mail­ing and CRM solu­tion in order to cre­ate seg­ments (e.g. by age group, or by events they’ve already attend­ed) and com­mu­ni­cate more effec­tive­ly.

5. Don’t forget the adults

Would you like the adults accom­pa­ny­ing the chil­dren to take part in the event with them? Do you want them to be close by, but not par­tic­i­pate in the children’s activ­i­ties? Or would you like them to leave the chil­dren for the dura­tion of the event?

Whichev­er option you choose, it’s essen­tial that you com­mu­ni­cate it to par­ents in advance. While it might be a mere detail for you, it can cre­ate unnec­es­sary frus­tra­tion and fric­tion if it’s mis­un­der­stood. Design your event accord­ing­ly: if you want the adults to be involved, you can offer an event with no phones so that they can spend qual­i­ty time with their chil­dren. If you’d pre­fer the adults to stay on the side­lines, think about what you can offer them, such as a qui­et adults-only area with some refresh­ments.

You now have the basics for organ­is­ing a great event at your fin­ger­tips!
With Weezevent’s tick­et­ing and reg­is­tra­tion solu­tions, access con­trol, and our mail­ing and CRM tool, organ­is­ing a children’s event is … child’s play!

Com­mencez à organ­is­er votre événe­ment pour enfants dès main­tenant et n’hésitez pas à nous con­tac­ter si vous avez des ques­tions.

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