Thread: Halloween Festival - Need booth help

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Our community is hosting it's first annual Halloween festival. My shop is doing two booths at this event. I have massive amounts of decor from years of previous parties. We will sell treats at one booth and custom made kids clothing at the other. Thinking the treat side should be scary and the other should be sparkly/girly. I need some ideas on how to decorate these. There is a prize for the best decorated booth. Send me some inspiration please

We have two coolers that my husband built that look like coffins. I was thinking we could sell drinks out of those on the scary side. Maybe decorate the booth vampirish, but I am up for suggestions.

TIA

Ground fog creeping out of your booth would be great. Creepy cloth would help, too.

Spiders and webbing always work.

Jack-o-lanters can be carved to look pretty creepy/scary.

Get in the mood and dress up! Nothing completes a booth like someone embracing a role.

Why not do a combination? For the treats booth, do a hansel-and-gretel witch's candy house.

I like the idea of creepy cloth draped around the open part of the booth. Maybe put a skeleton in the coffin cooler with the drinks? Fog machines and a small pool of blood trickling out of the booth would be cool. Do the treats need to be packaged from the store? If not you can make all kinds of delicious creepy goodies! Severed fingers, pumpkin cookies, cupcakes with tombstones on top...

On the 'sparkly' side you could do all the cutesy Halloween stuff. Smiling jack-o-lanterns, white sheet ghosts, black cats, the vintage looking paper decorations etc.

Are you outside, inside? In the dark or in a well-lit area? Is electricity available? If you're in the dark, try placing glowing fizzy beverage "samples" around in clear containers -- It's just tonic water under a blacklight but it can be very effective



For each booth, think of it as a mini-haunt and come up with a theme -- it makes things much easier. I like the Hansel and Gretel combo idea, complete with a witch. Vintage Halloween things always look classy to me, too, as Junit mentioned. Or a pumpkin patch for your punkins, or (sigh) fairies, although you should have a wicked fairly a la Maleficent to keep things spooky.
If the booths are side-by-side, you could name them Trick or Treat-- Trick being spooky and Treat being sparkly, of course. On the Trick side, how about getting a large, low box with three hand-sized holes, cover the holes with fabric and allow customers/kids to reach in for their purchased edibles, if they wish? Of course, only one hole has the edible... the other has what, a jello hand in a latex glove? Bowl of eyeball-grapes? Motion-activated spider? Or place a large slogan (something like the often-used "So good, it's spooky!*") with a small disclaimer in Gothic script, "*Consumers take all responsibility for damage due to food-induced lycanthropy, zombification, or midnight cravings for more."
If the food booth has an overhead structure and not just a table, try making the opening into a large, toothy (vampirish?) mouth. Just posterboard curved into various-sized cones, and a nice floppy tongue with your prices neatly listed on either side.
Just rambling... I've taken one too many school Halloween festivals to the head. Congrats on having a community with spirit!

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. They are all great ideas! Keep 'em coming please!

Loving the Hansel and Gretel theme. How can I make two booths incorporated into this theme? One scary and one candy-landish?

hmm...I was thinking some sounds or eerie music to attract the customers over with all the other ideas of decorating. Unique signs that light up or glow over your booth

maybe have fabric covering the booth
http://kimephoto.com/booth.htm

I was going to suggest a spider's lair theme for the the scary one, but I love the Hansel and Gretel candy house idea! You can add a scary witch, a cauldron with dry ice or something inside, scary sound effects to make it more scary.
If you want one theme for both booths, you could make the non-scary one a candy house too but use sparkly cute colors and lots of fake candy in that one and no scary witch or scary sounds.