The end of the school year is approaching, the kids are all excitable at the thought of the Summer Hols, and you’re probably looking forward to the break also! But before everybody ventures off on their holidays it’s time to celebrate the end of term with a bang!
Licensing
All schools will have a Centre for Education and Finance Management license which will cover the school for all of their curricular activities. However, as the disco will be outside of curriculum hours the school will need to hold a Music license, many schools do have this so just do a little check and make sure. This particular license covers the school for all played music outside of the curriculum hours, so for example if you’re planning on holding a school fete, fundraising event, future discos, after-school clubs that run later so if you’re school doesn’t have one of these licenses it may be worth enquiring to get your school one as they’re pretty beneficial.
Booking A Venue
Ideally you’d most likely want to hold the disco on school premises, it will save a lot of time, hassle and expense. So just check the licensing for your school as previously stated. If not, then have a search around your local area for venues, there’s bound to be plenty of sports halls, church halls, community halls in your local area that are available to be booked out for a one-off evening. The price will be reasonably cheap too, most places will offer discount if you state it’s a fundraising event.
Booking A DJ
Make sure you book your DJ well in advance, bare in mind the time of year you’re planning on holding the Disco. If it’s nearing the Christmas period, a lot of DJ’s will be booked up, and for example the summer season, tends to be wedding season, as well there being lots of festivals, and music gigs going on. A good website to check out local DJ’s in your area is Netmums You can select your area, and sift through the hundreds of DJ’s, kids entertainers etc. Finding a DJ specific to the kind of party you want to throw is vital, make sure they specialise in kids parties and kids discos, they’ll know the deal in regards to music, games, and creating a fun, exciting atmosphere for the kids!
Marketing & Tickets
Creating marketing material can be a tricky one, especially if you haven’t done it before. A great website to use is Canva It’s really simple and easy to use, they also provide lots of templates and a step-by-step guide on how to use everything. Just make sure the posters are really bright, colourful and to the point, you’ve got an easy target audience who will get excited by anything that looks outrageously bright and appealing! You could encourage the teachers to give mentions about the disco in morning registration, and maybe even get out and speak to the parents when they come to collect their kids for home time. If the kids are too young to handle money, it’s probably an idea to encourage the parents to come in to the Office and purchase a ticket on behalf of their little ones. It’ll save the lose of tickets, money and upset children!
It’s best to get kids to buy their tickets in advance, then you can monitor how many people need to be staffing the event. When tickets are purchased, make sure a parent or guardians contact details are taken. And when the kids arrive at the disco, they’re tickets are collected, and they sign in.
One suggestion is to include something in the ticket price, maybe a free glow stick or glow novelty, food or drink. It’ll make it more value for money, and the kids will get excited at the thought of a ‘free’ Glow Stick!
Decorating the Venue
The opportunities are endless when it comes to using Glow Sticks to decorate a venue. Start by blackening the room as much as possible; switch off the lights, close all the curtains. (Just make sure you can still see what you’re doing!). You could decorate the room using these flashing LED Balloons, tie a bundle of balloons together to make a cluster of colour to hang in the corners of the room. You could even make a flashing LED Balloon entrance to hang over the doorway, for when all the kids arrive. Or how about making a flashing LED Balloon walkway leading to the hall or venue, just tie some string to the balloons and hang them from the trees leading up the pathway.
Another idea is an old simple favourite. Remember making Paper chains, cutting out the bits of paper, gluing them together and making the longest chain humanly possible. It used to look really effective! What about swapping the paper for Glow Sticks, it’s a much simpler way and far less time-consuming. The Glow bracelets come with little connectors, so all you need to do is link the bracelets, and pop the connectors on to secure them! Hang them around the room to create a really effective glow!
Tuck Shops OR a ‘Healthy Food’ Tuck Shop
If there’s one thing that’s certain, kids love a Tuck shop, all that fizzy pop and sugar, but you know what that inevitably means? Hyper, crazy kids. Yes it’s a Disco, and if kids can’t run wild at a Disco, then when can they? However, the World is becoming more and more health-conscious than ever so why not set up a ‘Healthy Food’ Tuck Shop. Trying to get the little ones to eat Fruit is a lot harder than getting them to devour a bag of Marsh mellows, however it’s all in the disguising ;).
Serving fruit on little BBQ style skewers is one option, or you could even arrange some fruit in little cupcake cases. Or how about ice cream cones without the ice cream! Just fill the cones with lots of yummy fresh strawberries, and maybe a teeny tiny sprinkle of chocolate. They won’t even notice the difference! And of course, all that dancing and running around, they’ll certainly be gasping for a nice cool refreshing drink! Cranberry Juice Sangria (non-alcoholic of course) is a great healthy alternative to fizzy, sugar filled drinks. Just throw a load of Cranberry Juice and big chunky bits of fruit into a jug, and there you have it! You could even serve the Sangria with some Glow in the Dark straws or Glow in the Dark Ice Cubes, a novelty the kids will love!
Click here to check out some more healthy treats!
Goodies
So you’ve set up your Tuck shop, be it healthy or not! What about if the kids are too young to handle money? One idea is to include a free drink and snack of their choice from the Tuck shop. You could also include a free Glow novelty or Glow stick when the kids arrive. Just make the cost of the entry fee a little bit more expensive to cover the costs. Glow Sticks are cheap and cheerful, and kids go absolutely crazy for them. If the kids are old enough to handle money, you could have a little Glow novelty stall, selling all kinds of funky, glowing fun; Glow Caps, Glow Tiaras etc..
Glow sticks and Glow novelties are a great way to make a little bit more profit to add to the fundraising.
Lucky Dip
As well as having a Glow Novelty stall, you could include a ‘Lucky Dip’ bucket. So just source a big bucket or container, wrap up various different Glow products in some funky wrapping paper, or you could get savvy and use Newspaper, and then just fill the container full with lots of wrapped up goodies. The kids will love the suspense of not knowing what prize they’re going to get, and then the surprise of getting something awesome like a Glow Cap, Tiara or Glasses!
Dance Competitions
What better way is there to get the kids moving and grooving than a Dance competition? For example; Musical Statues is always a winner, or you could even set up a Dance-off. Just make sure it doesn’t get too competitive, you don’t want unhappy children! You could include glow stick prizes for each children that takes part to keep it fair. If you’ve hired a DJ that specifically hosts kids parties and discos, they’ll know the score in regards to what gets the kids grooving! Take a look at one of our previous blog posts; Glow in the Dark Games, for some more glow in the dark party games and ideas.
So there you have it, everything you need to know about hosting a School Disco. We hope you’ve found it helpful.
Happy Disco Planning!
great information to go with our school disco that I am planning. Thanks 🙂