Game Night Homecoming Theme Ideas

Don’t let this Homecoming drag on into the night. Keep the guests active and entertained with a game night theme!

Size It Up

Instead of cluttering up the room with tables and chairs to put board games on, why not simply make the guests pawns in the game? Take classic board games and make them life-sized! Checkers, chess, and parcheesi are all classic board games and are easy to set up and learn. For some more complicated games, however, try life-sized monopoly or the game of life (for those guests who want some intellectual aspects to their larger-than-life games). Games like these keep the guests moving and having fun all night long.

Heave Ho!

Host a tug-of-war competition! Set-up is as easy as a rope and some mats. Have your guests face off against each other to claim eternal glory as the strongest team in the school. To have everyone get involved, build a tournament bracket of all the guests. This makes winning even more glorious!

Relay Some Fun

An event that has been repeated for years is the relay race. Relay races encourage cooperation and teamwork without sacrificing fun and entertainment. Some popular ideas include balancing an egg on a spoon that is in their mouths, having a blindfolded person be guided through an obstacle course by someone who isn’t blindfolded, and having an activity at a station and having the person complete the activity before moving on to another station. Encourage school unity with relay races that get guests to interact with friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike.

The Ball Is In Your Court

A simple yet fun game to play with your guests is a game called handball. Handball is very popular in Europe and is played in high schools across the United States. The reason for its popularity in high schools is its simplicity. All you need for set-up is a ball, two goals, and some space. A basketball court size is the ideal size needed to play this game. This game, although simple in  nature, requires a reasonable amount of effort and can keep the guests playing for a long time. Here are the rules for clarification (the more technical rules do not have to be followed in order to play the essence of the game):

Slice and Dice?

A fairly new form of physical activity that has emerged is a sport called Live Action Role Playing (or, for short, LARPing). This is where two (or more) people use padded weapons (swords & shields) to land blows on each other. If your guests have had their fill with all the other fun games at your event, this activity is where they can try something new and exciting.

Keep your guests active and entertained with creative and diverse games!

Entice Alumni to Attend Your Homecoming Week

To college and high school students, homecoming means an important football game and a dance, with a few other activities throughout the week.  To alumni, homecoming means a walk down memory lane with a visit to their old school.  More often than not, alumni either forget about homecoming week (because they’re told too early and not reminded) or they simply don’t want to go.  Change that! This year, don’t just remind your alumni that homecoming week is approaching, make them want to attend at least one (if not each) event during the week.

Mail a Homecoming Week Event Outline

Once you make sure you have current addresses for your alumni, put together a flyer with a schedule of events that you have planned for your homecoming week.  If the events are not 100% set in stone when you put together the schedule, make sure you clearly label the schedule “tentative.”  Then, once your homecoming week is planned, send a finalized schedule of events for your alumni to use—maybe when everything is official and final, your elusive alumni will attend a few events during your homecoming week.

Go Digital with Your Homecoming Week Events

Because everything else is going digital, why don’t you create a digital schedule of events for your homecoming week?  All your students are on Facebook, Twitter, and other social network sites, so why not create an “event” on Facebook?  Invite your students and encourage them to invite any alumni they might know, whether siblings, parents, or older friends.  Create an album with a few wall photos—the school mascot, maybe a photo of the football team and a photo of the cheerleaders.  Update these photos, as well as the overall event page, at least once a week.   You can also post pictures of the decorations as you set them up for the events throughout the week.

Depending on the event you’re decorating for, you’ll want to look for banners, a variety of spirit supplies (such as megaphones, buttons, and pom-poms), homecoming dance background materials, and many other things.  You could hang banners at the entrances to your school to get your students pumped up for homecoming week.  You can also hand out small favors to all your students during your homecoming week—in this case, try candy-related favors.  Your students will thank you.  Other fun favors to hand out to your students during homecoming week are imprinted footballs and basketballs, though these would probably be better handed out at the end of the school day so your students aren’t too distracted.

The culmination of homecoming week is almost always a dance.  Why not invite your alumni?  Then they can feel like they’ve gone back to high school and they’ll be able to watch the crowning of the homecoming court and experience all of it.  There are many ways to entice your alumni to attend at least one event during your homecoming week, you just have to choose which ways you want to use.

Senior Power: Plan an Amazing Homecoming Event

The Homecoming dance is often an event presented by the upperclassmen to the underclassmen. Not only does the entire Homecoming event serve to welcome back former students, it can be a wonderful way to pass on school spirit and traditions to the younger students. If your senior Homecoming committee is looking to plan an amazing Homecoming event, remembering a few simple goals can help get the fun under way.

Homecoming Theme
Establishing a theme for your Homecoming events and carrying that theme across each aspect of your planning can help you do more with the resources and the budget you have. With a strong theme, your decorations can be as simple or as extravagant as you want and the event will still look polished and pulled-together. The top themes this year include Hollywood, Candy Land, rock star, Paris, and Mardi Gras. Stumps Spirit has a huge selection of event theme decorations and custom event favors that can have your event logo and info printed on them.

Once you’ve decided on a theme, plan decorations for each Homecoming event that coordinate with the theme. Use theme banners to advertise the events in your school hallways. Decorate the school for Homecoming Week. Select a theme arch for your Homecoming court ceremony and more elaborate decorations for the dance. One of the great parts of theme decorating is that decorations from one event can be repurposed for another. For example, decorations from your school hallways can be used at the dance.

Come up with a theme-based slogan such as “Down home with the Vikings” for a Western theme or “Saints Abroad” for a Parisian theme. Get creative with your slogan and incorporate it into your banners, favors, and other Homecoming promotions.

Pep Rally
The pep rally is an important part of Homecoming planning. Get students excited for the Homecoming game with an extra-special pep rally. Get the band to perform a preview of their halftime show, celebrate the football players and cheerleaders, recognize the candidates for Homecoming Court, and plan some fun for the whole crowd. For example, as students get settled in for the rally, have the cheerleaders lead the stands in a call-and-response cheer. Have students sit with their classes and compete for which year can do the best wave or the loudest cheer. Set up a relay race and have students race faculty or members of the starting lineup. Get your school mascot involved in a contest such as a hulahoop-off or a three-legged race. A fun pep rally sets the tone for a great weekend of Homecoming events.

Homecoming Game
Dress up your stadium for the Homecoming game. Use posters and custom sports banners to display your Homecoming slogan, welcomes for alumni, and other spirit messages. Use rolls of fabric or parade float materials such as vinyl fringe and festooning to decorate the stands, railings, or fences in your school colors.

During halftime, set up a special area on the field for the announcement of Homecoming King and Queen. Aisle runners, decorative arches, or one of Stumps Spirit’s royalty kits are simple, but impressive, ways to make your Homecoming court ceremony look like a real coronation. The pictures and memories will be enhanced.

Homecoming Dance
Many students will be most looking forward to the Homecoming dance. Bringing your theme prominently into the dance decorations is one way to make your Homecoming dance spectacular. The essentials, however, for a truly amazing Homecoming dance include a good DJ and space to dance. Decorate your dance floor by creating a ridge of festooning around the outline of the area. Make sure it is firmly secured to the floor to prevent tripping. Above the dance floor, hang paper lanterns or swags of gossamer, twinkle lights, and a disco ball so students feel like they are dancing in an elite club.

Check out all of our tips for planning an amazing Homecoming event!