Changing leaves, cooling temperatures, and warming soups — there’s just something special about autumn.
As we approach Halloween and Guy Fawkes, it’s the perfect time to bring communities together before the temperature drops for a cold winter. Whether it’s a village fête, an artists collective, a social movement, or any other group, there are lots of unique autumn event ideas you can create.
Fortunately, you won’t have to look far for plenty of ideas to make your festival stand out. By taking a look at some of the event organisers relying on Eventbrite, we’ve identified 24 great autumn festival ideas for memorable harvest-time events.
AUTUMN FESTIVAL EVENT CATEGORIES
Ideas from across the pond: US fall festival ideas
Tips on how to organise an autumn festival
Autumn festivals, or fêtes, have a few special features that can make finding the perfect venue and getting everything ready a little tricky. You’ll want to take into account everything else you ordinarily would in picking a venue: capacity, cost, formality, amenities, etc. But there are some additional factors for you to think about as well.
🍂 Indoor/outdoor options: Autumn festivals often take place in cooler weather, so it’s worth looking at both indoor and outdoor options. Ideally, you could find a venue with both indoor and outdoor spaces so you could move the event if there’s a last-minute change in the weather.
🍂 Extra space: Many of the autumn event ideas below require a lot of space. Whether it’s for different booths or food stalls, you’ll need more space than just capacity for enough guests.
🍂 Autumn amenities: Pumpkin or vegetable patches are fantastic ways to add to the autumn spirit, but only a few select venues will have them on-site. There are plenty of pumpkin patches across the UK, so you can locate one close to you and enquire about holding an event there.
🍂 Easy clean-up: From eating contests to bobbing for apples, some autumn festival activities can make a mess. That’s why you may want to find a venue that has spaces that are easier to clean or that the venue owners don’t mind getting messy.
🍂 Include all ages: Everyone loves an autumn festival — be sure to include a variety of activities for children and adults alike.
🍂 Seasonal food: Be sure to keep any food and refreshments in with the seasonal theme. With hot apple cider, mulled wine and hot dogs, your attendees will already feel the autumn spirit.
🍂 Stay organised: With an event timeline, you can ensure you book all your suppliers, food trucks, and booths well in advance.
By keeping all that in mind, you can be sure to have the best autumn festival possible.
Plan your fall festival with Eventbrite today
Autumn festival booth ideas
Many autumn festivals have a wide range of booths that supply attendees with food, drinks, and activities. You can have staff or volunteers operate these booths, but they’re also a great opportunity for you to reach out to your community and bring in some local vendors and collaborators.
1. Toffee apple decorating
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
One of the most iconic autumnal foods is the toffee apple, but don’t stop at just serving them! You can make your booth into a fun activity by letting people decorate their toffee apples with nuts, sprinkles, coconut, or whatever else you have available.
2. Volunteer sign-ups
Difficulty: ⭐
Cost: 💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
No matter what group you’re bringing together, an autumn festival is a perfect opportunity to get people excited about giving back to the community. Get in touch with a local nonprofit and have them bring some brochures and a sheet where people can sign up to volunteer some time to a good cause.
3. Mask-making
Difficulty: ⭐
Cost: 💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
Planning your festival before Halloween? You can help your attendees out by letting them make a mask for their costumes! They’ll have a personal bond with the mask they made themselves and a great story to come with it. Just make sure you have enough supplies so everyone has a chance to make one.
4. Hot chocolate, cider and mulled wine
Difficulty: ⭐
Cost: 💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
Even if you don’t get lucky with the weather for your festival, hot chocolate and non-alcoholic cider will warm everyone right back up. For adults, you can give the option of mulled wine, too. You can even partner with a local cider maker to bring a cider press so people can make their own!
5. Autumnal candles
Difficulty: ⭐⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧
Not a lot of people these days have dipped their own candles, but it’s a fun activity that anyone can do. You can even add fragrance oils so the candles fill their home with autumn scents, like cinnamon or clove. This means your attendees will remember your event every time they burn their candles.
6. Face painting
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
This is great for kids, but don’t let it only be a children’s activity! Everyone can get their face painted as a fun way to get into the festival spirit.
It’s a great one to do near Halloween, but it doesn’t have to be spooky! Just make sure you have warm, autumnal colours to stick with the theme.
7. Autumn crafts
Difficulty: ⭐
Cost: 💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
Bring in a crafting expert to let people get creative and make autumn-themed crafts. For some inspiration, take a look at Manchester Wool & Yarn’s Autumn crocheted garland Workshop. You can also bring in local artisans to sell autumn-themed crafts! If you have enough interested people, you could even make an autumn-themed market.
8. Leaf art station
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
Let your attendees make art pieces out of colourful autumn leaves. Whether it’s glueing together a leaf pumpkin on a plate or creating something more abstract, your leaf art booth will quickly become the talk of the festival.
Autumn festival game ideas
Booths alone aren’t enough to make a fun and exciting autumn festival. Games will make your event more interactive and give your attendees lasting memories they can look back on fondly.
9. Pumpkin carving (or painting) contest
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
A pumpkin-carving contest is the perfect autumn festival game: it lets everyone express their creativity in a seasonal way, and your attendees have something great to take home with them at the end.
That’s why event organisers like Family Care Trust make sure their autumnal activities at Pumpkin Patch at Newlands Bishop Farm always include it. To let kids participate without using any dangerous carving tools, you can make it a pumpkin-painting contest instead.
10. Sports day
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
From croquet to potato sack and egg-and-spoon races, there are dozens of sports day games you could include in your autumn festival to liven it up.
To scale it up with the size of your event, you could even create a tournament where people try their hand at each game and see who has the best overall score.
11. Tractor ride
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
Take everyone for a ride on a tractor or a hay wagon! This activity requires some specific equipment, but venues like farms might have everything you need. Make it even more fun by making it a haunted ride if you’re hosting your event around Halloween, with plenty of spooky characters for your attendees to see along the way.
12. Maize maze
Difficulty: ⭐⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
If you have a maize farm in your region, a maze can make for a truly iconic component of an autumn festival. To make it even more fun, you could create stations throughout the maze where people can collect stamps or prizes and compare who completed more of the maze.
13. Pumpkin bowling
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
Who needs a bowling ball when you have a pumpkin? Just make some bowling pins with soda bottles and lay out a short alley for people to bowl their pumpkins down. You could even dress the pins up like turkeys for an extra autumn feeling.
14. Bobbing for apples
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
Bobbing for apples is a classic game for good reason: it’s fun, accessible to everyone, and healthier than other festival snacks like doughnuts and churros. Make sure to lay a tarp around the game ahead of time to catch any water that spills out and prevent attendees from getting muddy if you’re outdoors.
15. Pumpkin ring toss
Difficulty: ⭐
Cost: 💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
In a pumpkin ring toss, you try to toss a large hoop so it lands over a pumpkin. It’s a fun way to incorporate an autumn theme into a game, and you can integrate it even more by letting winners take the pumpkin of their choice to carve at home.
16. Climbing wall
Difficulty: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
While some people might want to sit and make art, others might want to challenge themselves physically. If your venue doesn’t have a climbing wall, you can rent one!
Autumn fair fundraising ideas
As Christmas approaches, people might feel more compelled to donate their time (or money) to a good cause. An autumn fair is a great fundraising occasion for organisations that do great work.
17. Harvest picnic
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Cost: 💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
Autumn is the harvest season, so it only makes sense to share the bounty with everyone. A harvest picnic lets people bring what they can and eat what they want in the true sharing spirit of autumn. You can even use locally-grown ingredients if you host it at a farm.
Invite the whole community to enjoy the feast and charge a small fee to join so you can collect funds. You can also ask participants to make a little extra to share with a local charity.
18. Cut-a-thon
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Cost: 💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
A cut-a-thon gets the whole community involved in helping out, especially the local haircutting professionals who can donate their time. During cut-a-thons, like the ones Herefordshire Safeguarding Boards and Partnerships organise, attendees pay for a haircut, and the earnings go to charity.
Local stylists, in turn, get some exposure and may even gain a few new clients! Take it a step further and collect hair to donate to an organisation like the Little Princess Trust.
19. Apple picking
Difficulty: ⭐
Cost: 💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
If your venue has apple trees, you could invite your guests to enjoy some autumn apple picking. Made A Mark Charity did this at an orchard known for its delicious apples for a Cream Teas And Apple Trees event. You can even donate the apples you pick to a local food bank and ask attendees for monetary donations to share as well.
20. Bake sale
Difficulty: ⭐
Cost: 💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
What’s an autumn party without sweet treats? Partner with a local bakery to sell their creations at your festival and donate the proceeds to charity. With enough pumpkin spice and cinnamon mix, they’ll be able to make any baked goods fit the season’s theme.
21. Themed film screening
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
As the evening grows darker, pass around some blankets and hot chocolate and invite everyone to settle in for a movie for a small donation. Choose a child-friendly movie like Hocus Pocus or Casper if it’s a family event. Alternatively, you could pick a movie on the theme of the cause you’re raising funds for.
22. Pony rides
Difficulty: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
Whether or not you have an on-site paddock, you can still give pony rides. All you need is enough space to give everyone a short tour and some soft ground that won’t get damaged by the horseshoes. Just charge a small fee per ride and let everyone have a great time!
You can streamline any donations by creating a free event on the Eventbrite platform and setting it up for digital and mobile payments in advance.
Ideas from across the pond: US fall festival ideas
Fall festivals are huge in the States, and they know how to host great autumn-time events to get the whole community involved. Add a US twist to your event with these fall festival event ideas.
23. S’mores station
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
To make s’mores, get plenty of rich tea biscuits, milk chocolate, and marshmallows. Get a campfire going and let your attendees make their own sweet treats.
You’ll want to clear the idea with your venue if you plan to have an open flame, but a station where people can make their own s’mores would take your festival to the next level. Make sure to supply plenty of napkins and a nearby wash station so people can clean their sticky fingers when they’re finished!
24. Pie-eating contest
Difficulty: ⭐⭐
Cost: 💸💸 (unless a local bakery donates the pies!)
Family Friendly: 👧👧👧👧
There’s nothing more quintessentially American than a pie-eating contest. Everyone enjoys eating them, but how much can they eat?
Contact some local bakeries to make plenty of apple or pumpkin pies (or ask attendees to bring some). Using entry fees is a great way to raise money for charity, too.
Make your autumn festival a success
No matter which ideas you’ll incorporate into your autumn festival, you have plenty of ideas here to get you started. The next step is organising it and getting enough people to show up! That’s where Eventbrite can help you out. With a simple, efficient, and automated solution for reaching out to everyone you want to attend, Eventbrite marketing suite makes maximising your festival attendance as easy as pumpkin pie.
