If you’re looking for event entertainment ideas for National Night Out, Kaleidoscope has been working in partnership with local communities for over a decade to create amazing partnerships.
Here are the top entertainment ideas we’ve seen local police and community partners use to create high-attendance and high-engagement National Night Outs happen across CT, MA, RI, NH, VT, and ME.
5 National Night Out Event Entertainment Ideas
1. Paw Patrol Mascots
At-A-Glance: Invite families to meet their favorite first responders at your National Night Out–perfect for the theme of community safety!
Ages: Toddlers – 1st grade
Guests Per Hour: 20-30 families per hour.
Marketing Considerations: When booking a mascot company, ask for photos of their actual mascots so you can use their actual faces on any marketing you do. (Even at a glance, families will understand that their kids will meet the characters, verses just be attending a themed party.)
Set Up Needed: Mascot actors need to be in shade or indoors during the hot evenings of August, as well as have access to a private dressing room or break room for events over 45min. Learn more about mascot safety here.
2. Face Painting & Balloon Twisting
At-A-Glance: Hire face painters and balloon twisters for free community entertainment that’s sure to attract a crowd.
Ages: Toddlers – Tweens
Guests Per Hour: In our experience, the type of face painter (and face paint designs) make a huge difference.
- A volunteer face painter can typically only get through around 10-15 faces per hour, even with simple designs
- A professional face painter can typically get through 12-15 impressive “full face” designs per hour
- Our custom speedy face menu can get through 20-30 guests per hour.
The same is true with balloon twisting. We suggest a professional twister with a simplified menu to get through 20-30 guests per hour, verses the 10 or so balloon dogs a free volunteer can make.
Marketing Considerations: Free face painting and balloon twisting is probably THE best way to draw a crowd. Ask your artists for photos of their work to use on your social media, and in turn ask them if they can promote your free event on their own social media.
Set Up Needed: Face painters typically require 1 table and 2 chairs each. Balloon twisters usually require 1 table and 1 chair. Given that it’s August, make sure you set them up in the shade (with their line in the shade as well) to prevent any medical emergencies while children are waiting in line.
3. Strolling Magic
At-A-Glance: Hire a family-friendly entertainer to stroll through your crowd and entertain with a touch of magic.
Ages: Prek – Adult
Guests Per Hour: Typically strolling magicians can get through around 6-10 groups per hour, a group consisting of a family, a segment of a line waiting for food, or any other cluster of people.
Marketing Considerations: Magic is wonderful, but doesn’t tend to draw as many families as face painting or balloon twisting. To get the most bang for your buck, ask your magician if they can share the free event on their social media or email list.
Set Up Needed: Typically a magician just needs a place to store extra props and a water bottle, even if that’s just their car parked near by.
4. Caricatures
At-A-Glance: These bucket-list worthy cartoons of your party guests are always the most popular station at any event.
Ages: Tween – Adult
Guests Per Hour: 6-10 faces per hour per caricature artist, so you’ll likely want to hire multiple artists.
Marketing Considerations: Caricatures can draw a good crowd for an event, but the real marketing magic can be in getting custom caricature paper created. Families will keep these forever and often hang them in their houses, so your department can make an impact by getting your name and logo front and center.
Set Up Needed: Each caricature artist will need 1 table and 3 chairs (1 chair for them and 2 for guests since couple caricatures are so popular). Make sure this is in the shade because caricature lines can be long and in August we don’t want anyone to faint in the direct sun!
5. DJs
At-A-Glance: Having a DJ can set a great ambiance for your event, but more importantly a professional DJ can also become a much-needed Master of Ceremonies to help advertise different activities, host games, or run giveaways.
Ages: All Ages
Guests Per Hour: Your whole event!
Marketing Considerations: While a DJ typically won’t draw a crowd by themselves, you can use your DJ to make announcements for community advertising partners to sweeten your partnership packages. If you’re considering doing tiered community sponsorships, use our DJ’s ability to make announcements in one of the higher tiers available to local businesses who help make your event a success.
Set Up Needed: DJ equipment will need to be in the shade and have access to a 3-pronged, grounded outlet. (Make sure their set up is close enough to an outlet so no one will trip over any cables!)
5 In-House National Night Out Entertainment Ideas
1. K9 Unit Meet & Greet
Whether it’s a petting station or a station where kids can learn how to appropriately interact with working dogs, animals are always a huge draw for families.
2. Touch a Truck with the Fire Department
Team up with a local fire station to bring out one of their trucks and to meet and greet with one of their fire fighters in their gear.
(Bonus points: ask them for some demonstrative equipment for the next idea!)
Above: a demonstration of what a themed photo booth prop table can look like. This was for one of our corporate clients, but for your National Night Out you can use odds and ends from your department.
3. Dress Up DIY Photo Station
Gather up any demonstration handcuffs, uniforms, hats, badges, or anythings else around your department to create a photo booth prop table. Even better, ask EMTs or Fire if they can add anything else.
This station can go a lot more smoothly with a professional photo booth attendant and set up, but you can also make it a selfie station with a volunteer.
4. Hands-On Siren Demonstrations
Far away from the main event, park a police cruiser and invite kids one at a time to try the sirens!
(Just make sure it’s far, far away from the main event. While there sirens may be just background noise to you, there will be families with young and autistic children that may need to leave if your party is too noisy!)
5. FREE Police Badge Sticker Crafts Above
Print out the above FREE craft on label paper. Invite families to color, cut out, and stick their DIY police badges onto themselves!
3 Community Building & Marketing National Night Out Event Ideas
1. Have community members sponsor event entertainment booths
If you’re not sure that entertainment is in your budget, talk to local banks, daycares, grocery stores, cafes, or real estate agents about sponsoring an entertainment booth.
Place the free entertainment at their booth, with the advantage to them that while families are waiting in the line their sales team can talk to waiting parents or hand out promotional materials.
2. Work with the local food pantry or churches to rally donations
Do good in your community by teaming up with community members to collect food for pantries.
This has a triple advantage: a reason for families to come, an activity anyone can participate in, and more marketing partners to get the word out about your event.
3. Work with local outdoor shopping centers to host your National Night Out
In our experience, outdoor shopping centers often have designated spaces for community programming and are often looking for community members to use those spaces.
Talk to a local outdoor shopping center about potentially teaming up and hosting your event. Again: the more community members you team up with, the more families on your collective social media and email lists.
Tips for Making Your National Night Out Event Entertainment Ideas Work For You
1. Use “high value” entertainment to lead your marketing. Your “why” is to meet your community members. But their “why” is likely not to meet you–it’s likely to get their kids out of the house with something for free. Using entertainment as a marketing hook is a great idea.
2. Remember that free volunteers may struggle with high volume events. If you can get free volunteers, that’s awesome. But especially for “line” activities like face painting and balloon twisting, you’ll need more than you think you will. Even with simple designs, volunteers doing something they’re not used to will struggle with a large event (we’ve seen this plenty of times).
3. Don’t assume families can pay for food, entertainment, or experiences at your National Night Out. If you want to bring in food trucks that may be a great option for you, but regardless of your community don’t bring in a lower tier of free activities (like touch a truck and a craft station) and a paid tier of nicer activities (like face painting or caricatures). Don’t leave out kids whose parents can’t afford to pay for activities because you want to pass on your event costs to guests. This may be an attendance boost one year, but will turn families away from your event for good going forward.
Categories: Party Ideas (CT MA RI NH)