Spooky season is here, and with it come some of our favorite things: costumes, candy, and parties! While traditional trick-or-treating is fun, a safer and even more community-driven alternative has been growing — and it’s called “Trunk-or-Treat!”
A trunk-or-treat takes an ordinary parking lot and turns it into a neighborhood of decorated cars with people of the community passing out candy. It condenses the Halloween candy-hunting tradition to a smaller and more structured area, making it easier for kids to stay safe while still having a blast collecting enough sugar to last until the holidays!
If you want to plan a Trunk-or-Treat event for your school, neighborhood, church, or other community, you’ve come to the right place. Here are some Trunk-or-Treat tips and tricks to make it an excellent time for everyone:
1. Choose a Theme
Trunk-or-Treats with themes can add a lot of extra fun to the whole experience! Having a theme also makes it easier for volunteers running trunk-or-treat spots—known as your “trunk hosts”—to decide how to decorate their vehicles. Here are some popular theme ideas to get you started:
- Carnival games
- Animal kingdom
- Bible stories (especially if it’s a church-hosted event!)
- Circus (our Carousel Combo is a great centerpiece for this theme)
- Heroes vs. Villains
- Popular children’s books
- Classic trick-or-treating
- Through the Decades (assign each trunk a decade!)
If you decide to let trunk hosts pick their own themes, establish clear guidelines for how scary decorations can be. Most likely, you’ll want to avoid anything too scary in order to keep it family-friendly for all ages!
2. Find Enthusiastic Trunk Hosts
The first step is to collect all of the trunks for your event! Spread the word and have interested parties sign up for a parking spot to bring their decorated vehicle and pass out candy. To incentivize people to volunteer and go all-out, have a decorating contest with prizes for the best trunk!
Set a clear time frame for when they should arrive to set up their spot and how long the event will go. Give trunk hosts lists of what to bring and what will be provided. For example, you might provide candy or you might ask them to donate a certain number of bags to last the whole evening.
Bonus Tip: Not everyone can host a trunk, so provide other ways the community can get involved! For example, invite them to donate candy the trunk hosts can pass out!
3. Set Up Zones
Especially if your trunk-or-treat is a free event, you never know when the crowds are going to get bustling! To avoid your event getting overcrowded, set up the trunk-or-treat vehicles along a clear path that keeps kids and families moving through, and end with a more open area set up in zones for any additional concessions and activities.
Knowing there are fun activities at the end will keep the kids moving, and knowing there is real food at the end will keep the parents eager to move along and attempt to get a little nutrition in their children before the sugar rush sets in!
Some popular Trunk-or-Treat activities and concessions include:
- Competitive games like Guardians Galaxy or Wrecking Ball
- On-theme bounce houses
- Popcorn
- Cotton Candy
- Air brush tattoos
- Face painting
Here at Fun Services, we have many games, inflatables, and other rentals to make your event a blast, so browse our shop for even more ideas!
4. Have a Backup Plan
Don’t let an unexpected change in the weather cancel the event you’ve spent so long planning and prepping for! Like any outdoor event in the fall and winter months, you should have a backup plan in place in preparation for the possibility of uncooperative weather. This plan could be as simple as moving the event inside and having trunk hosts set up on tables instead of cars, or you might preemptively rent a huge tent for vehicles to park under and stay dry.
If there is a high possibility of bad weather in the forecast, make sure your trunk hosts know what the alternative plan is so they can figure out how to adapt their decorations in a different setting.
5. Keep It Tidy
Trunk-or-treats can get messy! To avoid candy wrappers drifting everywhere, have plenty of large trash cans set up throughout the event where attendees can dispose of any trash from candy or concessions. It’s also a good idea to have a few volunteers acting as security and custodial services for the night, keeping the whole lot clean and making sure everyone is having a safe and fun time.
Let’s Make This Trunk-or-Treat the Best One Yet!
Fun Services is all about providing the best party rentals to match your totally original event. If you’re in Kansas City or St. Louis, contact us to find out what rentals we have available this Halloween season to add extra fun and excitement to your Trunk-or-Treat!
