Mar
25
Have your kids been to a gazillion different backyard carnivals, and pretty much seen the whole gamut of amusements that can be crammed into their best friends backyard. Likely, they’ve seen the multiple variety of bouncy castles, the dunk tank at school where they get to send their least favorite teacher for a swim. There’s also of course the usual variations, of something plastic floating in a pool that they need to catch with a cheap plastic fishing rod, that has a little magnet attached to the end. Let’s not forget of course about the balloon and dart games. Do be careful with these ones though, we don’t need anyone getting poked with the business end of a dart. Of course, throwing games never go out of style. Even from the old school baseball and milk jugs, to the newer throwing pies at your best buddy.
If you can incorporate anything digital and electronic into the mix of your carnival games, you know those will be a big hit. I would think the Nintento Wii could be a lot of fun here. I’ve read and seen videos with a few brilliant hacks of the Wii remotes used for other purposes, than what the original designers had in mind. I’ve seen the Wii remote used as a smart board, and even as a somewhat crude virtual reality game. It’s really just an infrared camera inside the remote. So find yourself a gadget geek and see what kind of toys they can come up with.
Barring that, see if you can find some unusual performers to add to the carnival atmosphere ala Cirque de Soleil style. Nothing like a few good contornists to gross out the parents, and amuse the kids to no end.