23 tips and ideas to promote your school event

Imagine this. You’ve turned up to your event to see more people have turned up than you could ever have imagined. There are smiling faces in the crowd from all around your school and the local area. Better yet, they’re here because you got them to be here. How good would that feel?

But it can be pretty confusing figuring out how you can get that to happen. After all, you’re probably on a tight budget (if any), and you don’t have a lot of power. Well, we think we might have the answer - great design.

Well designed posters, flyers, rack cards, and social media updates can get lots of people’s attention and bring them to your event, without you having to invest a lot of money or time. Which is exactly why we’ve put together this article.

We want to show you 23 different ways you can promote your event using design, and share some specific templates you can get started with right away. So, if you want to quickly and easily learn how to promote your event, you’re in the right place.

Each school event is different.

Although many of the tips and tricks to promote it are the same, the way you put them into action will be a little bit more tailored. Take a look at some of the major events that happen at your school every year (or semester):

• Concerts
• Charity events and fundraisers
• Election
• Sports games
• School dance
• Stage shows and performances

All of these will need their own unique style to be promoted. After all, what it takes to get people to attend a basketball game is different from a student election rally. Especially when it comes to designing them.

In the rest of this article we’re going to show you five quick tips to promote your event, and then give you some specific design templates you can use to get people’s attention and get them to show up.

Behind every successful school event, there are some tips and tricks they’ve used to help get people to attend. And, we want to show you how to do it, too.

No matter your event, these next five tips will help you market your school to other students and hopefully increase attendance to your next event. After these tips, we’ll show you some specific designs to help you promote each individual event.

01. Get visual

With lots of events going on in your school, it’s important to have some designs that say, “Hey, look at me!”. This means creating striking, bold and colourful designs.

Posters and flyers have the power to turn heads in the corridor, while social media images and Snapchat filters can stop people from scrolling and make them pay attention to your event. That split-second glance could be all you need to get someone to attend!

02. Use social media

Social media is probably where a lot of your friends, and fellow students, spend their time hanging out. They’re checking social media apps every couple of hours to see what’s going on in the world. Capture their interest with engaging posts designed for their Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) feeds. If they’re giving it a lot of their attention, you might as well sneak onto their phones and steal a little bit of it for your event, right?

You can do this by creating social media updates - like quote images, or mini-posters - that make people pay attention and read more about your event. For example, you could edit our Fresh Green template to create an eye-catching Instagram post:

03. Create videos

People love to be able to visualize what it’s like at an event. Seeing other people having fun, or preparing, for the event can help to generate interest and buzz.

If you have any videos from a previous event, you could use a free online video editor to make it more engaging as a way to promote the next event on social media. Or, you could use Instagram or Snapchat to create mini-documentaries about your preparation, or what people could experience at the event, in the “stories” for all of your followers to see.

For example, if you’re hosting a school concert, you could show band practices or setlists or stage preparations. Anything to give people a behind-the-scenes taste of what your event will be like.

04. Go offline

Although there is lots of attention online, don’t forget to target people in-person too. Create posters or flyers, come up with event brochures and programs, or generate raffle ticketsto effectively generate interest for your event.

Better yet, if you can strategically put posters around the campus, where the right people can see them, you could see a huge increase in the number of people who want to attend. After all, a design like our Spirit Night poster is bound to turn heads.

You may also try working on a raffle ticket template, which you can you for a raffle draw event. Click the link to find out more!

05. Take over some of your school’s media

Your school will likely have some media channels in place they use to contact parents, students, or promote it to new potential students. This could be anything from a mailing list or on-campus radio station, through to a X (Twitter) feed or a Facebook page.

You could ask a teacher (really nicely) if you’d be able to use any of them to promote your event. They may let you create an update or “advert” style piece that lets you share the details with lots of students and parents. Winner!

A concert needs something to help people imagine what it’s going to be like listening to your music. For example, if you’re part of a rock band, they’ll need to be able to feel the guitar riffs before you even step on stage.

You can get a lot of inspiration for this by looking at the posters and designs for your favourite bands. But we’ve also hand-picked some designs to help you.

06. Concert-themed flyers

These easy-to-edit templates are perfect to hand out to people to get them interested in your gig. Simply click on any of the images to start editing.

07. Concert-themed posters

Posters are perfect for generating hype around your gig. They can really help give people a flavour of your music before they attend. Plus, they can be a keepsake for you to mark the occasion.

08. Concert Instagram updates

You can edit any of these updates as a way to promote your gig, or just share some quotes or ideas you love about music. Sure to stand out in a busy Instagram feed.

09. Official band page Facebook covers

A cool way to promote your next gig is by including the details for it in your official band Facebook page cover photo. When you update it, lots of your followers will see it. And anyone who stumbles across your page will see it too.

Charity events often need a softer touch that help people rally around a cause. Ideally, you’d like your design to tug on the heartstrings of the person who sees it, and make them feel sympathetic to your work.

10. Charity-themed flyers

Charity flyers are a nice way to promote an upcoming event. You can theme it either around the activity for your event, the cause you’re raising money for, or both.

11. Charity-themed posters

Charity posters are a great way to get people to stop, think, and then attend your event. The stronger the imagery, and the more it fits with your cause, the better.

12. Charity infographics

Infographics can help you share information about your cause on social media, through blogs, and on websites. They’re longer images that you can edit to show bullet-point information, and icons, that surround your cause. Easily shareable and visible.

Don’t forget to include your event information at the top or bottom!

Student elections are one of the most fun parts of the school year. It’s great to see the competition and campaigning involved. If you’re running for a position on student council, you want to give yourself the best chance of winning. And, good design can help you do that!

We also have an article about how to run for student council that you can read here.

13. Election-themed campaign posters

A good poster can really help to spread and election message. You can share your thoughts and ideas, whilst putting out a “call to action” to vote for you. There’s a reason elected officials still use them to this day!

14. Election-themed Instagram posts

If you want to reach your audience where they’re paying the most attention, then instagram posts are a great way to go. Why not edit these two below to share with your potential voters?

When you’re promoting a school sports game, it’s important to give your fellow students something to get behind. They need a reason to whoop, chant and holler. So, do what you can to get them excited before the game. If they know it’ll be a spectacle, they’ll be sure to show up!

15. School sports posters

Posters turn heads in corridors and give people something to talk about. The more they see it, and the more they mention it to their friends, the more people will show up. Don’t be afraid to take inspiration from what your favourite professional teams are doing, either.

16. School sports flyers

Flyers help you to share more information about the upcoming game or tryout. You can also add things like discount codes or vouchers to ensure people hold onto them.

17. School sports Facebook covers

If your team has an official Facebook page you can add the details for your latest event or tryout to your cover image. These can even be uploaded to a Facebook Event page, so people always know exactly what’s happening, and when.

18. School sports Instagram updates

People love reading quotes about sports. You could ask your team’s players to comment about the upcoming game, or share some motivational tips, and share it as an image update in the build up to the game. A cool and original way to start building some hype!

School dances are at the top of the social calendar for students. They’re a great way to mingle, dance and have fun, and maybe steal a dance with that person you fancy.

If you’re on the planning committee, you’ll want to make sure all of your promotions set the scene for an incredible event, and ensure people will come. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

19. Dance-themed posters

No school dance is complete without a properly themed poster. The style and information on there can help set the tone for the entire night! You can customise all of these designs to fit any theme or idea, so don’t be afraid to get creative.

20. Dance-themed flyers

Flyers are great take-home promotional materials that allow you to go deeper into what the dance is all about. If there are any specific instructions of what to bring, or extra information about what’s happening, this is the place to put it.

21. Dance-themed Snapchat geofilters

Geofilters are those cool Snapchat filters that show up when you’re at a specific location. But did you know you can create them yourself? You can add them to your school campus so they can be used for preparation, or for people who are attending to add onto their stories.

You can learn more about how to create and set these up right here.

When you’re putting on a show, you want to do it to the biggest crowd possible. You’ve been putting in a lot of time behind the curtain, and when it’s raised, it’d be nice if there were lots of people there, wouldn’t it?

Well, through the power of design, you can attract lots of people to your stage show or performance. You can even pinch some ideas from your favourite movie, TV or stage performances to help you create!

22. Show and performance posters

Every artistic display needs a poster that does it justice. It can help set the tone and generate hype around what people are going to see. It’s about giving them the same feeling you get when you see a poster for an upcoming movie.

23. Talent show flyers

A talent show (or show of any kind) needs a good flyer to help promote it. Why not use one of our designs below to create an two-sided flyer that gives the would-be performers all the information they need?

All of the designs in this article can easily be customised and shared using Canva’s editing suite.

You can create images, download them and use them however you need to promote your event. That includes:

• Creating PDFs
• Printing out
• Sharing on social media
• Working in teams of up to 10 on individual designs

Once you’ve downloaded you’re free to use them however you want! Which, hopefully, will be getting people to attend your event.