Organising a Carnival association: From the initial meeting to the procession and ticket sales

It is Tuesday evening at half past eight and the Carnival President is sitting at the table with three WhatsApp messages, an Excel spreadsheet and a pile of cash for the Shrove Tuesday concert. Organising a carnival association means managing dozens of committees, volunteers and a season full of parades without anything falling through the cracks. That is best achieved by communicating per committee, recording meetings and putting ticket sales online.

What does organising a carnival association actually entail?

Organising a carnival association is the ongoing task of coordinating committees, volunteers, events and cash flows throughout the entire season. At the Council of Eleven, board members are already thinking about the Variety Night in September, whereas the Float-Building Committee only gets into gear in January. Those differing rhythms make structure more important than for a club with one fixed season.

Many executive boards will recognise the scene of the Float Building Committee hard at work in the shed on a Saturday morning, while the Youth Carnival Committee is preparing a children's procession that very same day. Without clear agreements, those groups end up getting in each other's way. A categorisation into groups per committee ensures that everyone only sees what is relevant to them.

How do you allocate tasks across the committees?

Every committee works best with its own designated space for discussion and planning. The Float Building Committee needs different information than the Variety Show Committee, and neither wants to be bothered with each other's details.

When organising the layout, think of a few recognisable groups: Float Building, Youth Carnival, Variety Night, Parade Committee and the Council of Eleven itself. This way, a volunteer will only see news and events that concern their own committee, and the board retains an overview of the whole.

How do you schedule meetings and rehearsals?

A season at a carnival association has a regular stream of dates: committee meetings, commission consultations, rehearsals for the Variety Night, and construction evenings in the shed. You put these in the diary as events, including signing up and cancelling per person.

That way, the Carnival Evening Committee knows exactly who is coming to rehearsal on Wednesday evening, and the Float Building Committee can see who will be in the shed on Saturday. create event takes a couple of minutes and can then be copied for the next rehearsal.

From board meeting to AGM: record key decisions instantly with a voice note. Record the discussion, and the app automatically generates a summary with decisions and action points, using the Minutes template as standard. That saves the secretary an evening of typing after a long board meeting.

How do you sell tickets for the Fancy Fair online?

For many carnival associations, the Variety Night is the financial highlight of the season, and it is precisely there that cash ticket sales and Excel lists quickly grind to a halt. With one ticket per event, you set the name, price, availability and a sales period, and the overview updates automatically.

What makes Carnival special is that not only members want a ticket: neighbours, former members and fellow villagers who aren't members want to be there too. For that, you share the public ticket shop as a link, for example on the village website or via the local Facebook page, and you check out via iDEAL without anyone having to log in.

Would you like to reserve some of the tickets for members and make some available to the general public? You can arrange this by linking ticket types to specific groups or by making them public. This way, the Carnival committee keeps control over who sits where, without closing the door on the village.

An evening with its own unique atmosphere also deserves its own ticket. In Ticket Studio you design the PDF ticket with your own background and colours matching the theme of the Fancy Fair, and the purchased ticket automatically lands in the buyer's Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.

When do you choose a comprehensive approach and when not?

A carnival association with multiple committees, its own float-building shed and a variety show with hundreds of visitors benefits from a central environment where communication, meetings and ticket sales come together. As the number of committees and volunteers grows, the time saved by targeted groups and an online ticket shop becomes increasingly significant.

If your association is small, with one annual evening and a handful of regular volunteers who already speak to each other personally, an extensive division into groups might be more than necessary. In that case, simply start with ticket sales for the Variety Night, and only expand into separate committee groups once the association actually grows. Structure should support the atmosphere of Carnival, not replace it.

Frequently asked questions about organising a carnival association

Can we also sell tickets to non-members?

Yes, that is possible via the public ticket shop, which you can share outside the association as a link. Non-members pay via iDEAL and receive their ticket automatically by email, just like members.

How much does it cost to sell tickets via 4planning?

Per betaald ticket betaalt de koper € 0,60 servicekosten. Bekijk de actuele pakketten en voorwaarden op de pricing page.

Can we also give away free tickets to volunteers?

Yes, you can send a free ticket directly to one person, or create a free ticket type that people can claim themselves. Both count towards the available capacity of that ticket type.

Will the minutes of the board meeting still be available to find later?

Yes, every recording can be searched by date or keyword and exported as a PDF or markdown. The audio file itself is automatically deleted after the set retention period, while the transcript and summary are kept.

How do we ensure that the Float Building Committee doesn't see all the messages from the Variety Show Committee?

By setting both up as a separate group, each committee will receive only news, events and messages intended for that group. Only members of a group will have access to the communication within it.

Put ticket sales for the upcoming Bonte Avond online and let the village choose its own ticket, while each committee continues working on the season within its own group in the meantime.