Luau Hoopla — Luau Party Ideas

Amount of Time: 5 Hours to 20 Hours
Budget: $150 to $750
Age Group: Any Age
Indoor/Outdoor: Outdoors is probably best, hopefully on a warm day/evening

Special Notes: This is a very good theme for a family party — both kids and adults will enjoy themselves. You can make a luau be very inexpensive to more costly depending on the invitations, decorations, crafts, food, and goody bags that you have at the party. The following ideas are designed to provide ideas for any budget.

A luau is a very popular theme for any age. This is especially fun during the warm summer months.

Check out Luau Party Supplies to add to the festivity and fun while planning!

Invitations:

To save money, you could easily send an evite invitation to your party if your guests have access to the Internet. There is no cost associated to sending evites and they have a wide variety of themes to match your party.

There are also ready-made luau invitations that can be found at many party shops like Birthday Express or Party City, which also have many other items for decorating, playing music, and games for your luau party.

You can download clip art onto your computer to use on the invitations you are making, in order to give your invitations a luau theme.

Decorations:

If budget is a consideration, you can always ask your local party store and/or grocery store whether they have any old decorations, such as grass skirts, tiki poles, or lanterns that they would be willing to give to you for free. Often major stores have old decorations that they would be happy to donate to your party. It just requires asking a question.

Another inexpensive way to decorate is to make tissue paper flowers that you can scatter across your party tables and area, as well as tissue paper tropical birds.

Make a flower napkin/cutlery holder out of felt. Wrap the holder around the napkin and cutlery and this will also add a festive touch for a small amount of money.

Make paper lanterns and hang them on trees throughout your yard.

Have your guests wear tropical attire, i.e. their wildest Hawaiian shirt. This will also make for a festive atmosphere.

Provide your guests with leis as they enter the party. You could either make these out of string with tissue paper flowers or go all the way with real, tropical flowers. It just depends on your budget.

Paint a Hawaiian tropical scene on an old sheet and hang it between two trees. You can take pictures of guests there as well.

Other decorating ideas would include: grass skirting for your tables, tiki torches (which can also be filled with oil that keeps the bugs away), a big “Aloha” sign hung to welcome your guests (you can either make it or buy one), and blow-up palm tree balloons.

Use fun cocktail umbrellas in all of your drinks for a festive touch.

Have Hawaiian music playing in the background.

To give it a tropical feel, spray paint an old white sheet with a tropical scene and hang it outdoors — perhaps between two trees. When the guests arrive, take pictures of everyone with the tropical scene as a back drop.

If you have a pool, fill it with beach balls. You could even get a small kiddie pool and fill it with beach balls as well.

Games:

Have a limbo contest.

Have a hula hoop contest.

Teach people the hula — have grass skirts available to make it authentic.

Play Pass the Pineapple. Purchase a pineapple and have your guests pass it around to music. When the music stops, the person holding the pineapple wins a prize.

Have a relay contest, but with a twist. Fill a suitcase or a big tote bag with clothes that both a man and woman would wear on a vacation. The relay consists of running to the bag, getting dressed in the outfit, running back with the bag, taking the costume off, and then the next person must put on the costume and run with the suitcase to the other side.

Go Coconut Bowling: Use a coconut as a bowling ball to knock over three pineapple pins.

Play Pin the Monkey on the Palm Tree.

Have a tropical piñata. Kids can take home the candy from the piñata.

Crafts:

Provide each guest with their name spelled in Hawaiian and have the kids make name tags or bracelets with their Hawaiian names. This can be something that the kids can take home.

Make hemp bracelets.

Make leis.

Do face painting — tropical palm trees or fruits would be fun.

Decorate sand dollars with glitter and glue.

Food:

You could set up these snacks at the “Snack Shack” — a cute storefront for kids to get their goodies:

• Fruit salad. Try to include some tropical fruits in there, e.g. pineapple
• Veggies with a ranch dip
• Crackers and cheese
• Chips and dips

If you would like to serve lunch/dinner to your guests:

• Have a BBQ and enjoy chicken, steaks, veggies, and kebabs on the grill.
• Serve Hawaiian meatballs.
• Make Hawaiian pizza.
• Make fresh pineapple boats.
• Have the kids create their own fruit skewers and have them dip the skewers in chocolate and other sauces.

Serve little sandwiches cut out in fishy shapes, Goldfish crackers, or fresh fruit salads inside melon cups. You could also make cakes in ice cream cones and then have the kids frost and decorate them with “tropical flowers” made from sugared candies.

Cake:

Check the following links for some great luau/ocean cake ideas.

Drinks:

Serve Hawaiian Punch and add in cherries with the umbrella for extra fun!

Also, this would be a great party for Shirley Temples!

You can also serve juice and milkshakes.

Favors:

Send the kids home with a sand pail filled with candy, bubbles, tropical stickers, and a fish notepad.

You could also give them a hula hoop or an inflatable beach ball.

Check out these cool party favor boxes!

Include the picture you took at the party in the thank you notes you send out after the party.

Have a festive party!