Arcade Party

An arcade party doesn’t necessarily have to be held at an arcade. There are plenty of fun & inexpensive ways to set up your own arcade at home. Here you’ll find fun party ideas for invitations, decorations, food, treat bags and of course games! This is a great theme for teenagers who love video games!

For even more fun Arcade party ideas, visit our special Arcade category.

Arcade Party – Invitations

A fun idea for an arcade invitation is a ticket style invitation inviting them to your newly created home arcade. It could include words like:

• Please join us for the Grand Opening of {Child’s Name}’s Arcade!
• Game On!
• Bring your best game playing skills for {Child’s Name}’s Arcade Championships!
• Let the games begin!
• Calling All Gammers!

1. Studio basics: birthday party invitations, Arcade Prize
2. Corporate event invitations, Admit One
3. Birthday party invitation, Special Ticket

Arcade Party – Decorations

One of the great things about an arcade party is that the games also go towards your party decor. I’ll talk more about games in the next section. To set the scene for an arcade at home, you’ll need plenty of fun arcade signs, neon lights and spotlights. If you can, dim the lights in the party area and use neon & flashing lights instead.

There are also plenty of arcade inspired stuffed animals like Pac Man and Donkey Kong that could be placed around the party area. Here are a few other ideas for signs, tokens on tables, wall decals and more! 1. 80’s Arcade Sign Party Accessory
2. Super Mario Luigi Video Game Arcade Sticker
3. Pinball Zone Sign
4. Arcade Zone Sign
5. Arcade Game Door Cover
6. Plastic Gold Coins
7. LED OPEN Sign DW-2
8. White Neon Glowing Strobing Electroluminescent Wire
9. Creative Motion Rotating Disco Ball Light
10. Good Earth Lighting Halogen Spot Light
11. Nintendo Super Mario Brothers Mario Plush Donkey Kong
12. Pac-Man 6″ Plush Video Edition Set Of 6

Arcade Party – Activities

The key to a fun arcade party is plenty of arcade games! Most of us don’t have a home filled with arcade games so you’ll have to improvise a little bit.

To start with, you may want to use small white boards at each game station to record high scores during the party. The person with the highest score at each game could be given a prize at the end of the party. You could also hand out tickets to each player who participates in a game. The players could then use these tickets later to fill their favor bag at the end of the party. I’ll discuss this in a bit more detail later!

Most of the fun games shown below are under $30 and they all fit perfectly into an arcade party theme. You may also want a few timers for some of the games to record how many points players score within a specified time frame.

Some fun arcade game ideas are:

• Video games like racing games and dancing competitions
• Small handheld pinball games
• Over the door hanging basketball games
• Darts to pop balloons on a cork board
• Bowling games
• Whack A Mole (my favorite arcade game!)
• Water guns & shooting rubber ducks
• Claw game for trying to grab prizes out of a clear container (you could also use salad tongs for this and have guests close their eyes and grab a small prize out of a large box – for even more difficulty, you can blindfold them and spin them around a couple of times)

1. Premium Single Ticket Roll
2. Dry-Erase Boards
3. Electronic Arcade Speedball
4. “The Claw” Electronic Candy Grabber Machine Arcade Game
5. Whac-A-Mole Arcade Game
6. New Entertainment Desktop Skill Ball
7. Frontier Quick Draw Electronic Target Shooting Set
8. Mini Rubber Ducks 18ct
9. Nerf Super Soaker Scatter Blast
10. Sportcraft Door Jamz Basketball Game
11. Just Dance 4
12. Carnival Adventure Table Top Pinball

Arcade Party – Food

A fun idea would be to set up a concession stand with food items to “purchase” with tickets or tokens that the guests are given as they enter the party. Some food ideas are:

• Hot Dogs
• Donkey Kong burgers
• Mario’s Pasta Special
• Popcorn

1. Super Mario Bros. Dinner Plates (8 count) Child
2. Party Destination 171982 Super Mario Bros. Napkins
3. Super Mario Bros. 9 oz. Cups

Arcade Party – Dessert

Besides cake and cupcakes, an arcade party could include fun desserts like:

• Cut cookies into Pac Man shapes
• Pinballs (regular cake pops iced in grey or silver icing to make them look like pinballs)
• Cotton Candy

Arcade Party – Favors

When guests arrive to the party, they can be given small plastic cups with tickets and tokens. The tokens can be used for food at the concession stand and the tickets can be traded in for fun prizes. Each guest can be given a personalized treat bag that they can fill with whatever prizes they choose from the prize area. You can label each prize with how many tickets each one is worth. Guests can then use the tickets they’ve been given or have won during the party to fill their favor bags to take home. Some fun ideas for an arcade party prize area include: 1. Personalized Birthday Party Goodie Bags
2. Punch Balls Toys
3. Mini Neon 2-Tone Pinwheels
4. Musical Instrument Key Chains
5. Sticky Hands
6. Neon Clackers
7. Rubik’s Cube 3 x 3
8. Schylling Space Race Pinball Game
9. Fury Nails
10. Mini Press-n-Go Racers
11. Whistling Lips
12. Mini Flying Saucer Assortment

What’s your favorite arcade game?

For more fun birthday party ideas including themes, decorating ideas, food ideas, activities, free printables, favor ideas and more, check out our special Birthday Party page.

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**Disclosure: I am part of the Amazon, Birthday in a Box, Tiny Prints Inc., Beau-coup and Big Dot of Happiness affiliate programs. All opinions expressed here are 100% my own.