A pep rally is a great opportunity to gather the entire school in one venue and show support for the school’s sports team. It also encourages team spirit among students, faculty, and the school’s administration. While it’s impractical to hold a pep rally every time there’s a basketball or football game, holding a pep rally a few times a year helps recognise all athletes—especially for schools with a large population and numerous sports teams.

However, organising a pep rally can be challenging. You need to coordinate with the sports and cheerleading team as well as get the school administration on board with the idea of holding a rally for the student-athletes. On top of that, you need to make sure it’s going to be a fun and exciting event that everyone will look forward to.

In case you’re looking for pep rally ideas that will excite and encourage everyone, here are some tips you can try the next time you organise and host the event.

Pep Rally | Select a Creative

Having a theme can help create the general feel of the pep rally. It can also make more people look forward to it. You can draw inspiration from the season’s main events for the theme. If, for example, you hold a pep rally during fall, you can tie it up with homecoming. This way you can show some love to your school’s football team and honour the alumni. With homecoming as the central theme, you can invite a former school athlete to participate in the festivities and ask them to officiate the pep rally. They can add to the school spirit that you also want everyone to feel.

Another great idea is to have a winter-themed pep rally to show support for the school’s winter sports teams. Given that it will be held during the cold season, it’s best to use an indoor venue to keep everyone warm and comfortable. Then, you can decorate the place with white lights and glittery silver decorations to accentuate the wonderful winter season. These elements create a wonderful backdrop for the performances of the students and cheerleading team.

Get People Excited before the Event

If you want the entire school to participate in the pep rally, hype up the event days before the actual date. So if you’re holding the pep rally on a Friday afternoon, start building up the excitement as early as Monday. You can do this is by giving away or selling pep rally-related merchandise.

For instance, you can sell rubber bracelets in your school’s colours for a dollar each and raise some money to add to the teams’ funds. Everyone who’s planning to attend the rally can all wear the bracelet throughout the week to show their support. You can also give away temporary school logo tattoos that students can wear on the day of the pep rally. It will add more colour to the audience stand and ramp up school spirit.

Boost the Energy with Some Music

Before starting the pep rally, welcome your audience with some upbeat music to the venue. It will help get everyone excited and set the tone for the event. Typically, you have these high-energy songs playing as students enter the gym or the field. You can also accompany the music with a video of the student-athletes and teachers. To do this, you can collect photos from past games and put them in a slide show for everyone to watch. Then, you can subscribe to a music streaming site and play an ad-free playlist during the presentation.

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Hold Fun Contests

Another way to create more excitement for the pep rally is to hold contests. Make sure to inform participants that the winners will receive a prize, which can be a food coupon at a nearby pizza place or restaurant. This can encourage more students to join in on the fun.

You can have a cheering competition where each class can come up with their own cheerleading routine to help encourage your school’s representatives. Then, the team that gets the loudest praise from the audience wins. You can also opt to get a few volunteers from each class to perform the routine instead.

Alternatively, you can also try organising a poster-making contest. You can ask homerooms, school clubs, and teams to create a poster showing the best team spirit. You can display the posters around the school and have people vote on the best one. You can then announce the winner at the pep rally.

Honour Student-Athletes

While pep rallies are all about team spirit, you can also use the opportunity to honour hard-working student-athletes. You can mention either new or graduating athletes and present them with a special plaque or trophy for their achievements to show the school’s appreciation for their efforts. To make this segment of the pep rally even more special, collect photos and videos to create a reel of memorable moments of the individual. In the presentation, you can include the year’s sports highlights and bloopers.

Holding a pep rally is an excellent opportunity to bring the whole school together and show some team spirit. But it can be challenging to organise, more so to make it interesting and exciting for all the attendees. Hopefully, these pep rally ideas can help make your next school event fun and memorable for everyone.