Easter 2026 runs from 30 March to 14 April — and if you haven’t already started planning your holiday camp, now is exactly the right time. In fact, for most kids’ activity clubs and sports academies, Easter is the single biggest growth opportunity of the year. Two weeks of school holidays, parents desperate for quality childcare and activities, and children bursting with energy. The clubs that prepare early and make booking easy are the ones that fill every space.
This guide covers everything you need to run a profitable, well-organised Easter holiday camp in 2026 — from setting up your schedule and filling spaces fast, to getting paid upfront and converting those Easter trialists into loyal year-round members.
Most kids’ activity clubs think of September as their peak sign-up season. And while September is important, Easter is arguably a more powerful growth moment — and one that far fewer clubs take full advantage of.
Here’s why: parents are actively looking for structured, enriching activities during the Easter holidays. Two full weeks without school means two full weeks of childcare to organise. Parents who discover your club through a holiday camp — and whose children love it — are primed to convert into term-time members. Easter is your shop window.
The clubs that win at Easter aren’t necessarily the biggest or the most established. They’re the ones who plan early, make the booking process frictionless, communicate clearly, and use the right tools to handle the admin without burning out. That’s exactly what this guide will help you do.
If you’re reading this in March, the good news is you’re not too late. But the best-performing holiday camps start promoting in late January and February — because that’s when parents start planning. By the time March arrives, the clubs that started early are already running waitlists.
For Easter 2026, your promotional timeline should look something like this: get your camp details live online by early March at the latest, start posting on social media and sending emails to your existing member base in the first two weeks of March, and ramp up urgency messaging (“only 5 spaces left”) in the final week before Easter. Parents respond to scarcity — but only if the booking process is smooth enough to act on immediately.
One thing that kills conversions more than anything else? Making parents jump through hoops to book. If they have to call you, send a WhatsApp message, or fill in a paper form, a significant proportion will simply move on. Your camp needs to be bookable online, in minutes, from a phone. If it isn’t, you’re leaving spaces — and revenue — on the table.
One of the most time-consuming parts of running a holiday camp is the setup: building the schedule, creating the class structure, defining age groups and capacity limits, and getting it all live in a way that parents can actually understand and navigate.
With the right club management software, this process should take minutes, not hours. Bookiphy’s scheduling tools let you create a multi-day camp timetable quickly, define capacity per session, set age-group restrictions, and publish it for parent bookings — all through a single, straightforward interface.
If you’ve already run an Easter camp before, even better. You can re-use your previous schedule as a template and update it for 2026 rather than building from scratch. That kind of time-saving adds up fast, especially if you’re running camps across multiple sites or offering different programme options for different age groups.
The key things to nail in your schedule setup are clear session names that parents understand at a glance, accurate capacity limits that reflect your venue and staffing, distinct age groups or ability levels where relevant, and pricing that reflects the value you’re delivering without pricing out your core audience.
Once your camp is live, the goal is simple: fill every space as quickly as possible. The best way to do that is to make booking completely frictionless for parents.
Your booking page needs to be mobile-friendly — because the vast majority of parents will find your camp on their phone, and many will book on the spot if the process is easy enough. A clean, fast booking flow that takes three steps from discovery to confirmation is what you’re aiming for. Anything more complex and you lose people.
Online booking also means you stop fielding individual booking requests by text, DM, and email. Everything comes through one system, every booking is recorded automatically, and every parent gets an instant confirmation — without you doing anything manually.
Waitlists are equally important. If your Easter camp sells out (which it should, if you’ve set your capacity right), a waitlist lets you capture demand rather than turn it away. When a space opens up, the next parent on the list gets notified automatically. No manual chasing, no awkward conversations — just a smooth, professional experience that builds trust with the families you’re trying to attract.
Bookiphy’s booking system handles all of this out of the box: online booking, automated confirmations, capacity management, and waitlist functionality — all accessible through a parent portal that’s free to use.
Here’s a principle that transforms the finances of any holiday camp: collect payment at the point of booking, not on the day. It sounds obvious, but a surprising number of clubs still operate on a pay-on-arrival or invoice-after basis — and the result is chasing payments, last-minute cancellations, and no-shows that leave spaces empty and revenue unrealised.
Upfront payment solves all of these problems. When a parent pays to book, they’re committed. The no-show rate drops dramatically. Your cash flow is predictable. And you don’t spend the week before camp chasing outstanding payments.
For Easter camps specifically, block booking payments work particularly well. Parents pay for the full week or the full two weeks upfront, you know exactly what revenue to expect, and you can plan your staffing and resources accordingly. For parents who prefer flexibility, session-by-session booking with upfront payment at each step is a reasonable alternative.
Bookiphy supports both models, with payments processed securely through Stripe Connect. That means parents can pay using debit or credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay, Revolut, and a wide range of other methods — giving every family a convenient option at checkout. If a payment fails, automated reminders handle the follow-up so you don’t have to.
Running a holiday camp brings with it a heightened duty of safeguarding. Unlike regular weekly classes where you know every child by name, holiday camps often bring in new faces — children who haven’t attended your club before and whose details you’re collecting for the first time.
Your register management needs to be airtight. Every child attending should have a completed registration form on file before they arrive, including emergency contact details, any allergies or conditions your coaches need to be aware of, and photo consent.
Digital registers that auto-generate from your bookings are not just a time-saver — they’re a safeguarding essential. When a child arrives at your Easter camp, you should be able to check them in instantly and access their emergency information in seconds if something goes wrong. A paper register or a manually-built spreadsheet creates risk.
Bookiphy generates live registers automatically from your bookings, with each child’s key information accessible at the point of check-in. Coaches can see who’s expected, mark attendance, and access emergency details instantly — without needing to rifle through forms or call the office. For a holiday camp with 30, 50, or over 100 children, that capability is invaluable.
Parent communication can make or break the experience of your Easter camp — not just on the day, but in the weeks leading up to it and in the days that follow. Get it right and parents feel looked after, informed, and confident in your club. Get it wrong and you’re fielding anxious messages, dealing with no-shows, and missing the chance to convert Easter attendees into term-time members.
Before the camp, parents should receive:
During the camp, a brief daily update — even just a one-liner via email or SMS — goes a long way. Parents love knowing their child is having a great time. It builds trust and plants the seed for the follow-up conversion message you’ll send at the end.
After the camp, a post-camp message is your single most valuable piece of communication. Thank parents for their support, highlight what the children achieved, and include a clear, time-limited offer to join a term-time class. The conversion rate from Easter campers to term-time members is significantly higher when you follow up promptly and make the next step easy.
Bookiphy handles all of this automatically: booking confirmations, pre-camp reminders, and custom messages to your full camp list at the click of a button. You set it up once and the platform does the work.
This is the strategic goal behind every Easter camp: acquiring new long-term members at scale. A holiday camp is essentially a two-week trial session for every child who hasn’t been to your club before. If they have a brilliant time — and if you follow up intelligently — a significant proportion of them will become paying members for the summer term and beyond.
The conversion process starts before camp ends. On the final day, have your coaches mention the term-time programme directly to the children: “Did you have a great week? We’d love to see you at our Tuesday sessions.” Children pulling at their parents’ sleeves is your most powerful marketing.
Layer this with a post-camp email to all parents — sent within 24 hours of the last session — that includes a specific, compelling offer to join the summer term. Keep the offer simple: a discounted first month, a free trial class, or a guaranteed place in their preferred session. Make it time-limited (7–10 days works well) to create genuine urgency.
Track your conversions. How many Easter campers became summer term members? What was the offer that worked best? Which age groups converted at the highest rate? This data shapes your strategy for the next holiday camp — and over time, your Easter camp becomes a genuinely profitable member acquisition engine, not just a standalone revenue event.
Bring it all together with this quick-reference checklist for a profitable Easter 2026 holiday camp:
Easter 2026 is a genuine opportunity to grow your kids’ club — acquire new members, generate meaningful holiday revenue, and demonstrate to your community what makes your programme special. But the clubs that make the most of it are the ones that plan early, make booking easy, manage the admin smartly, and follow up with purpose.
The difference between a fully booked Easter camp and a half-empty one often comes down to just a few things: an online booking page that works on mobile, a payment system that collects money upfront, automated communication that keeps parents informed, and a follow-up strategy that turns a great week into a year-round relationship.
Bookiphy gives you all of those tools in one platform — built specifically for kids’ activity clubs and sports academies in the UK. Whether this is your first Easter camp or your tenth, getting the admin right means you can focus on what actually matters: delivering an incredible experience for the children in your care. Sign up for free today!
