I recently hosted the Carnivale of Couture, run by the super-fantastic shoe blogger Manolo — but I wasn’t really sure what I needed to do. Today I’ll share what I learnt along the way.

So if you’re a blogger and have thought about hosting the Carnivale of Couture but don’t know what to do, read on!

(Most of this advice is applicable to other blog carnivals as well. If you’d like to see which other festivals are out there, check out the Blog Carnival Index.)

Step one: ask the host

If you’d like to host the Carnivale of Couture, the first thing to do is email Manolo and ask if you can host it one week. Don’t feel like you have to have a topic already; Manolo recently said:

The Manolo would also wish you to know that step of choosing the topic it is not absolutely necessary.

If you are the next host of the Carnivale and you cannot devise the suitable topic, do not panic. Many other blog carnivals do not have the weekly topic, in the stead they ask each participant to select what they believe to be their best post from the previous week, which then becomes the submission for the carnival.

The important thing is to be included in the upcoming schedule; if you’re not on the schedule, you’re not going to host it!

Step two: post your topic before ‘your week’

When you’re added to the schedule, Manolo will tell you which week is ‘your week’.

While I’m usually regarded as reasonably intelligent, this got me all confused. In Australia, ‘week of June 12th’ would usually mean ‘week beginning June 12th’ so I was all set to post my topic on the Monday of her week… which is when my Carnivale was actually supposed to finish. Oops! Thankfully Designer Ella set me straight before her week was over. Thanks Ella!

So if you’d like to be cleverer than me, post your topic to your blog a few days before the Monday of your week. Then email Manolo so he knows you’re ready to go.

Step three: read STACKS of email

Once Manolo posts on his blog to say that your topic is up, be prepared for an avalanche of email. Manolo is a very popular man and anything he mentions gets a lot of attention - including the Carnivale. I received about 30 full responses to my topic, plus a whole lot of related comments on her blog; you’ll probably experience something similar.

So make sure you’ve set aside a few hours to read it all!

Step four: post on your blog

When you’ve read all the responses, it’s time to post links to them all on your blog. I’m not about to tell you how to post on your blog; you already know how to do that! Hosting the Carnivale in your own inimitable way keeps it interesting, so don’t feel like you have to ape anyone else.

But if you would like to see some examples of what other people have done first, check out:

• The Bargain Queen’s own carnival of best-ever bargains: parts one, two and three
• Fashion is a Verb’s tinselltown trends gone wrong
• Style Graduate’s straight-from-the-runway Halloween party
• Designer Ella’s carnivale of fashion confessions (our favourite carnivale ever!)

Or if you’re feeling really inspired, you could check out Manolo’s Carnivale of Couture archive.

Step five: have fun!

Not so much a step as a general tip: have fun hosting your Carnivale! It doesn’t have to be super-serious or hard work; just have a good time with it and enjoy all the extra attention ;)

Happy hosting everyone!

PS: This is an unofficial tutorial, so anything you hear directly from Manolo himself takes precedence.

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