Party invite question

[QuantumWeatherButterfly]

Can anyone help me with a birthday party dilemma? We’ve booked a hall for DD’s 4th birthday party and I need to send the invites out. The problem is that the hall isn’t huge – the bigger one we wanted wasn’t available. It can probably cope with 40 – 45 people, including kids, before it’s uncomfortably crowded.

Assuming that at least some of the invited kids won’t be able to come, and they will all have at least one adult with them, how many children would you invite? I want it to be enough that DD feels like she’s having a good party, but not so many that we’re at risk of bursting out at the seams! Or would I be better to err on the side of caution and invite fewer children?

Hopeful bump

I would aim for 20-25 kids. 20 is even actually quite a lot when you have to wrangle them all yourselves.

Also I’m assuming they are not school age yet so parents will stay. But that’s about the limit I’d want to have to keep my eye on with no other parents around to help too.

How many kids do you know? 40-50 people, assuming 1 adult per child, is still a lot of kids for a 4 year olds party. At that age ours would have had a few neighbours kids to the house for a cake.

I’d get a few parents to volunteer to stay then say it’s a drop off party. After all What are those 20 adults going to be doing other than standing around? Invite the whole class, have one adult per five-six kids and get creative with the games.

Good grief 20 kids? 40 people? That would totally overwhelm a 4 year old, why, just oh why do it. Half a dozen kids tops, a bit of cake and crisps and sweets, let them play and empty out every toy box in your house. Your child will have a fantastic time

20 k8ds

Oh my lord no more than 20 definitely

Thanks, everyone. Lots of food for thought.

We won't be doing the wrangling - we've hired an excellent entertainer who'll be leading the whole thing. DD is well used to larger groups, as her nursery class has anywhere from 15 - 25 children on any given day, so she won't be overwhelmed. There are 29 children in total, but they don't all overlap every day, plus a couple of cousins close in age and a couple of children from an activity she does so actually we do/she does know a lot of kids.

I think we'll go for 20 invites and go from there. That should mean between 10 and 15 acceptances, but in the unlikely event everyone comes, we can still cope.

Invite 30 you’ll get 20. Maybe, I’ve had less than that when I chose a bad weekend once! I wouldn’t want to leave out 9 children from nursery though that sounds a bit off.

Don't worry, Tunnockswafer - once we've accounted for family and friends from the other activity, it will actually be just less than 15 children from nursery invited, so less than half. So I think should be fine.

Yeah I’ve heard that said on here “less than half, or the whole class” Seems reasonable!

Don’t not assume 20 invites will mean 10-15 acceptances
You could get 20 so make sure you are prepared for that