If you booked a hall for a kids birthday party

[OnlyFoolsnMothers]

How far is advance did you have to book it?
Live in London with lots of halls round us, party is two months away, can’t book anywhere. Did I miss the memo that when pregnant not only do you need to put your name down for a nursery but also a community centre hall for their 5th birthday??!

Halls are used for all sorts, council meetings, Brownies and Scouts, clubs, play groups, weight watchers etc. So they do get booked up quickly but it’s one of those random things you do need to know that you didn’t know you needed to know.

unless you can do a party after school it’s likely halls are fully booked at weekends for quite some time

Yep we had this! Didn't realise until someone whose DC's birthday is 4 months after mine informed me she'd already booked!!! I did manage to find somewhere eventually but it was very stressful.

Have you tried leisure centres? I've booked out a sports hall with a bouncy castle.

For a weekend you need to book months in advance. Lots of clubs using it have booked for the season, well ahead.

maybe try a church hall?

I got stung by this. You're heading into FHC and wedding season for church halls too.

I think the issue is you're looking at July which is always busy...

Hi OP, central london here.

For DD1 who has a December birthday I have to book a venue in September (I know!!!).

For DD2 February birthday I tend to book in December.

DD. is a. July baby, I normally booked in March.

Lots of community activities and groups, school leaver parties, rehearsal for Summer shows from dance school etc.

Have you tried a school? Often they have a hall that they'll let out.

I work in a church venue with hiring. As a very general rule children's parties are

1. Messy, typically leaving in a mess too.


2. Lot of work for us


3. We normally invoice in arears. I would say nearly 50% of parties only pay up their debt when they want to use it again the next year.


4. Want a time that everyone else wants so we're booked. Phoning back and asking in 6 different ways will not change this. Especially whoever it was who wanted a huge party Christmas Eve 7pm-midnight (ie just over the Service times). Yes, I did recognise your voice and phone number the last time when you claimed you wanted to do a "small vigil".


5. When you've agreed their time don't understand that having it 10am-12noon means exactly that. No, you can't come in the night before to set everything up. If you've hired the bouncy castle then we are not staying open "only a couple of hours" after closure because you agreed the hirers could pick it up then. No, we don't expect everything tidied on the dot on 12 necessarily, although if we've someone in afterwards then you may need to be out promptly, but still being there drinking 2 hours later is taking the micky.

So the upshot is we don't do parties as a general rule. Too much hassle.

But also most of our rooms that are suitable for children's parties are booked at the times people want parties.

But when we are taking booking it does depend. I have the ones who phone up on Thursday for Friday and he happen to have the perfect rooms. I have ones where they phone up 6 months in advance and we cannot get them the room they want at a time they can have it.
So you can keep trying and maybe you'll get lucky.

I did mine DS's 10 months in advance for this year. It's pretty impossible.