Cost of children’s parties

[WhenTheyComeForYou]

Now, I realise this may come across a bit tight but OMG the cost of children’s birthday parties are crazy!

Ive been planning a class party for my soon to be 6 year old. He’s intent on having a class party and I can’t see a way to make it cheaper than £400/450.

• Hall for 3 hours (covers party and 30mins set up and clean up) £70
• Entertainer £250
• Food and drink £75 (sure it would be more if I added berries and pushed the boat out - I’m not)
• Party bags £50 (2 small toys each and some sweet bags).
• Balloons, tablecloth, cups, plates, banners £20

Can’t do a home party as our house isn’t big enough for 30 kids + parent.

Could do a smaller party but my child doesn’t have a set friendship group yet and would like everyone to attend.

Could potentially share the party with someone but I don’t know anyone well and I’d personally find it a bit awkward. We’ve only been to one shared party.

Ive toyed with having it outside but the weather is unpredictable.

Im personally not keen on just having a bouncy castle in a hall, those parties have fallen a bit flat in my experience and I can’t entertain 30 kids on my own, I just can’t.

We’re in a cost of living crisis yet we’ve been to loads of parties in the past 6 months.

How are people affording this?! £400/500 seems so much to me, or am I being tight?

Does anyone have any fun and cheapish party ideas that have gone down well?

Realistically I think your options to make it cheaper are to share the party or to cut it down to 10 children.

Sharing pretty much halves the cost, and is the norm for whole class parties round here.

Or cutting down to 10 children either opens up the option to do it at home, or makes a 'price per head' party like soft play/trampolining/cinema/bowling etc cheaper and more feasible.

But this isn't 25 years ago, this isn't 50 years ago; it's today and today's COL is prohibitive to not just those who don't make as much money as some, it's now getting to be prohibitive to those 'some' that are feeling the pinch now too.

25 years ago, most parties were at - home style, with all that a loving parent could provide to make a couple of hours of pleasure for their child and their friends.
Simple.
50 years ago it was the same.

This grand and unfortunately highly competitive party fest is because of one major difference: The internet and social media, that's what's driving all of this 'have to keep up with the Jone's" mentality imo, not just for those who can handily absorb the cost, but for those who struggle to replicate these extravagant parties as well.

Odeon do kids cinema on a Saturday morning where the show a film (not a new release but I don't think that matters for 6 year olds) for £2.75. You could meet the children at the cinema, take them to watch the film, take fruit shoots or bottles of water from Tesco, individual bags of popcorn and a little packet of sweets. Parents collect after the film. You could still do little party bags if you like and could pull the whole lot in for £150 and pretty much zero effort.

In our class what's all group one of the mums asked if everyone was happy to share their kids DOB so we can have joint parties (everyone said yes), she collated a list in date order and shared it with the group.

Parents then contact those with similar birthdays and arrange together.

Every single party this year has been shared by at least 2 kids and sometimes up to 4 kids.

£250 is a lot for an entertainer. You can definitely get cheaper. And for a standard 2hr party, you only need 1hr entertainment. 15min let loose in the hall while guests arrive. 1hr entertainment. 30mins food/cake. 15mins let loose with balloons and start to leave.

I’d call around and see if you can get a cheaper entertainer. Panto season has just ended so some kids magicians/entertainers are back being available. Any “princess” type are usually more expensive than others!

for party bag for 6 year olds, look at box sets of books instead, if you can get a set of 30 books for £20-ish, and some cheap wrapping paper, each child gets a book and a slice of cake.

remember tea coffee, biscuits for the parents.

Oh, thanks, now I know it’s not hard, I’ll just go and tell him 😂

Well the main cost is the entertainer and that can certainly just be cut out. We never had an entertainer and neither did most parties we went to when the kids were that age (admittedly 15 years ago, but still). 6 year olds are pretty easy to entertain with simple party games.

best Parties my kids have been at generally have a game of football going on, two tables with board games set up, a lucky dip, pizza and cake. Definitely don’t do the entertainment

Either things must have changed or regionally the norms are different. In the south east currently, entertainers are the norm. Whether it’s magicians, Elsa, clowns or football coaches.

I would rather not do a party than do one without an entertainer. The kids wouldn’t listen to me and I’d be boring AF for them! The parties we’ve been at (nursery) with just a bouncy castle have been boring after 20mins.

I like the suggestion of books as party favours, but the Works books for £1 are crap, no story at all. If I give books, they need to be decent books otherwise I’d rather give nothing. Same as plastic toot, I won’t buy anything that’s just going to end up in the bin or charity bag.

@WhenTheyComeForYou why can't you tell him?
Yes he is only (almost) 6 but he needs to understand that all families do things differently.
What would you say if he wanted to go to Australia for the weekend, or the Moon, or to live at Disneyworld?
You would simply say "No sweetie that isn't something we can do".
Sit him down and say that for his birthday you can have a small at home party or some other treat he enjoys (like a cinema trip or day out at a local place). That's it. That's the choices.

The parties we’ve been at (nursery) with just a bouncy castle have been boring after 20mins.

Probably for nursery aged children they are, for 5/6 year olds never known them to get bored, most are sad when they have to get off!

@WhenTheyComeForYou why do you think the children wouldn't listen to you?
If you stick with traditional party games (pass the parcel, musical statues, pin the tale on the donkey etc) and has prizes they would most likely enjoy that. A bit of fun, possibility of a prize - what's not to enjoy when you are 6?

@WhenTheyComeForYou do you have anyone to help with the party? The parent of your child's best friend?

@WhenTheyComeForYou Of course you can have a party without an entertainer! I’m in the SE and people were just sensible. You are playing the game of one upmanship and it’s ludicrous. If you don’t have the money, don’t be so extravagant. The money you are quoting is verging on obscene. Of course you can say your birthday will be 10 friends. It’s called parenting. How do you think poor parents in your class will manage? Unless you are in the most expensive area (where I live) there will be people having these conversations. I don’t have much sympathy for you.

For my DDs 10th birthdays we went to the Manoir aux Quat Saisons and they invited 4 friends. They remember it! Before that we had a treasure hunt at home and some games. Everyone was happy and parents didn’t want 30 at a party.

It was too noisy for small talk thankfully 😂We were dreading the bouncy castle approach, because my children all had outdoor summer parties .
This was grandchild party age 5 ,probably easier to be entertained on bouncy castle than toddlers , it was actually fine and the children were very occupied. Food after about an hour ,then last half hour pass the parcel,musical bumps and off they went !
We are in SE as well.
A whistle was very useful to get the children’s attention!!

I like the suggestion of books as party favours, but the Works books for £1 are crap, no story at all

That’s a pain, you’re right they only seem to have picture books in the offer at the moment. If you Google, you can find box sets of books that work out at £1.20ish a book upwards eg 21 Fanous Five books for 25, Roald Dahl box sets worked out at £1.60 each.

You're paying for an entertainer of course that's pricey!!!!

What is the gifting etiquette in this scenario out of interest? I politely turned down a shared party for 3 children recently as I didn't want to buy 3 gifts for 3 children that my son has never mentioned/never plays with.

What about sweet cones instead of party bags? I’m getting some for my DCs party and they are £1 a cone so will cut the amount slightly.

I feel like you could do food for £50 too, make your own sandwiches, cheap crisps, biscuit, raisins. They don’t seem to eat much at parties anyway.

How much are soft play parties near you? Where I am you can hire venues for around £300 for 30 children including the food. Then you would just need a few balloons, cake and party bags. So possibly £350 for everything. Parties are so expensive though, my DCs 5th party ended up costing about £600.

A bouncy castle is definitely not boring for 6 year olds. Probably for parents who stay and have to make small talk but not for the kids. I just went to my nieces 6th birthday this weekend and 30 5 turning 6 year olds were fully entertained for an hour by a bouncy castle and some ride on toys the bouncy castle chap also supplied. Then food then another spell on castle, then hand out cake and a bag of haribo as party bags (no other tat including generally shite bulk buy books - everyone will thank you, kids won’t care). We did exactly the same when mine were my nieces age too. All fine, we actually also run kids parties (bushcraft) and charge £275 for 12 kids but you come to our site and we provide food, I wouldn’t spend that on an entertainer turning up to a hall. We are SE too.

Does anyone have any fun and cheapish party ideas that have gone down well?

That was the OPs original question.
I do hope that you have gotten some sensible ideas and answers to your question.

You either set the bar a bit lower for your six-year-old child and follow the example of many posters on here, or you raise the bar and know that bar will will continue to rise as the birthdays roll on.
Things are only getting more expensive, and you know you do have some responsibility in being honest and sensible whilst parenting your child , otherwise he'll likely be looking at some serious disappointments coming his way on future birthdays.
I do hope your DS has a lovely birthday OP, regardless of how you choose to celebrate it.

I've noticed with my nieces and nephews that's it's really popular to have big kids parties but honestly I'd scrap the party and take your child on holiday and do something they would really enjoy.

@Ineedaholidayyyy they usually invite the full class, so at this age (5) they kind of play with most children so everyone buys for every kid.

The usual thing in our school is that once they're a bit older, everyone gives a fiver instead of buying presents - then the birthday girl/boy can buy one big present they want (rather than 30 little things).

I did it myself and did pass the parcel (with two parcels to go around the circle), musical bumps, musical statues. That took an hour, then food and cake/happy birthday. A 90 minute party is plenty!

Also, I don't do sandwiches, so much faff and the kids don't touch them unless forced. I do cold pizza, cold nuggets, crudities and bowls of crisps.

Hope this helps, but your entertainer is the bulk of the cost!