To think this is actually reasonable value for a child’s party?

[neverplaywithasmoo]

I am paying £750 to exclusively hire a soft play for two and a half hours.

Included in that is obviously use of the facilities for an hour and a half then an hour with all food and drink (including the cake) napkins balloons etc with a theme we want. (DD wants princesses of course but there are others available.)

All guests also get a free return visit to the soft play and party bags are included too.

I can’t see how we’d do it much cheaper really.

That's insane. I'm hiring a village hall for £35, bouncy castle and disco for £140. I'm only doing it because we're splitting it between my daughter and her cousin whose birthdays are two weeks apart and they're in the same class at school. We'll have around 40 kids there in total and with food/party bags the whole party will be about £250-300 so £125-150 cost to me. £750 is an absolutely ridiculous amount to spend on a birthday party.

I don’t actually mind soft play; the only time I’ve really disliked it is when I’ve had to go in with a toddler (and had to wedge myself in between those cylinder type things when heavily pregnant!) If I can sit down and have a drink made by someone else it’s a win for me! 😂 That aside …

I did a village hall party a few years ago and while it was OK, it was a lot of work and not notably cheaper when you added everything up. I’m not convinced there’s a cheap way to do big parties, tbh.

In no world is it good value!

If I had that kind of money to burn I'd be doing something a lot more glamorous than a soft play party. I'd do a fondue boat on the Thames or something

There’s probably some regional variation here, but also I’d really prefer to avoid the village hall type party.

Where do you live?? I live in London zone 3 and it's easily half the price

Tell us that the soft play is up the Shard or something

For thirty four year olds? No you wouldn’t 😂

I mean obviously if you don’t want a party at all, if you’d rather spend the money elsewhere, that’s different, but if you want a party and your child wants a party and you don’t want to only have a small handful of children then it’s hard to avoid spending quite a lot of money, I think. But it probably does depend on what you want.

If I had to go down the village hall route I’d avoid a bouncy castle and would probably look into a magician or similar.

With 4 kids ranging from tween to late teens I can definitely say that the cost of kids parties is in no way comparable now to what it was when my older kids were having them. If you only have older kids then the price of parties now will probably be a shock!!

I guess £750 sounds like a lot but cost per person it doesn’t sound like it actually is a lot, plus you are saving hassle and it sounds like it will be a lovely party!

I’ve done about 15 kids parties, and the “good old fashioned tea and games at home” party was probably the one I found the hardest. 5 year old boys charging around the house, picking things up, jumping on furniture, throwing toys. These were just normal kids, in party mode. One parent stayed to help, thank goodness. Very very long 2 hours!

I've done three full-class parties now and I've never spent more than £375 total. And thar includes nice food for everyone, wine, everything

It’s does perhaps depend on the numbers. £750 is an awful lot of money. Even if you have 30 children attending (do you?) then that s £25 per child. Still quite a lot. I usually allow about a max of £20 per child and I feel I’m pretty generous with our parties. We rarely have more than 10 kids though. It’s fine if that’s what you choose to spend but I don’t think you’re going to find a lot of people telling you that it’s good value for money or that it’s a normal amount to spend on a child’s party.

For exclusive soft play hire? It would be half the price if it wasn’t exclusive but then there would be a maximum of fifteen children (I thought it was twenty; just checked and it’s fifteen) which would mean leaving quite a few out, it’s also quite nice to have the run of the place.

It sounds like you’re braver than me and do the catering yourself

You don't have to go for exclusive use. You can just book a party tea and pay for entry for the party children.

I did the church hall type thing for daughter's 5th birthday and by the time I'd paid for the hall, the bouncy castle, face painter, balloons, party décor, food for 25, coffee/tea/biscuits/naice crisps/prosecco for the adults, decent party bags (tried to limit plastic tat), gifts for the pass the parcel/musical chairs etc, I was £500 down.

Add in the prep work- buying and making the kids food, organising and booking everything, arriving at the hall to set up, running the party, then tidying up afterwards, I'd happily pay £750 for a party where everything is done for you!

I've paid for catering once and that was the £350 for soft play hire plus catering. And it was fancy sandwiches and canapés type stuff not stodge. I just bought wine.

Did the catering myself the following year for less.

Two soft play parties, one football party.

Each time I did very little work and never "did the entertainment".

Never ever spent more than £400.

OP for what you’re getting, I think that’s probably a reasonable amount of money. However, it’s far more than a party needs. Soft play + party games + disco. Disco alone would be enough, or soft play alone. So I think you’re laying on more than is needed. After 1.5 hours of soft play, I think a quick tea, then final 5 minutes in soft play, then home, would have been sufficient. I’ve been to a few soft play parties , and by the time they’ve bounced around and had tea, they’re usually ready for home.

It depends on the venue but I haven’t really seen this on offer anywhere round here.

For the most part, places have a minimum number of children for a particular party but then the tricky part is where there’s a maximum. If the maximum is fifteen or twenty that’s probably OK for older children but if you’re doing a whole class party (and I wouldn’t really feel very comfortable doing anything else at this stage tbh) that’s not enough. So I’ve gone for this one.

It does go to show how things are different though @Kingdomofsleep if only because I have never seen anyone with wine at a kiddie party!

It seems a lot bit could be worth it for a lot of kids, plus the fact you don’t have to run yourself ragged and

i had a village hall party in the last 6 months for over 30 children and costs were:

hall for 4.5 hrs total: £90
bouncy castle: £135
family member made balloon animals £5
food: £120 (did one online shop which was pretty much all party food)
cake: £30 (estimate for ingredients etc)
party bags, paper plates etc: £100 max

So under £500. We could have shaved money off if we had a more manageable number but it was nice to invite the whole year. An extra 250 for no stress does sound tempting though but I think if I’d had to shell out £750 in one go I would have gone for a weekend away or something!

I wouldn’t spend this on a party for an adult let alone a child. But it’s different courses for different horses I suppose. I would much rather spend £750 going away with my child fort the weekend and spending that money on activities and making memories rather than two hours at a soft play.

Yep - that extra £250 is definitely money well spent! I am with you; I was ‘never again’ after the last one.

I am going back a while but I think the village hall cost maybe £75 for three hours so not excessive but then the entertainment was £250, the cake was £50, then the food, paper plates etc, balloons, party bags - I didn’t add it all up but I doubt I got much if any change from £100. So it must have been around £500 AND one hell of a lot of work and stress!

The thing is, the weekend away would be for me not DD. I do genuinely think she’ll enjoy herself and other children will as well.

Plus, I spread the cost (I always book parties very early for this reason.)

Is it the only soft play nearby?

we have a laser tag place that’s far more expensive than anywhere else I’ve heard of for laser tag, but the next nearest is nearly 2 hours away so they can charge extra.

Sounds fine to me, we paid similar for DS’s first party at a soft play a few years ago. That being said, soft play is still hell on earth regardless of how much you’ve paid for it.