Would parents prefer a noon or late afternoon seventh birthday party?

[Hellobell]

Hi,

I'm doing my 7yr old a party on a Saturday I wanted to do it at 2pm but they only have the following available.

12pm - 1.30hrs play and food at 1.30pm - party ends at 2.30pm

or

4pm - 1.30hrs play and food at 5.30pm - party ends at 6.30pm

ah I really don’t know which one to select.

4pm

4pm every single time. I HATE giving up my entire Saturday for a kids birthday party.

The best ones we’ve been to have been early Friday evening 👌

12pm. We can still do something from 2:30pm into the evening. 4pm breaks up the whole day. A 6:30 finish would put me
off - that’s dinner time for the other DC.

4pm.

Lots of kids have activities in the morning. Football, dance, gym etc. Even if they don’t, older siblings may well do. A 12pm start could be really tricky for lots of families to get to.

This, I prefer to get it out of the way and we can enjoy the rest of the day.

4pm definitely. We have classes in the morning. Nearly all of the parties we have gone to start around 1400 or 1500. Kills that bit of time before dinner too. Then they’re nice and tired out, quick dinner and bed!

12

12pm for us. We don't do classes on a Sat afternoon and I prefer to get it done early while they still have lots of energy, then do something as a family. But it's true a lot of families do their classes on a Saturday afternoon (we deliberately do ours after school to keep our Saturdays free).

12 the earlier the better

12pm definitely!

12pm, prefer to have it done out of the way.

4pm. Most children that age will have a club or class to attend on Saturday mornings. A later starting party will mean more can attend and it also stops the problem of basically just sitting around waiting for the party. Mid day parties are too early to do anything beforehand and too late in the day to do anything meaningful afterwards.

Noon, as then you have the rest of the day and evening.
But not everyone will agree. Most would say you're right not to go for a morning, though.

1.30 is a bit late for lunch.
There must be some other alternative apart from these two times on this one date at this one venue.

Don’t overthink it. You can see from this thread that it’s fairly split over which people would prefer. And I don’t think either option is bad. They’re both standard party times.

Yes there is a big mix so I really can’t get it perfect for everyone, I know a few of the boys have football Saturday mornings, I’m not sure if I should have done a poll on the WhatsApp group and then chosen by how many has th most but I feel like it’s funny and wasting abit of time.

I personally prefer the 12 as we can enjoy the rest of the day together and the one other party that we had at 4 I noticed the kids all tired and hungry the last hour.

A warning for you OP.

We once did a similar slot something like your option -
12pm - 1.30hrs play and food at 1.30pm - party ends at 2.30pm

All the kids turned up having had nothing to eat since breakfast. So by 12.30 they were all ravenous and sad-looking and trying to divide up the single cereal bar I brought with me. Once they'd had their party lunch they were cheerful and energetic for the last 15 mins!!

Oh gosh this has worried me now 🤣 I would personally give my kids a sandwich or something before but I guess not everyone would, but it is a good point and has got me thinking, I was like oh he’ll be having a blast they won’t be thinking about food 🤣

I'd say 4-6.30.
Morning activities would start for us around 9am and finish at 12. Afternoon starts at 12 and finishes around 6. 12-2.30 would mean finishing morning activity early to get to the party and prevent starting afternoon activities till half way through the afternoon!

4-6.30 would mean normal morning activities, relaxed lunch and only interrupt the afternoon. Also, judging from my son's friends, Saturday morning is a popular time for lessons etc. A friend does a language class, another has swimming lessons, another does dance, which all might be expensive to miss and potentially be difficult to miss (swim galas, practice for dance exams... or actual exams.)

Has your child got any really best friends that they would be gutted not to have at their party - if so check with that friends parents. My son's best friend (met aged 4, still best friends at 13) always had a language class on Sat am.

He has two closer friends but he hasn’t been there that long, I’m meeting one parent on Monday so I’ll tell her about the party and see if they can make it at 12 or 4 and roll with it, also going to call venue and see if maybe we can host it at 3 to 5.30

I’d get it out the way. Go early.

12pm - I never send my kids to a party without food beforehand but you could write on them lunch served at 1.30pm as subtle hint

4pm. Dd would have needed lunch before 1.30

4pm, then the parents won’t need to make them dinner!

I would go for 12pm for younger children but for 7 year olds 4pm is better