Build a Bear party

[ThePartyArtist]

My son would enjoy a build a bear party. It's more expensive than what we've done before but outsourcing will be handy. He's previously been to a party there, where kids made a bear but no clothes were included. Parents collected kids from the shop afterwards and got hassled to spend £20+ on outfits which i felt was insensitive of the hosts as it ended up costing guests a lot. I don't want to book the more expensive package where outfits are included. I'm wondering about taking the kids back to ours after for food and decorating a bear t shirt with fabric markers. Or skip this and provide the t shirt and pens in the party bag.

Another thought i had was to take 1 or 2 friends but not on the party package, and use the extra money to buy clothes. Maybe food out afterwards but think it might not fill enough time. I suppose could return to ours for t shirt decorating and / or food.

Shop is 20 min drive from us and we'd need parents involved in transport as we could only fit 1 extra kid in our car.

Any tips for making it reasonable as it seems so expensive?

What are the costs per child for the party options? I really like the decorate at shirt idea, but ultimately kids will want all the extras, it just depends if you feel you can manage that without upset and disappointment. There are also some build a bear type places that come out to you at home

It's an expensive option though.

If you do the tshirt idea are you going to ask the parents to then drive back to your house and stay while they do it?

The kids will want the BAB outfits, it's natural.

I would either take one or two not on the package or do something different.

I don't think they are a good party for all the reasons you said

The kids will still want the outfits, it’s half the fun of build a bear. And I don’t think asking the parents to transport the kids back to yours mid party is fair either to be honest.

I’d do your second option and take a couple of kids only for the full experience. It’s rubbish for the parents being hassled by their over hyped kids to spend money on outfits (which surely is one of the main reasons you go to BAB?) and also there is a lot of driving involved if you go back to yours afterwards.

We did one at home - I bought ‘build a bear’ kits for about £11-12 each, plain T-shirts and fabric pens. No hard sell.

https://www.splodgeteds.co.uk/

For £17 you get a bear & t shirt.
For £23 you get a bear & one clothing item.
Minimum 6 kids.

We did a build a bear type party at home once. These were kits I bought online from "Be My Bear" Invited the friends giving them a choice of four and paid a bit extra for little recorded speaker things to go inside and some little bear t shirts to colour in with fabric pens. It was a real hit- the quietest birthday party I have ever had!

We decided against build a bear for this reason plus the fact that there was no food as part of the package so we'd have had to go somewhere after to feed the kids.

I think honestly the options are:

• spend a crap tonne on a package that includes the clothing and then eating after
• pick something else