Uptake for summer birthday parties

[PurplePetalPip]

DS will be 5 in August and is keenly planning his invite list for a potential party. Just wondering what people’s experiences are of how many people can’t make parties due to holidays etc if we have it in a middle weekend of August?

eg if I invite the whole year intake of 40, how many should I expect might attend?! Appreciate it’s a guessing game, just looking for experiences of others.

In my experience very few can make an august party. Some of it will depend where you live, we live in a very diverse area with lots of European families who send the children to stay with family for the duration of the summer holidays.

That’s interesting. Although I don’t think the class is particularly diverse at all. Thank you.

unless you are close with parents and know their plans I wouldn’t do middle of August if you want the children to turn up - go for July before break up or on September.

We’re going to a reception party over the Easter holidays. Of the 20 kids in our class, only 6 responsed yes.

I imagine summer will be worse tbh.

I’m an August birthday, I could never have parties because no one was around, sometimes even I wasn’t around 😂 I used to do my party in September, often jointly with someone else.

One of my DC’s birthday is mid august, when he was little we had his parties in July. No one is around in August and people forget.

Thanks all, I’m surprised tbh but it’s probably because we hardly ever go away in the summer! If I invited 40 and only half turned up that would be fine but sounds like it might be even less! Think we will go with end of July instead.

My twins are late August. We did parties before school broke up or early September.

Where I live August is actually good for numbers because parents are dying for their kids to have something to do in the long holidays, always good turn outs!

I would definitely do this. We have a late August birthday and once did a party the day before school went back, and loads of people were unable to make it as maxing out the holidays. We have been to an August party before, which was a smaller one, but generally once they’re in school, I would go for July before they break up, or mid-September.

Your other issue with an August party will be getting the numbers confirmed - lots of people won’t reply as they’d rather decide nearer the time and it can be hard to chase people unless you’re all on the same WhatsApp group.

Echoing everyone else here, you’ll get very little uptake in August.

In DS‘s primary school class, the eldest (v early Sept) and youngest (29 Aug) in the class used to share a party the first weekend of term.

We had a birthday party two weeks ago with almost full class attendance. There was another one yesterday that only 8 attended due to the Easter holidays. If it was later in August a lot might go as people are usually back from holidays ready to start school and they might be delighted for the dc to meet friends they haven’t seen and get back into the swing of things but my own birthday is mid August and it’s definitely still holiday season.

DD is mid August birthday and we usually go away however we did her 6th birthday at home, invited the whole class thinking we’d get half max due to the summer and everyone bloody came! It was chaos but she still remembers it fondly.
More recently we’ve done smaller things with a few friends in the holidays which works well, the whole class party phase is pretty short

My DDs are July and August babies - we always did their parties before school broke up for summer or in the first few weeks when the new term started.

When you give out invitations definitely set a date that RSVPs must be returned by.

My DC has an early August birthday and I'm considering sending a provisional invitation and asking for RSVPs in June... Then I can decide whether to hire a venue or go for the much cheaper option of having a party at home.

It really depends on the area! Mine are older now, but when we were at this age, I found the last two weeks of the holidays impossible to get any play dates. This is because many of the holiday camp parents used for childcare hired the halls of local secondary schools run run the clubs in. But these schools wouldn’t rent for gcse or A level results day so camps were only available early in the summer. This meant all the 2 working parents went away then.

However, if there’s lots of secondary teachers as parents in your dcs class, they are going to be around for GCSE /A level results days, so a party on the weekend between those dates would be safe!
Perhaps the last weekend of the school holidays would work? Or end of term in July.

I'd be cautious with end of July too. I would aim for the weekend before the school breaks up as lots of parents I know book their holiday to start in the middle of the last week of term