Children’s parties are pretty wacky and wonderful nowadays, trust us, we know! We also know that planning the perfect children’s birthday party for your little one isn’t always as straightforward as you’d like to think because it’s not just a party – it’s ordering a cake, it’s preparing the party bag, it’s hand-making the invitations, it’s sourcing the right venue, it’s choosing the best entertainment – in short – it’s a pretty big list!
However, a child’s birthday party predominantly all comes down to one thing – cost.
We did a bit of digging and found a survey from Vouchercloud, which shows the average cost of a child’s birthday party is over £500. This comes as no surprise because there are so many elements involved in planning a party! It seems that parents are quite happy to fork out to see the smile on their child’s face but we couldn’t help but wonder, how do they split the budget?
According to the survey, the largest and most common expense was entertainment at 21% and – as entertainers – we get it! Keeping 20-30 kids occupied, engaged and more importantly, having a whole lot of fun, is a big deal and it seems that parents understand that too by setting aside 1/5 of their birthday party budget for entertainers like us… and we couldn’t be more grateful! Being an entertainer is so much fun, especially in our team – you never know whether you’re going to work as a pirate or a princess!
Second to entertainment was catering at 19%, followed by decorations at 16% and party bags at 14%. Surprisingly to some, one of the lowest expenses for a child’s birthday party is actually the venue. Naturally, there’ll be a few anomalies in there but yes, generally speaking, the venue is the least-costly element to the birthday bash! However, what’s important to consider is the location of your venue. We’re entertaining in and around London and in our experience, we’d definitely say that the venue isn’t always the cheapest part of the party!
Oh and this isn’t set to change anytime soon either. In fact, as time moves on, parents are actually dedicating more money to celebrate their children’s birthdays and quite right too! It’s a good enough excuse to spoil your kids we’d say. However, not all parents go to such length to celebrate from year to year…
That’s right, according to the survey, 47% of parents said the party itself took too much organisation and quite frankly, who can blame them for putting it off for another year? You’ve already a million and one things to do as a parent or carer and sometimes, dealing with the stress of organising a party is something you can do without.
This is why we introduced more elements to our party process to make things as stress-free as possible for all the Mums and Dads out there, because Captain Fantastic is the good guy, no really! Oh, and when it comes to expense, we totally understood that which is why each of our party packages is cost-effective and completely affordable for parents in London.
So, on the one hand, you’ve got some parents who might plan a big party every now and again, but on the other hands, you’ve got the go-big-or-go-home-rs. That’s right, the ones who love the lavish and go over and above every year! It does make you wonder though, why do they spend so much?
Yep, the majority said that it’s nothing more than the simple fact that their child loves parties. Nice to know right? Of course, again, we definitely think location plays a big part! It’s no surprise that we entertain at parties with pretty hefty budgets and sparkling venues simply because we’re based in the UK’s capital city, but this doesn’t mean that we come under that bracket. We entertain at all sorts of parties from smaller gatherings in local community centres or village halls, right up to huge celebrity children’s parties in 5* hotels. You name it, I can guarantee we’ve probably done it!
The average cost of a child’s birthday party in 2017 might be over £500 but you know what, the happy memories you have with your children as a result? Priceless.