10 Things To Look For When Booking Childrens Birthday Parties

We all love a good birthday party and we want our kids to have the best time ever – so what should we be looking for when thinking about what to book for the big day?

Here’s our essential 10:

1. Ask your child what kind of party they want!

We know it’s an obvious one, but you’d be surprised at how many people don’t actually sit down with their child and look at various party ideas. 

Do they want the same birthday party that their friend had? 

Do they want their birthday party at home? 

Do they want to do something with a small groups of friends? 

Do they want to invite the whole class?

2. Look at budgets

Do you have a budget? 

Look at the costs of birthday parties if it’s just a small group of friends, or whether you will be inviting the whole class.

Don’t forget to ask if venue hire is included, party bags, food and cake as many companies ask you to provide that.

3. Search on the internet

A lot of the time, children do tend to know what they want and they’ve usually been to other birthday parties that they enjoyed and they want the same.

But if you don’t have a trusted recommendation, then it’s worth having a google to see what’s out there for you.  

Why not try NetMums too and also asking the question in parent or mums facebook groups – you usually get great recommendations that way too.

4. Check out their website

Again, very obvious, but do have a look around the websites of birthday party companies that you’ve found, or that have been recommended to you.

Do they look professional?

Do they tell you about their staff?

Are they qualified and experienced?

Are they all DBS checked?

Do they have public liability insurance?

Is it clear what their birthday party package is, what you will get and how much it costs?

Do they have testimonials on their website?

5. Get in touch with the company

Phone calls are always the best – it enables you to speak directly to the company, get a vibe for what they are like, you can ask lots of questions and find out if you think it’s right for your child’s birthday party.

6. Check them out on social media

Have a look at their facebook page, their twitter account, or instagram – are they active on there? 

Do you like their vibe? 

Personality?  

Are their customers talking about them on social media? 

Good feedback?

7. Check out their Terms and Conditions

What happens if your child is ill on the day of their birthday party?

What happens if your birthday party organisers are ill or stuck in traffic?

Read the small print and make sure you are happy with it and that the company has back up systems in place.

8. Book your birthday party

If you are happy with everything, book your birthday party and make sure you get sent a booking confirmation – detailing everything about the party, i.e. where it is, when, what it consists of, what you have been promised, and that your payment has been received.

9. Get in touch again nearer the date of your party

If the company do not get in touch with you again nearer the date of your party to confirm everything is ok, give them a call or an email just to double check everything – you don’t want to be left on the big day with no birthday party organiser due to miscommunication.

All good companies will get in touch with you to confirm everything again nearer your birthday party.

10. Give feedback

Most good companies will ask for feedback on birthday parties, to find out whether you, your child and their guests had a good time.

Good companies value honest feedback so it’s great to let them know what you enjoyed about it and also whether you have any concerns or tips on what could be improved upon to make it an even better birthday party.

11. Sit back and relax – you’ve partied! ;)

Book A Party With Us

Dance Parties for Kids

Dance parties are brilliant for birthdays, especially if you’ve got a big group of children to entertain, with energy to expend! The birthday boy or girl can choose songs from our extensive library of music or request their own song choice, so their party is specifically tailored to their needs. From One Direction to Katy Perry to Frozen we can do it!

Keeping active during the winter months

As the summer draws to a close and the autumnal weather rolls in, getting up and active gets harder. With the evenings getting darker, the sofa looks more inviting and the motivation to exercise becomes less and less appealing. But just because you’ve packed your bikini away doesn’t mean you should stop your routine!

During the winter months we tend to eat more; it’s colder, the festive season is upon us and we spend more time indoors getting cosy. Don’t forget your goals! Dance class is an indoor activity where you work and meet with others as part of a team, whilst getting fit and keeping active. Having a boogie to some of your favourite tracks with friends and in a group doesn’t feel like exercise and will warm you up on those cold winter nights.

Motivating yourself to leave the house is the hardest bit so take a friend, and get into the right mindset, helping each other. Music during a dance class makes you feel good and you’ll feel a lot better for getting off that sofa.

There’s bound to be lots of Christmas parties bringing lots of food and lots of drink so set yourself a target so you can wear that party dress and enjoy yourself.

No excuses !

By Lianne Cloot – Creative Director – Popdance

What do you do to stay active and motivated? We would love to hear from you!

Work Experience Blog – End of Week

This week has been an amazing experience and I have learnt so many things about the world of work!  Sue has made me very welcome and taught me a lot about how Popdance works.

I have seen how she advertises Popdance via Twitter and Facebook posts and I wrote some of my own; I also explored the navigation on the website and gave my thoughts on how easy it was to use.

But I haven’t just been in the office all week. On Tuesday, I went and watched Rachel and Lianne come up with some choreography for the new term. This was really interesting as I had never really thought about the fact that somebody has to come up with all the new dances!

Then, on Friday, I went with Lianne to help out with a Popdance Tots class and then I stayed on and joined in with her adult class afterwards. I enjoyed this a lot and it was good to see the structure of a normal class.

Sue has also helped me massively start to plan my event. We have made a plan of when I should attempt to get things done by and I have been shown several websites that I can use to create posters and possibly use an online ticket system as a more efficient way of selling tickets.

Using the skills I have gained this week, I have been able to create a blog and a twitter account for my event that I hope to advertise from in the future.

I have had a really good time this week with Popdance and I have gained a better understanding of how a business works.

Everything I have learnt this week will help me hugely when I venture into the world of work so thank you very much Popdance!

We’ve loved having you, Lucy!

 

Work Experience Blog

From Monday 29th June to Friday 3rd July, I will be working with Sue Wybrow on work experience. It is going to be a great week and I am looking forward to learning lots of new the admin side of a business like Pop Dance and what goes on behind the scenes.

There are probably so many things that I have never even thought about that are key in a business like this (or any business really) that I hope I will learn about so that if I decide to start up a business, I will have a head start!  Plus, as me and my sister are hoping to put on an event next summer, Sue is planning to show me how to go about booking a venue, getting a system for selling tickets, how much money we will need to make and also how to advertise the event using Twitter and Facebook and probably other things that we haven’t eventhought about! This way, when we get to that stage, I will have the knowledge to make our event very successful.

I think this week will be very useful if I decide in the future that I want to run a business like Popdance as I will hopefully have more of an idea about what I need to think about. But, not only that, the skills that I learn this week will also be useful when I go to work anywhere,for example, sorting out sales, advertising and organising an event.

Lucy will report back this Friday with an update on how she got on this week :)