Children’s parties defy the downturn

I don’t know. In my day you were happy with a bit of fizzy pop, some charging about, a tantrum and being sent home with a piece of cake wrapped up in a tissue. As with weddings, part of modern life is the raised expectations – and spending on - social get-togethers. A BBC article explains how the children’s party business shows little sign of the impact of the recession.

It seems most parents are reluctant to spoil their children’s anniversary, and some are still splashing enormous sums of cash, on hosting spectacular birthdays. “It’s a huge industry,” says Amanda Frolich of Amanda’s Action Kids. “People spend an absolute fortune on their children’s birthday parties and fortunately the recession hasn’t affected our business.”

Amanda charges up to £250 for a two-hour party - but the sky’s the limit. In fact, if there were 700,000 new babies born last year in the UK, and we spent just £50 on a party for each of them, that’s £35m we’ve spent as a nation, just on our one-year-olds. So imagine the profits to be made hosting the more extravagant birthday parties.

Not all parents are delighted and feel under pressure to respond in a similar way. Fellow parents may feel trapped in a kind of arms race, competing with each other to provide something ever more sparkling - and having to throw money at the problem.

What do you think? This is part of the big ethical question of selling to kids and their parents. A legitimate marketing opportunity? Or like Christmas, not very nice when it spirals out of control?