Parties Case Studies
Case Study 1: Maisie’s Cinderella Party
Maisie celebrated her 8th birthday at a party in her local church hall in Hathersage on 5th February.
Maisie’s Mum, Clare, had booked A Mind Apart just to provide the entertainment for Maisie’s Cinderella themed party. This meant that she could choose a venue that was local for her and Maisie’s friends in the village. This proved very lucky due to the heavy snow on the day because the locality of the venue meant that all of Maisie’s 10 guests were able to make it!
We arrived at the church hall which Clare had decorated and got out of our wellies and wooly jumpers and got changed into our party dresses to start getting into our characters as palace officials who had been ordered to train the girls how to be perfect princesses and pass the Prince’s test.
We then set up for the activities which we’d planned for the girls. The first thing we did was create masquerade masks ready for the ball. Once the girls had perfected their designs, we left the masks to dry whilst we performed some exercises to improve the girls diction and posture to the Prince’s standards- these involved delivering tongue twisters with a straw in their mouths and tackling an obstacle course with a book on their head amongst other things! The girls did brilliantly- definitely fit for the Prince!
It was then time to teach the girls how they should dance at the ball, so we taught the girls how to waltz and salsa which they picked up brilliantly.
Each of the ladies were then presented with a certificate to say that they had passed the Prince’s test before enjoying the tea put on by Clare.
We have since received an email from Clare thanking us for the party, saying “the girls had a lovely time...they all thoroughly enjoyed it” which was lovely to hear. We’ve also had a really lovely handmade thank you card from Maisie saying how much she particularly enjoyed the waltzing and salsa.
In choosing to hire A Mind Apart just to provide the entertainment, Clare was able to have total control over her choice of local venue, food and decorations, but she was able to relax and enjoy the party itself with her daughter and friends.
It seems that everyone, including us, had a lovely time watching the girls transform into ladies and I’d say that any prince would be lucky to have them after Maisie’s lovely party!
Case Study 2: Logan’s Superhero Party
Logan celebrated his 7th birthday at his Superhero party here at Burton Street on 11th February.
Logan’s Mum, Melanie, chose our full package in which we organise the entire party including entertainment, decorations, food, venue, invitations and party bags. Melanie had initially just asked us to provide the entertainment, but after looking into the costing of providing her own venue, food, party bags and decorations, she found that it was cheaper (and a lot less stressful!) for us to organise the whole party.
We started planning the party in January, booking Burton Hall and organising the food with the Burton Street catering department. We then designed tailor made invitations and sent those to Melanie, who said she was happy to print them out. In the next couple of weeks we ordered the decorations and toys for party bags and put the party bags together. When the morning of the party came we started blowing up the balloons and dressing the rooms with bunting, banners, colourful tablecloths and other decorations. Logan and his family then arrived with finishing touches such as a brilliant Super Mario cake, which they had chosen to provide themselves.
The guests then started to arrive and Natasha lead them through some quick warm ups before teaching them some simple actions to the ‘Superman' song which they all really enjoyed and picked up really well.
We then did some character building exercises to help the children form characters for the superheroes they wanted to be, such as showing everyone how their superhero would eat, walk or sleep. Some of children really wanted to show off the actions they had made up which was brilliant! After this we then did a Q&A session with those superheroes who wanted to, in which the children asked their fellow superheroes who were in the hot seat questions about their lives and the ways in which they save the world- we had some really inventive answers which was great! Here's a picture of Logan (or should I say Batman) feeling the pressure in the hot seat!
After this, we thought it was time for some superhero action and so played a few games of Splat! in which the superheroes really showed us what they could do!
To conclude the party, we performed the song and character actions to the parents who had been waiting downstairs in the cafe. All the superheroes were fab, and I feel much safer knowing they’re about to save the day now!
We then handed out certificates congratulating the children on the brilliant superheroes they created, before bringing out the food boxes and party bags which everyone really seemed to enjoy.
Logan then had his birthday cake brought out and we all sung happy birthday before everybody left and we did all of the tidying up.
Melanie not only found it the most cost effective option to have us organise the whole day but it also allowed her to enjoy the entirety of the day with her son and his friends without any stress of the organisation. The night before the party, she emailed saying “we’re all very excited about the party...I’m not used to doing nothing!”
The party went brilliantly and everyone said what a good time they had, we’ve even had an enquiry about hosting a party for one of Logan’s guests because she’d enjoyed it so much!
We've had a lovely quote from Logan since theparty saying "thankyou for my amazing birthday party" .... Well Logan, it was our pleasure!
