[balletmum]

My son has requested my family, his dad's family, his step mum's immediate family & his friends at his 10th birthday party. Unfortunately with his autism it is extremely hard to get him to understand the complexities of this.

Since it is his 10th and also shortly before he leaves his current main stream school to go to a specialist autism school, I've decided to look into if it is do-able.

Here's my what I've considered so far..

*Request for his favourite respite carer to be here so she can take him away for some quiet time if it is too much for him (as I will be busy with the actual hosting of the party).

*Organise for a party entertainer to entertain the kids.

*Figure out a cut off age to be involved with the entertainer, DS wants a number of his friends, but the price of the entertainer goes up significantly after 20 kids and there are a lot of cousins - however many in their teens or almost teens.

*Remind adults of what upsets DS & advise them not to crowd him. Being outside should limit my son's reaction to this though.

*Ask family if they mind bringing a plate (request only not expected - this is something regularly done at parties with both families though)

*Set up different seating areas - Based on previous get togethers the families won't mix and I think this will be even more rigid now that my ex and I are divorced. The families will not be rude to each other however.

*I have a big backyard so I can fit many people with a grassed area up the back where the entertainer can set up however my one main worry is rain. I do have an open plan house but it is definitely not big enough to handle the amount of people that would be here. It is not till November though so chances of rain are significantly lowered.

Does anyone have any advice? Anything I've forgotten, what your experience with a large party has been?

Thanks

[3_for_me]

We had a large party and just did sausages and salad and we made a few choccy crackle, etc plus the birthday cake. It worked really well and kept catering costs very low which was a bonus!

Personally I'd be looking aroundfor an entertainer who doesn't charge extra for more kids. I don't really see the justification in that one unless there are added consumables like balloons, even then the extra cost isn't much, it should be time based.

[CallMeProtart]

Visitor to this forum as my kids are much younger, but we've done really large parties for them (say 70 people give or take 25) because we have a lot of family and friends etc that we like to invite.

I second the idea of seeing whether you can find some entertainment that is not numbers related. I know that's hard these days - even stuff that has no realistic relationship to numbers, they charge it! But I wonder if there is an equivalent 'older kid' thing to jumping castles and the like - something that can be hired that will keep lots of kids entertained, but without paying per head.

I think the bringing a plate thing is a good idea - we did that for DD's first birthday - requested a plate and no presents - it's not like she cared about presents at that age - a lot of people still brought them anyway.

Weather is the massive one though! Last couple of years we went to a park that had a covered area that could hold a lot of people if it all went wrong - but we were lucky with the weather.
Last year, however, it was beautiful weather almost all day except for the exact two hours of the party - where it RAINED TORRENTIALLY. We had it in our own garden, which is big enough for a crowd, but our rain plan was a massive marquee we had bought (fairly cheaply here in case you're interested http://www.klika.com.au/) - and while we were REALLY glad we'd got one with walls, it really was a not very pleasant party once everyone had to be crammed into that actually-quite-small-once-you-are-confined-to-it space! Especially since it had been planned as more of a drizzle/light-rain plan - as opposed to full blown monsoon which had the garden underfoot (including in the marquee) flowing with mud within 10 mins. That said, the kids still enjoyed it - the older ones (7yo's) went nuts chauferring people backwards and forwards with the umbrellas, and most of the younger kids just went to the playdo tables. I think it was most unpleasant for the parents!

So not meaning to scare you, the outdoor thing has served us REALLY well for big parties, and the marquee probably would have covered off a bunch of scenarios - but the torrential rain was not really one of them!
But that said, the other thing about outdoors is... I'm not sure you always NEED an entertainer. Our parties have always had a fairly wide age range of kids up to about 10 or so, and the trampoline, that tennis-ball-on-a-string thing, a jumping castle (the older kids managed to entertain themselves by collapsing it on themselves), cricket bats and balls and some soccer balls - if you have the space for it, people end up really kind of entertaining themselves, kids find like-minded/aged kids to play with, and it's actually easier NOT trying to get everyone in one place and interested in an entertainer. The few teens we had were on the older side, and more interested in sitting off to the side with eachother and looking cool than 'playing' anything.

The carer thing sounds like a great idea too.

Good luck!

[kirstyannb]

Sounds like you're on track.

Have you thought about the cake