ABOUT BIRTHDAY UNIVERSITY

WHY BIRTHDAY UNIVERSITY?

Competition is becoming more and more intense, as birthday party options, demand and family dynamics continue to evolve. It’s no longer just the family or children’s entertainment business in your area, but any number of businesses aimed at capturing a piece of this lucrative, billion-dollar industry. All kinds of businesses involving children and families are offering birthday parties. Hotels, libraries, museums, bookstores, zoos,

toy stores, pet shelters, theaters, nail salons and even farms have created their version of this once-a-year celebration. Now more than ever, you must develop, focus and plan a sound strategy to differentiate yourself and elevate above and beyond the familiar and unfamiliar competition. Your goal should be one thing, to create an unforgettable birthday experience, that will wow parents and create special memories for the children, especially the birthday child. Children's birthdays have a tremendous emotional attachment. It's an important family day for both parents and children. It's your job to make it memorable. Each party guest must be treated as an individual and given your undivided time, personalized attention, energy and enthusiasm. Treat each party as if they were the only party planned, forthat entire day.

Can you say this, with clarity? “We stay with the party the entire time and it’s our passion to make sure the birthday child is center of attention and feels special.” If you are uncertain or not even close, come to Birthday University to understand why, how and what to do to make that statement an unrefuted fact.

BU TOP TEN TAKE-AWAYS... TWENTY-FIVE YEARS RUNNING

1. A 35-year history of commercial parties – one thing stayed the same.

2. Learn new family commercial party trends – population shift, family dynamic and social gathering changes

a. Why not to copy

3. Differentiation - becoming unique by how you do parties

a. Eliminate the novelty effect (First 1.5 years)

b. Eliminate commoditization

c. No more common, average / good enough is good enough parties

4. Best practice Party package and pricing for profit

5. The humans (party hosts & guests) are the party - the importance of the Party Hero

6. Best practice Party flow – peak and end experiences

a. Eliminate root cause frustrations

b. Best practice for consistent and predictable results

7. Group revenue best practices

a. Adult

b. Youth

c. Fundraisers

8. Marketing, group and party sales automation

9. Creative, unique fun ways to enhance your party offings.

10. Live demonstrations and interactive fun – revive your stale program

11. Networking and building relationships with other industry professionals and owners

COMMERCIAL BIRTHDAY PROGRAM TRENDS

The family entertainment industry is evolving rapidly as new concepts emerge to meet these family dynamics while others remain stale and outdated, hoping to survive. Understanding these family and social gathering trends is crucial to sustainability and growth, as population and social dynamics shift.

To stay competitive, party businesses must adapt their strategies in several key areas:

1. Differentiation is essential to stand out in a crowded market. Party programs should focus on creating unique experiences that go beyond attraction novelty and avoid commoditization. The goal is to elevate parties beyond "good enough" or what

others are doing and truly create memorable events.

2. Developing profitable party packages and pricing strategies is vital for business sustainability. Party volume is not an indicator of program success.


3. Recognizing the human element, Party Hosts and the guests themselves are central to the party experience. Attractions are only the initial draw and where the party is staged. Cultivating "Party Heroes" who elevate the atmosphere and ensure the birthday child is center of attention and feels special is the key.

4. Implementing best practices for party flow, including facilitating peak moments and strong endings, while eliminating common frustrations, ensure consistent, high-quality experiences.


5. Optimizing group revenue strategies to meet the needs of different demographics, including adults, youth, and fundraising events.

6. Leveraging marketing and sales automation to streamline operations and book more parties through consistent and timely follow up communication.

7. Incorporating interactive elements to enhance engagement and fun.


8. Building a strong party team to share insights and create collaborative opportunities.


Family entertainment party programs learning and focusing on these areas, can adapt to changing demographics, differentiate themselves, and create memorable, profitable party experiences, beyond anything their competitors come up with, no matter how big or new to the market.


Birthday University teaches the complete how to evolve your party program and become profitable again, incorporating live demonstrations and interactive human elements to enhances engagement and fun, while building a strong professional network within the industry that fosters collaboration and insight-sharing.

BIRTHDAY MEMORIES ARE POWERFUL

Birthday University has been teaching the business of remarkable birthday parties for the past 25 years and has conducted surveys and thousands of interviews at class, to find out what makes a personal, positive, long lasting birthday memory and why. The results have been identical across age, race, gender and social background. The most memorable birthday parties (some of these memories date back 30 – 40 years, have included these common, end values and emotional attachments.

1. Love, warmth and security: Someone took the time to plan or did something extra special, showing them and feeling they were really cared about.

2. Feeling important: They were the center of attention, they felt important and special, having all the people they care about the most (friends and family) all there just for them.


3. Feeling joy and happiness: Fun, mixed with all the special attention gave them a feeling of joy and happiness.

These strong emotions, love, happiness, security, feeling important will be the result of every long lasting, positive memorable birthday experience forever. On the other hand, if the party experience was average, below or a party nightmare, the most common negative emotions included.

1. Disappointment: someone forgot or wasn’t there they felt unloved, or no one cared.

2. Frustration: something negative happened that was out of their control


3. Anger: because of the above, someone’s rage or outburst drowned out the fun and meaning.


4. Humiliation: they were embarrassed amongst their friends or family.

People buy feelings. If your selling negative ones it doesn’t take long before they stop buying. When these negative emotions surface, they get immediate attention and a reaction without rational thinking. Your party program must not create these by the way they are designed or have been running for years but anticipate these feelings and get ahead of them before they get ugly and tell everyone how you are not worth it. At Birthday University you will leave understanding the cause and effect of both positive and negative emotions and direct correlation to your bottom line.

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