Being asked to do a party with LOTS of people.

[Mermaid Ilari Mae]

I've been asked to do a friend's daughter's 6th birthday party, and bring some activities. However, there's 14 confirmed guests (with who knows how many kids), but she invited 70 something. There will be girls and boys. The theme is Fae, Mermaids, & Pirates.

I'm at a loss for ideas! I don't know what to do for activities. I thought maybe a nature scavenger hunt, just because it'll be in early October. (I have yet to meet what mer'person is out and about in October in the midwest! :P

Any help would be greatly appreciated! <3

[Mermaid Jaffa]

Treasure Hunt - Make little maps like in orienteering, that they can do in groups. Special prize for 1st group to find treasure, trinkets for everyone else. Trinkets can be simple bracelets like macrame, friendship bracelet etc.

Prizes for best pirate accent, mermaid, fairy. Show them how to paint their faces with scales, eye patch and fairy things. Then get them to try it out on each other.

Paper face masks. Write a story about fairies, mermaids and pirates, then have the kids make costumes and act it out.

There's prob more I haven't thought of.

[AniaR]

for safety reasons my ratio is 1 mermaid for every 10 kids. And we bump our rate up to deal with that many.

I often find people over think parties. You dont have to have so many planned activities. The kids just want to swim and spend time with you. So def have some plans as back up if they seem bored or something... but unstructured typically works best! Kids appreciate attention and so much of their life is already super structured. We do unstructured play for most of our parties and I usually only have behavioural issues 1 time in a year and usually for different reasons.

[Arella]

I did a party w/100 people and I just talked with guests and posed for pics. With that many people it's next to impossible to coordinate activities unless you know how many kids are there and/or if there is a separate kids room.

[Chrissy]

I am with Raina. I found that when I went in planned I got nothing done. Every party I have done kids really just want me to swim and tell stories of how and why I am there, where do I live, what do I eat, do i have legs....etc. the larges party I did was probably 20 something kids and the pool was full with adults too. It made swimming a bit hard and to have that many children in your face is very tough. I tried really hard to answer every question and give every child as much attention as I could and take pictures on top of that. It was hard, but a good lesson and luckily I had the life guard to really help me out!!!

[AniaR]

we've done over 100 but we had 3 or 4 mermaids at those gigs. I highly recommend if there's someone else in your area teaming up so you dont get overwhelmed. We all go in bright eyes and scaley-tailed haha. But it can wear you out fast and it's when you get tired that you can get injured or injur your tail.

Good luck :D

[Arella]

Yeah if I did one that size again I would definity up the price and/or bring another mer