Excluding the home, what were the most common places to hold a children’s birthday party when you were a kid?

30 comments

1. Going bowling was pretty common, at least in my age group (early 20’s)

2. Umm… nowhere. If it didn’t happen in the home, it didn’t happen; this was in the 80s in rural Ireland, so there weren’t exactly options.

3. Going to the cinema or the public pool was pretty common.

4. This isn’t really common but I grew up in a co-housing community and there was a common house that was used for daycare and gatherings. I had a friend who was a few days older and we had a few joint birthday parties there for all children in the community. Mostly we just had parties at home, I don’t think that there were really any places where you could have children’s parties in my hometown in the 80s or at least we weren’t aware. We didn’t even have a McDonald’s until the 90s.

5. Outside in a park, usually, if it wasn’t at home. Places like going to the cinema or bowling became popular with older kids (10+) because by then people didn’t feel obliged to invite the whole class.

6. “I’m not saying where we’re going, but bring your swimming costume”

7. When I was a kid museums had birthday specials like building stone age tools, or painting like the expressionists. We did that a lot. Also there was a year when I went to three birthday parties on a farm.

8. Bowling, swimming pool, hiking (indoors), one it was europapark

9. Indoor swimming pools and an indoor… playground or something. It was a somewhat big building with a long carpet slide, a sort of a artificial hill to climb, trampolines and more for kids to play. Was pretty popular.

10. Pizzerias and (me specifically) a place with lot of tubes and secret passages like the ones in the kids areas of the mcdonalds

11. Well, as far as I remember, there was one kid, who always had a party at a local football field, and I think someone else had a party at a pizzeria once, but that was about it.

    Most of the time parties were at home, and it usually resulted in a trashed house from playing hide and seek in the dark (at least if you had birthday in winter)

12. Pizzerias, Macdonalds and (in my city) the natural history museum.

13. This probably isn’t common but like 3 of my childhood birthdays were held in a park where you drive with pedal cars.

14. Local swimming pool, a community centre sometimes (if there’s a lot of kids coming and you don’t have a private outdoor space at home). Sometimes a cinema party or the Amazin Maze, which is like a farm come adventure playground come big maze. I’ve also been to a birthday party when I was younger at the zoo.

15. There are a places like playrooms where you’d have tons of toys, trampoline, and everything is organized by the hosts, so you’d have 2 teams and usually you would play quizzes or basically anything the hosts have planned to entertain you. In the end you usually get the prize for competing in those games

16. I grew up on a small island in northern Norway, if you were fortunate with weather you could be in there forest or your garden.

    If you include older kids maybe cinema but really it was extremely home party dominated.

17. Never been to one that wasn’t in the home in Sweden.

    As for in England, they could be at a swimming pool or in a larger building than a home that one rented for the day. Also at McDonalds or Pizza Hut or similar style fast-food place.

    In general, the birthday parties were better in England. More effort went into them. In Sweden it was mostly boring ’free play.’

18. I don’t really know what they’re called in English but it was pretty common to rent whats known as a “Grendehus” in Norwegian. They’re sort of small buildings in the neighbourhood or village that anyone could rent for any kind of event. Were either privately owned or owned by the municipality.

    As for like an actual activity birthday it was typically something like bowling, gokart or a trip to a water park.

19. Germany: Bowling, McDonald’s, Indoor Playground, the local sports/activity center, Cinema, Farms, simply Parks or Playgrounds sometimes
    If you were more towards teenager: Theme Park, Rock climbing Hall, Swimming Pool, later bars or clubs

    There was a big furniture shop who had a kid caretaking facility that offered birthday parties. They had an indoor playground, trampoline, games, slides and a mini driving school with tiny cars…
    It offered birthday party and it was the best but it closed down by now ..

20. I was a kid during 80s and we were in Soviet Union, so.. as far as I remember from my own experience and what I heard from others, it was home or nothing. I’m sure there might have been some exceptions to that, but that would no longer count as “common” 😀

21. What was common was to the nearby public swimming pool or to a pretty big indoor playground with all kinds of inflateable stuff, parcours and toys.

    I think in 4th grade my friend also held a birthday party at a kart track which was pretty cool.

22. From my personal experience, most people hold bday parties in their homes. But, Finland has this place called “HopLop” (might be in other countries, not sure) that is for children to mess around it. Like an indoor adventure park type thing. After you got a bit older (10+) it would be Superpark. It was like Hoplop but a lot more fun for older ages and a lot more activities and harder things. It’s in finland and asian countries, outside of that I’m not sure where else.

23. Indoor ‘play islands’, everyone was psyched for those. Bowling. McDonalds. Treasure hunts (hiking). Oh the memories….the best one I had was at someone’s dad workplace. His profession was selling military vehicles and pinball machines. Age 14, that was gold.
    Edit: now at age 31, it would still be gold.

24. In my area usually the kid which parents with lots of money but not a lot of space rented the football fields and the shack of the town parishes, so that’s where I usually went, at least in Grade School and Preschool. When we got older, it was usually pizzerias.

25. I lived in a house with huge playing areas and a meeting house on the premise of a big neighbourhood. Usually there.

26. When i was a kid everyone held their birthday parties at indoor swimming pools!

27. We had an arcade with a playloft and a bowling alley near us. That’s where pretty much every party was held when we were little.

28. When I was a kid, I was not aware of any other options; we didn’t have any McDonald’s or play rooms. Now, I have no idea, I don’t have much contact with young parents.

29. Most parties I had or was invited to were at home but lazer tag or paintball were also common.

30. Yeah, McDonald’s is definitely up there but also go kart places and also at laser dome halls, am unsure if it’s a thing anywhere else but it’s like an indoor shooting simulation game where you wear vests and laser weapons that you shot at other peoples vests to earn points.