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In the Business of Birthdays
If you are in the business of 'kids' then you are probably also in the business of birthdays. Following my introduction you will find a story titled “How Spiderman Ruined my Kid’s 5th Birthday”. It is a story about a father and mother’s nightmare and their son’s disillusionment with his very important 5th birthday party. It is an eye-opening tale for those of us in the birthday business.
As my very wise friend, Frank Price, highlights for his Birthday University students, you are responsible for the success of the most influential milestones in a child's life...those first formidable and memorable birthdays.
When Frank conducts his ‘journey back in time’ experiment with the Birthday U students he takes them back to their worst birthday and then to their best birthday. When he journeyed the group back to the ‘worst’ experience he frequently found himself tapping into raw feelings that his adult students (business owners and managers that are often times parents themselves) were still harboring. For some, the trauma was as real as if it had just happened yesterday. In fact, one woman literally became distraught and needed a moment to get herself together after reliving the humiliation of one of her birthday guests yanking down her pants in front of everyone at her 6th birthday party. Frank then gently guides the group back to the current moment and reviews for them the significance of the experience as it applies to them as business owners in the business of birthdays. My worst experience was my 8th birthday when my dad brought home a rum cake as my birthday cake. ...long story...
The point of the exercise is to remind the student of how crucial they and their business are to that birthday child’s lifelong memories. Frank challenges his students to make sure that the birthday children that come through their facility or use their rental services are treated like a star! Not only is this the ‘right’ thing to do, it is good for business. Parents will market your company virally with either good or bad reviews.
Read the personal and very entertaining account that follows of a little boy's 5th birthday party. I thank his parents for sharing this story and may every future birthday for their son be the best!
How Spiderman Ruined my Kid’s 5th Birthday
At four-and-a-half, my son Zach was a pretty typical kid. At that age, he enjoyed things like riding his bike, playing on the playground, and going to pre-school; but above all else, he loved Spiderman.
One day, I’d taken Zach to a local comic book shop and it just so happened to be the day that Spiderman was visiting the store. Whoever played Spiderman was fantastic; he kneeled down and thumb-wrestled with Zach for a bit. Zach beat Spidey 3 times in a row! Wow! For a father, there’s no greater feeling than seeing such joy on my little boy’s face; believing he’d just beaten his hero in a thumb-wrestling match. Zach gave Spiderman a huge high-five right before we left the store. On the way out, Zach was hugging his new Spiderman comic book tightly to his chest with the biggest ear-to-ear grin I’d ever seen.
My wife and I wanted to do something special for his upcoming birthday party. We hadn’t hired a character for any of his previous parties and thought it would be such a cool, fun thing to do. He loves Spiderman so much; so, wouldn’t it be great if Spiderman showed up at his party? Thinking back on Zach and Spiderman at the comic book store, it seemed like the perfect idea!
We’d already reserved a date for his party at the local gym for kids. All we had to do was find a good Spiderman and his party would be set. We Googled and found several local companies offering characters like Elmo, Spiderman, Mickey Mouse, Batman and other favorites for kids’ parties. One site had a really good photo of a fit looking Spiderman. It was such an authentic looking costume, just like the one in the movies. I called the number on the contact page and spoke with the woman who owned the business. She assured me that Spiderman would be played by a young man on her staff who does a great job with the role.
Fast-forward a couple of months and it’s the day of Zach’s birthday party. Zach and a dozen kids are running amok on the gym’s play quad. Shouts and laughter fill the room. The gym staff has the kids’ line up to for the party room, where they’ll be running organized activities for the party. The gym typically offers parties like this: As kids arrive, they play on the quad for about 15 minutes. Once all the kids show up, they move to the back room, where they have organized play for 45 minutes (relay races, rock-wall climbing, tag, play with the parachute, etc.) and then the kids head over to the kitchen area for cake and snacks. After that there’s more time on the play quad as the guests leave and the next party comes in. Our plan was simple: At 30 minutes of organized play, I go out front to meet and pay Spiderman his fee. I will then bring Spiderman back to where the party is and say something like “Hey Zach! Look who decided to drop by your party!” At this time, Spiderman will entertain during the last 15 minutes of organized play and then join the kids in the kitchen for cake and snacks. The kids can get pictures with Spiderman at this point. Then, Spiderman will play with the kids during free play for about 10 to 15 minutes and then tell the kids it was fun, but he has to go back to being a super hero and go fight some crime. They say their goodbyes and that wraps it up; great memories to cherish for years to come.
Here’s how it went down: The party’s now about 25 minutes into organized play and all is well. My wife reminds me I should go out to the lobby and meet Spiderman; he should be arriving any minute. I’m in the gym lobby, speaking with the owner of the gym and in walks Spiderman. The first thing I notice is Spiderman has breasts. Wait what!?! The next thing I notice is that Spiderman’s costume is awful! It reminded me of loose-fitting pajamas. I thought I remembered seeing that exact costume in Wal-Mart for $10. I felt blindsided. I had been so excited for Spiderman to show up at Zach’s party, to see the same ear-to-ear grin and look of excitement Zach had at the comic book store. I remember feeling kind of flushed as I was counting out the money to pay this woman. Thinking to myself “This isn’t right, this isn’t what we ordered and I’m not paying you.” Then another thought entered my mind: “Is it sexist to be thinking this way? Am I being politically incorrect?” But, then I thought back to when I was five or six and my parents took me to see the play Peter Pan and I remembered that a young woman played the role of Peter Pan, and that was ok, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with that. Then I thought “He’s only five, maybe he won’t know the difference”. I wanted Spiderman to be at his party. I so wanted this to work. I paid her the money.
The second after the money left my hand, I began to notice other things about Spiderman. First, I recognized her voice as the woman on the phone that I initially spoke with when booking Spiderman for the party. And it was an old, reedy voice; the voice of a woman who’s been living sixty or seventy years. The costume had sleeves that stop at the wrist and she was wearing a pair of red gloves. I could see several loose gold bracelets underneath the costume poking out. The skin that was exposed was wrinkled. This woman was definitely over sixty years old. I could see heavy eye make-up through the voluminous eye-holes in the baggy mask. Was she even trying? At least Peter Pan was young and fit and the actress probably wrapped herself to at least appear to be like a boy.
Well, here goes nothing. I open the door to the party room and announce “Hey kids! Look who’s here! It’s Spiderman!” Just then, for a split second, I got the look from my son that I was longing for, that look of wonder and excitement that cannot be contained! He was beaming as he heard those words and was quickly turning our way to see his surprise party guest. After one second of Zach taking in the vision of old-lady Spiderman; that excitement, joy, bliss, glee, whatever you want to call it, just slowly deflated into a look of uncertainty, disillusionment and humiliation. Seeing that look on his face at his 5th birthday party just broke my heart into little pieces. At that moment, I wished I could’ve gone back in time 10 minutes. I would’ve sent old-lady Spiderman packing and Zach would’ve been none the wiser.
At one point, “Spiderman” asked for a high-five from Zach. Zach likes to put some power into his high-fives. As he reached back to give Spidey his high-five, old-lady Spiderman recoiled in fear of a five year old high-fiving too hard! Then she yelled at him “Hey, go easy on Spiderman!” Since when is Spiderman afraid of a high-five from a five year old???
Old-lady Spiderman had the kids doing the chicken dance and the hokey pokey. Zach wasn’t there. The Zach I know and love had left to go to his newly found happy place somewhere deep in his mind and he left behind a mere shell of a boy, barely going through the motions of the hokey pokey, obviously wishing for this fiasco to end. I scanned the room to see the reactions of others. At this point the other kids seemed to be ok with old-lady Spiderman. They seemed to be happily doing the hokey pokey. The parents seemed indifferent for the most part. A few seemed to be trying not to smirk. My wife was livid.
As the kids were led from the party room to the kitchen area, the owner of the gym pulled me aside. Apparently, old-lady Spiderman dropped business cards off at the front desk when she came in. He showed them to me. On one side of the colorful card, there was a blurb about kids parties and listed some of the characters offered. Then, the owner flipped the card over for me and on the other side, the card advertised strip-o-grams, naughty nurse, French maid and other adult entertainment characters for hire. I’m no prude, but something struck me here. It’s one thing to go into this kind of business and offer adult entertainment like strip-o-grams. It’s another thing to offer adult entertainment AND kid entertainment, but advertising strip-o-grams AND Elmo on the same business card??? Something seemed extremely disturbing about that!
Old-lady Spiderman was making balloon animals (and balloon swords) for the kids while cake was being served. The kids started telling old-lady Spiderman that they thought she was a fake. Before long, there was a mob of five-year-olds chanting “Fake! Fake! Fake! Fake!” Zach didn’t join in. He just sat there with that same dissatisfied and bewildered “why me?” look.
We took some pictures of Zach and old-lady Spiderman. At this point, I can’t say why we kept up with these shenanigans. I suppose we were going through the motions trying to impose some degree of normalcy onto this very creepy situation.
During the final “free play” portion of the party, all the boys were running around, beating on old-lady Spiderman with their balloon swords and chanting “Fake!” My wife pulled old-lady Spiderman aside and dismissed her of her duties. “You can go, now” was all she said.
Old-lady Spiderman vanished into the bathroom for a few minutes and then emerged as Tinkerbell or some kind of fairy character. That’s right; she came out of the bathroom holding the Spiderman pajamas and wearing a frilly, lacey white dress thing (cut short, exposing her varicose-vein-covered legs), holding a wand with a shiny silver star on the end. The costume had fairy wings on the back. So that’s what the gold bracelets and heavy eye make-up was all about! She had some kind of fairy getup for her next party underneath the Spiderman costume! Thank God the kids were all busy at this point and only a few of us grown-ups witnessed the horrid transformation of old-lady Spiderman into old-lady Tinkerbell. Talk about coming close to scarring some kids for life! I’m in my forties and I still shudder at the memory.
After the party, when my wife and I finally got to sit down and talk about the experience, we agreed that the whole thing was an absolute nightmare. Zach approached us several times asking why a lady came to his party as a fake Spiderman? He said he felt sad and angry that she was there. He wished he never had that party.
Some of our friends suggested we track down a good Spiderman (maybe the one from the comic book store?), have him show up at our house and tell Zach that he was sorry he couldn’t make his party and that he tracked down the lady that dressed up as him and he put her in jail for being an imposter. I know their intentions were good and they were trying to help us find a way to redeem the situation, but we decided the best thing to do was drop it, let it go, create more positive moments with Zach moving forward and let the whole debacle fade away.
Jumping ahead 10 months, we were very careful in planning his 6th birthday party. Zach wanted his party to be at Build-a-Bear Workshop this year. We went to Build-a-Bear to book the party and there was another party going on while we were there. The young man that was running the party was great. He was excited about his job, interacting with all the kids, asking them about their favorite sports, favorite video games, favorite TV shows and high fiving them. He got the kids energized about the party. He had them doing treasure hunts and races around the store and different dances. He kept it fresh and interesting and he was loud and boisterous. As we booked the party, we said “We want him to run the party” pointing to Corey, the guy who was currently doing such a great job.
Corey ran Zach’s 6th party at Build-a-Bear and it was such a huge success. Zach’s 6th birthday party more than made up for his 5th. That awful experience seems to have faded completely from Zach’s memory (at least he hasn’t brought it up). Corey had practically lost his voice by the end of the party from completely immersing himself into the experience of it, almost becoming a kid himself for those 60 minutes. After Build-a-Bear, the party caravanned back to our place for cake and ice cream. We had an inflatable bounce house out back for the kids to jump on. Zach opened his presents and he got everything he wished for. Once again, Zach had that thrilled, youthful look of utter delight that I craved to see. This time, the look lasted all day.
As my very wise friend, Frank Price, highlights for his Birthday University students, you are responsible for the success of the most influential milestones in a child's life...those first formidable and memorable birthdays.
When Frank conducts his ‘journey back in time’ experiment with the Birthday U students he takes them back to their worst birthday and then to their best birthday. When he journeyed the group back to the ‘worst’ experience he frequently found himself tapping into raw feelings that his adult students (business owners and managers that are often times parents themselves) were still harboring. For some, the trauma was as real as if it had just happened yesterday. In fact, one woman literally became distraught and needed a moment to get herself together after reliving the humiliation of one of her birthday guests yanking down her pants in front of everyone at her 6th birthday party. Frank then gently guides the group back to the current moment and reviews for them the significance of the experience as it applies to them as business owners in the business of birthdays. My worst experience was my 8th birthday when my dad brought home a rum cake as my birthday cake. ...long story...
The point of the exercise is to remind the student of how crucial they and their business are to that birthday child’s lifelong memories. Frank challenges his students to make sure that the birthday children that come through their facility or use their rental services are treated like a star! Not only is this the ‘right’ thing to do, it is good for business. Parents will market your company virally with either good or bad reviews.
Read the personal and very entertaining account that follows of a little boy's 5th birthday party. I thank his parents for sharing this story and may every future birthday for their son be the best!
At four-and-a-half, my son Zach was a pretty typical kid. At that age, he enjoyed things like riding his bike, playing on the playground, and going to pre-school; but above all else, he loved Spiderman.
One day, I’d taken Zach to a local comic book shop and it just so happened to be the day that Spiderman was visiting the store. Whoever played Spiderman was fantastic; he kneeled down and thumb-wrestled with Zach for a bit. Zach beat Spidey 3 times in a row! Wow! For a father, there’s no greater feeling than seeing such joy on my little boy’s face; believing he’d just beaten his hero in a thumb-wrestling match. Zach gave Spiderman a huge high-five right before we left the store. On the way out, Zach was hugging his new Spiderman comic book tightly to his chest with the biggest ear-to-ear grin I’d ever seen.
My wife and I wanted to do something special for his upcoming birthday party. We hadn’t hired a character for any of his previous parties and thought it would be such a cool, fun thing to do. He loves Spiderman so much; so, wouldn’t it be great if Spiderman showed up at his party? Thinking back on Zach and Spiderman at the comic book store, it seemed like the perfect idea!
We’d already reserved a date for his party at the local gym for kids. All we had to do was find a good Spiderman and his party would be set. We Googled and found several local companies offering characters like Elmo, Spiderman, Mickey Mouse, Batman and other favorites for kids’ parties. One site had a really good photo of a fit looking Spiderman. It was such an authentic looking costume, just like the one in the movies. I called the number on the contact page and spoke with the woman who owned the business. She assured me that Spiderman would be played by a young man on her staff who does a great job with the role.
Fast-forward a couple of months and it’s the day of Zach’s birthday party. Zach and a dozen kids are running amok on the gym’s play quad. Shouts and laughter fill the room. The gym staff has the kids’ line up to for the party room, where they’ll be running organized activities for the party. The gym typically offers parties like this: As kids arrive, they play on the quad for about 15 minutes. Once all the kids show up, they move to the back room, where they have organized play for 45 minutes (relay races, rock-wall climbing, tag, play with the parachute, etc.) and then the kids head over to the kitchen area for cake and snacks. After that there’s more time on the play quad as the guests leave and the next party comes in. Our plan was simple: At 30 minutes of organized play, I go out front to meet and pay Spiderman his fee. I will then bring Spiderman back to where the party is and say something like “Hey Zach! Look who decided to drop by your party!” At this time, Spiderman will entertain during the last 15 minutes of organized play and then join the kids in the kitchen for cake and snacks. The kids can get pictures with Spiderman at this point. Then, Spiderman will play with the kids during free play for about 10 to 15 minutes and then tell the kids it was fun, but he has to go back to being a super hero and go fight some crime. They say their goodbyes and that wraps it up; great memories to cherish for years to come.
Here’s how it went down: The party’s now about 25 minutes into organized play and all is well. My wife reminds me I should go out to the lobby and meet Spiderman; he should be arriving any minute. I’m in the gym lobby, speaking with the owner of the gym and in walks Spiderman. The first thing I notice is Spiderman has breasts. Wait what!?! The next thing I notice is that Spiderman’s costume is awful! It reminded me of loose-fitting pajamas. I thought I remembered seeing that exact costume in Wal-Mart for $10. I felt blindsided. I had been so excited for Spiderman to show up at Zach’s party, to see the same ear-to-ear grin and look of excitement Zach had at the comic book store. I remember feeling kind of flushed as I was counting out the money to pay this woman. Thinking to myself “This isn’t right, this isn’t what we ordered and I’m not paying you.” Then another thought entered my mind: “Is it sexist to be thinking this way? Am I being politically incorrect?” But, then I thought back to when I was five or six and my parents took me to see the play Peter Pan and I remembered that a young woman played the role of Peter Pan, and that was ok, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with that. Then I thought “He’s only five, maybe he won’t know the difference”. I wanted Spiderman to be at his party. I so wanted this to work. I paid her the money.
The second after the money left my hand, I began to notice other things about Spiderman. First, I recognized her voice as the woman on the phone that I initially spoke with when booking Spiderman for the party. And it was an old, reedy voice; the voice of a woman who’s been living sixty or seventy years. The costume had sleeves that stop at the wrist and she was wearing a pair of red gloves. I could see several loose gold bracelets underneath the costume poking out. The skin that was exposed was wrinkled. This woman was definitely over sixty years old. I could see heavy eye make-up through the voluminous eye-holes in the baggy mask. Was she even trying? At least Peter Pan was young and fit and the actress probably wrapped herself to at least appear to be like a boy.
Well, here goes nothing. I open the door to the party room and announce “Hey kids! Look who’s here! It’s Spiderman!” Just then, for a split second, I got the look from my son that I was longing for, that look of wonder and excitement that cannot be contained! He was beaming as he heard those words and was quickly turning our way to see his surprise party guest. After one second of Zach taking in the vision of old-lady Spiderman; that excitement, joy, bliss, glee, whatever you want to call it, just slowly deflated into a look of uncertainty, disillusionment and humiliation. Seeing that look on his face at his 5th birthday party just broke my heart into little pieces. At that moment, I wished I could’ve gone back in time 10 minutes. I would’ve sent old-lady Spiderman packing and Zach would’ve been none the wiser.
At one point, “Spiderman” asked for a high-five from Zach. Zach likes to put some power into his high-fives. As he reached back to give Spidey his high-five, old-lady Spiderman recoiled in fear of a five year old high-fiving too hard! Then she yelled at him “Hey, go easy on Spiderman!” Since when is Spiderman afraid of a high-five from a five year old???
Old-lady Spiderman had the kids doing the chicken dance and the hokey pokey. Zach wasn’t there. The Zach I know and love had left to go to his newly found happy place somewhere deep in his mind and he left behind a mere shell of a boy, barely going through the motions of the hokey pokey, obviously wishing for this fiasco to end. I scanned the room to see the reactions of others. At this point the other kids seemed to be ok with old-lady Spiderman. They seemed to be happily doing the hokey pokey. The parents seemed indifferent for the most part. A few seemed to be trying not to smirk. My wife was livid.
As the kids were led from the party room to the kitchen area, the owner of the gym pulled me aside. Apparently, old-lady Spiderman dropped business cards off at the front desk when she came in. He showed them to me. On one side of the colorful card, there was a blurb about kids parties and listed some of the characters offered. Then, the owner flipped the card over for me and on the other side, the card advertised strip-o-grams, naughty nurse, French maid and other adult entertainment characters for hire. I’m no prude, but something struck me here. It’s one thing to go into this kind of business and offer adult entertainment like strip-o-grams. It’s another thing to offer adult entertainment AND kid entertainment, but advertising strip-o-grams AND Elmo on the same business card??? Something seemed extremely disturbing about that!
Old-lady Spiderman was making balloon animals (and balloon swords) for the kids while cake was being served. The kids started telling old-lady Spiderman that they thought she was a fake. Before long, there was a mob of five-year-olds chanting “Fake! Fake! Fake! Fake!” Zach didn’t join in. He just sat there with that same dissatisfied and bewildered “why me?” look.
We took some pictures of Zach and old-lady Spiderman. At this point, I can’t say why we kept up with these shenanigans. I suppose we were going through the motions trying to impose some degree of normalcy onto this very creepy situation.
During the final “free play” portion of the party, all the boys were running around, beating on old-lady Spiderman with their balloon swords and chanting “Fake!” My wife pulled old-lady Spiderman aside and dismissed her of her duties. “You can go, now” was all she said.
Old-lady Spiderman vanished into the bathroom for a few minutes and then emerged as Tinkerbell or some kind of fairy character. That’s right; she came out of the bathroom holding the Spiderman pajamas and wearing a frilly, lacey white dress thing (cut short, exposing her varicose-vein-covered legs), holding a wand with a shiny silver star on the end. The costume had fairy wings on the back. So that’s what the gold bracelets and heavy eye make-up was all about! She had some kind of fairy getup for her next party underneath the Spiderman costume! Thank God the kids were all busy at this point and only a few of us grown-ups witnessed the horrid transformation of old-lady Spiderman into old-lady Tinkerbell. Talk about coming close to scarring some kids for life! I’m in my forties and I still shudder at the memory.
After the party, when my wife and I finally got to sit down and talk about the experience, we agreed that the whole thing was an absolute nightmare. Zach approached us several times asking why a lady came to his party as a fake Spiderman? He said he felt sad and angry that she was there. He wished he never had that party.
Some of our friends suggested we track down a good Spiderman (maybe the one from the comic book store?), have him show up at our house and tell Zach that he was sorry he couldn’t make his party and that he tracked down the lady that dressed up as him and he put her in jail for being an imposter. I know their intentions were good and they were trying to help us find a way to redeem the situation, but we decided the best thing to do was drop it, let it go, create more positive moments with Zach moving forward and let the whole debacle fade away.
Jumping ahead 10 months, we were very careful in planning his 6th birthday party. Zach wanted his party to be at Build-a-Bear Workshop this year. We went to Build-a-Bear to book the party and there was another party going on while we were there. The young man that was running the party was great. He was excited about his job, interacting with all the kids, asking them about their favorite sports, favorite video games, favorite TV shows and high fiving them. He got the kids energized about the party. He had them doing treasure hunts and races around the store and different dances. He kept it fresh and interesting and he was loud and boisterous. As we booked the party, we said “We want him to run the party” pointing to Corey, the guy who was currently doing such a great job.
Corey ran Zach’s 6th party at Build-a-Bear and it was such a huge success. Zach’s 6th birthday party more than made up for his 5th. That awful experience seems to have faded completely from Zach’s memory (at least he hasn’t brought it up). Corey had practically lost his voice by the end of the party from completely immersing himself into the experience of it, almost becoming a kid himself for those 60 minutes. After Build-a-Bear, the party caravanned back to our place for cake and ice cream. We had an inflatable bounce house out back for the kids to jump on. Zach opened his presents and he got everything he wished for. Once again, Zach had that thrilled, youthful look of utter delight that I craved to see. This time, the look lasted all day.
* added March 17, 2011
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