Parents throwing birthday parties for their children in various specialised venues rather than at home has become increasingly popular in the past 10 years in Croatia.
There are various venues offered, be they private entrepreneurial ideas, or established institutions working on getting closer to the younger visitors, they aim to throw great parties for kids, and make some money – either as a side gig, or as their core business.
One of those places is the Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU) in Zagreb, who has had the birthday program since 2009, which actually cleverly includes the art into the party. The children get to play in a safe environment, says Zvjezdana Murseli from the Museum, and get immersed in the art shown at the museum, using replicas of the pieces by artists such as Ivan Kožarić and Miroslav Šutej to learn about the art and create an unique piece of artwork that the birthday boy or girl gets to take home as a truly one-of-a-kind present. Of course, kids also get to go down the famous Double Slide by Carsten Höeller, and there’s always a group of educators and animators to make sure everything goes smoothly. The price of the birthday package starts at around 600 kuna, and Murseli says that they throw around 150 birthday parties each year, with over 2000 children, which shows that there really is a lot of interest for their program, especially since they never really marketed it extensively.
Another one of Zagreb’s museums, the Museum of Illusions also invites children’s birthday parties, and promises quite a visual and educational experience, Roko Živković, one of the founders of the museum says. There they offer numerous mind games and puzzles, and photos taken at the museum, all for the price of 25 kuna per kid, and he says that they organize 10 to 15 such parties a month.
One of the institutions you’d expect to have such a program is Trešnja theatre, which is an important part of childhood for every kid in Zagreb for the past 50 years. They allow kids to celebrate their birthday along one of the shows on the theatre’s program (their entire program is dedicated to children), get their photo taken at the stage and then hang out with the actors after the show in their newly-remodelled playroom, all of that for the fixed price of 700 kuna.
In addition to institutions, we mentioned numerous private entrepreneurship initiatives aimed at providing creative and different birthday parties for the kids. One of them is Maja Vukina Bogović, a painter who opened the CityArtStudio in Zabok where creative parties and various workshops for kids are organized. She says she took advantage of all the money she could get from the state to support the start of her business, and created a program that approaches every child individually, paying special attention to the innovative and varied workshops. Each birthday party has a theme, personalized and original invitations are created for every party, and the selected theme is kept throughout, and the main feature of each party there is the face painting session, which children obviously adore (we don’t know whose face actually gets painted, but it’s worth finding out!). Vukina Bogović says that her goal is to help children move away from any screens, and develop fine motor skills and just hang out with other children and learn to help each other.
And in Zagreb, in Dubrava neighbourhood, Mateja Zorbas and Matija Kadojić also made their idea come true, when they opened the playroom called Malci. They have created a space of around 150 square meters that looks like it came from every child’s dream, with a slide, trampoline, climber and other perfect playground equipment. The price of the birthday party is from 800 to 2000 kuna, depending on the number of children and the program selected. There’s also an option to include face painting, clown or a magician at your party, and the food served is also adjusted for allergies or other health considerations. They’ve had children with various disabilities and aim to create the content which will allow them to participate as well. They are fully booked over the weekends, so make sure you plan your party there on time.
Another birthday place in Zagreb is Slonić Tonić, located in Maksimir, run by Iva and Ivan Maričić. Their playroom is aimed at children up to 14 years old, and the price of parties there is around 800-900 kuna. They say that the initial investment in a business like this is quite high, and also mention the complicated procedure of opening a company in Croatia. Their animators working with the children are usually students that have previous experience with kids, and the owners take pride in the fact that the children seem to remember the animators from their parties for quite a long time.
So, to summarize, although some say that joy can’t be purchased with money, it seems that this market of children’s birthday parties has developed to provide joy to all involved: those celebrating, their parents, who are paying and organizers who have found a way to make a living.
