Children’s parties are now carefully choreographed celebrations of status and wealth, with parents spending up to Rs 30 lakh

Magician? Yawn. Juggler? How unoriginal. Mickey Mouse ? Yikes. Motu Patlu? Who?

To entertain an iPad-wielding five-year-old on his birthday these days, you have to think like an Indian TV writer pitching a fantasy show to Netflix. Success involves spitting on tired party tropes such as Barbie and Hannah Montana , and promising a binge-worthy two-hour fairy tale . Besides blonde Russian girls sporting Disney gowns and Rs 25,000-an-evening smiles in a five-star setting, a birthday party must feature reality-show singers, Masterchef-style cook-offs, virtual reality games, faux snowfall, remote-controlled chariots, custom neon-lights that will reflect the name of the evening’s star, a FIFA-style football match and other high-production frills. Throw in pre-event teasers such as ‘cake smash videos’ and post-event belly dancers to ensure that the gig’s crammed with more layers than the three-tier fondant cake.

Welcome to the flashy new business vertical called children’s birthday parties whose budgets can power a small startup. In the bid to gift their young ones Instagram-worthy birthdays, nouveau rich millennial parents of Mumbai and Delhi are spending between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 30 lakh on an evening. Given the new standards set by peer pressure and social media, parties have moved from terraces to five-star lounges and banquet halls. Event planners now find themselves feverishly updating “deliverables” with technology-infused themes and maintaining a poker-face while saying things like: “Sorry, it’s illegal to bring an elephant into the city”.

“Today, people want to throw a party that the whole town will talk about,” says Puja Rustagi, an event planner in Gurugram whose budgets for kids’ parties start at Rs 1 lakh. First-birthday dos are especially steep. Another Gurugram-based birthday party organiser and décor specialist Ritika Sahni Girdhar, who started her business in 2014 with three parties a month and is so swamped today that she must turn away clients, says the budget for some first-birthday dos at five-star hotels goes up to Rs 30 lakh. She breaks down the costs matter-of-factly: “A customised cake from a top-rated baker costs around Rs 5,000 a kg. A minimum guest list of 250 means a 10kg cake. Food comes to around Rs 5,000 per plate. The décor costs will run into a few lakhs and the five-star venue is another couple of lakhs.” Girdhar’s clients often insist on return gifts that cost at least Rs 2,500 and she organises customised bags printed with the photo of each child.

Mumbai sees at least 150 such high-end birthday parties every year and around 10,000 parties per weekend, according to Gaurav Dubey of events company dreamparty.in. “Unlike us, kids are not limited to Indian cartoons and are consuming everything from Netflix and YouTube to e-sports and comics,” says Dubey, whose firm hosts three to four birthday parties a month. Though he adds new themes such as Pinkalicious (a Harper Collins kids’ novel), Theo the mouse and Boss Baby to his dossier, children routinely challenge his creative team. If one four-year-old boy refused to settle for any of the 10 pre-set variations of car-based themes such as Fast & Furious, Hot Wheels and Ferrari and insisted on ‘Jeep’ as the theme for his party, another kid was certain he wanted Baby Avengers and “not Avengers” as the theme.

This is why, despite her lack of interest in movies, Mumbai-based planner Vanita Rodrigues, 53, laps up everything from Zingaat to Salman’s latest hits. “You have to come down to their (kid’s) age,” says Rodrigues, who can brag about hosting a Masterchef-themed party where kids helped their mothers cook and a football match for a five-year-old Ronaldo fan. Rodrigues adds that some 4-7pm kiddy parties bleed into dos for the parent’s business clients replete with fire jugglers, belly dancers and tequila shots.

Not everyone wants an ostentatious affair. More discerning yet rich clients ask for something meaningful like crafts workshops or nature trails. Rustagi organised a party for environmentally-conscious parents who didn’t want to generate too much waste. “They brought a Madhubani master to teach the painting style to children,” says Rustagi. “He was a President’s awardee.”

Gift registries, websites that help couples communicate gift preferences to guests, are also popular now, and parents’ wish lists have become more uninhibited. Aditi Mehta of Wishtry, a gift registry website, has seen kids demand Apple watches. One Bandra couple asked for a $1,500-stroller from the US for their child’s first birthday.

Though it’s largely the elite who can afford such excesses, Dubey has heard of middle-class parents in Mumbai taking a loan to host a birthday party. “That’s childish,” he says.

( With inputs from Shobita Dhar)

