Birthdays are a real milestone and a chance to celebrate all your child has achieved in the last year. For a child, it’s mostly about the presents and the party. With three children ranging from 15 to 10, I’ve organised my fair share of teen birthday parties. While I’m very grateful to now be through the soft play years, there is a bit of a gap on exciting and unusual birthday party ideas for your preteen and teenager birthday parties. Big, whole-class birthday parties have often been replaced with fun and exciting experiences for a smaller group of core friends. A chance to share an experience that they can chat about over birthday cake later. Our VR and escape room parties excel at providing exciting, unusual birthday parties leaving kids buzzing with excitement.
What makes a VR escape room the perfect birthday party for a teen or preteen?
When hunting for the perfect birthday party for my teenage and pre-teen children, I looking for something
- A party that no-one else has done so it feels a bit different and special
- A party that is low hassle to organise and easy to book
- A party that serves food
- A party where my kid’s friends will leave saying ‘Wow! That was the best party EVER!
- A venue where my party will be made to feel special and not like some sausage factory of parties
- A host that is enthusiastic and engaging with the children
- A party that is good value for money
When putting together our birthday party packages at Sneaky Dog Escapes, I put all my years of great and terrible birthday party experiences to make sure I met every one of the criteria above. We wanted to create birthday parties that were amazing for the kids and easy to organise for the parents.
Luckily for us, I have some handy children I could use as party testers! This year our 10 year old’s party was a virtual reality escape room party. We chose Jungle Quest because it is fun and light-hearted with jungle animals on floating islands to interact with but has enough puzzles that the girls all needed to work together so it was a team game and no one was left out. It was the perfect girl’s party – even more so because none of the other girls had ever played virtual reality before. How fantastic to host a 10-year-olds birthday party and it be an entirely new and different experience for all of them. All the girls left bursting with squeals – the perfect party!
Is it a good birthday party for gamers?
VR is like stepping into a game and being a part of the action. So if your child, like my son, is into gaming, a virtual reality birthday party is like gaming on a sugar rush (Minecraft on skittles?). It has all the excitement and adventure but it just feels so REAL. VR is incredibly immersive. It allows you to do things you simply couldn’t in the real world like climb across massive crevasses (not with the amount of time I spend in the gym anyway), swing from vines, and even shoot each other with arrows. We also hosted ‘Arena’ birthday parties at Sneaky Dog Escapes. Arena is a fast-paced, all-action VR shooting game where players can team up against the robots or pit themselves against each other. The shouts of excitement and the constant babbling of boys as they catch up over party food are proof of the brilliant time they have had.
How does a VR birthday party work?
Our VR escape rooms host a maximum of 4 at a time to make sure they have fun playing together to solve puzzles and no one is left on the sidelines with nothing to do. For a birthday party we can host up to 8 players. While one team plays a VR adventure, the other team tackles our tabletop escape game – it’s like an escape room in a box with a small prize if you can solve it in time. At half time, the two teams swap so everyone plays a VR escape game and an escape room box. Afterwards, you can swap stories of your adventures and successes over food in our dedicated party room.
But will it feel like a party?
Definitely! All our VR adventures at Sneaky Dog Escapes are collaborative. When the players enter the virtual world, they become avatars (like VR characters). In some games, you can even dress your avatar up. The players can then see each other, talk to each other through the headsets, interact with each other and even pass objects to each other. The games are designed to encourage players to work together and the dedicated, gamemasters are trained to make sure everyone is involved in the game as well as supporting any players still getting to grips with VR. Likewise, our tabletop escape game is designed to play and work together, solving puzzles to reveal the prize
The top 5 reasons why Sneaky Dog Escapes is the perfect birthday party venue for your teen’s birthday party
- They are fun and exciting and your team will leave buzzing.
- These unusual parties will mean that for most of your guests this will be a fantastic new experience.
- As a 5* rated escape room, we pride ourselves on our customer service and your party will have a dedicated gamesmaster ensuring they have the very best experience
- It’s low hassle to organise – one phone call with us and we can provide invites, food and entertainment. You just need to bring the cake
- We give all your party group a fabulous 15% off their next visit.
Sounds great! How do I book?
You can find out more details about our birthday party packages by emailing us at [email protected]. We will update this blog when our birthday party page is constructed. When you’re ready to book or have any questions, give us a call on 02381 783838.
View our virtual reality escape adventures.