Party Planner 🎉🍰🎁🎈🙆

Dance parties are becoming increasingly popular, particularly for birthdays and hen do's. They aren't something I deliver often but so far I've had the following themes: burlesque (hen do), line dancing (hen do & 60th birthday), street dancing (14th birthday) and Strictly Come Dancing (8th birthday). The latter being one of the big reasons, I believe, for dance becoming so popular over the years!

As dance parties aren't something I do often, I've decided to present an example of one of my party plans in the hope that anyone more experienced can provide me with some feedback or suggestions for improvement.

I created the above plan on app: KEY NOTE which I find extremely useful. I also used it for my 'swing bible' on Annie UK Tour. Any comments or advice on my plan would be hugely appreciated. 

The party was ultimately a success because the children had a good time and they learned from it. The parnets were impressed with the performances and how much they children had achieved in a short space of time so all in all👌🏻 However, here are some of my findings from the event:

Children can be MEAN. 

I handed out number 10's only so that the children received positive scores only. I didn't account for the fact that some children may just refuse to hold them up because 'it wasn't very good'.

To maintain involvement and keep interest, any children that were out I got them to do things like stop the music in musical statues or help me look for the ones that were wobbling. I didn't account for the fact that the child pressing stop may keep pressing it so quickly that the children didn't have a chance. I also didn't account for the fact that a helper may continually pick on the same child whether they were moving or not so that their best friend won.

Unfortunately I had a little girl cry because she wanted her mum to come back, I think the party was quite overwhelming for her and she maybe didn't have as much confidence as the others. I had her sit at the top of the judges table and stand with me to help run the games. It definitely put her at ease but I was conscious about her becoming centre of attention at someone else's birthday. Any suggestions or thoughts on this?

Setting

Teaching 20 children in a party environment is totally different to teaching them in a school environment. At a party, they are attending out of free will. They are there to have fun and have most probably consumed a years supply of E numbers. It can be really hard to maintain a level of authority  in that situation without feeling like you are telling them off. How do you get this balance?