It’s always fun to watch what search phrases are bringing people to your site. In April and August I see a lot of hits for "ideas for soccer parties" or "end of season parties". You can only have pizza at a parents or coaches house so many times before it’s boring (unless they have a huge playground set and hottub. Just sayin.)

Needless to say, team managers and coaches are often under pressure to figure out a fun end of season party, especially if the team had a very good season. My U10’s had just such a season this year, so we wanted to figure out something new (laser tag – been there, done that) I say we, but in reality my team manager handled it all with some additional input from my wife. Like my wedding, I simply wanted to know where and when I needed to be there 🙂 I’m so bad.

After calling various places, my team mom announced we were taking the team bowling. BOWLING?? Alright then.

What a fantastic party. Bowling is still humming along at alleys that got with the times and realized they needed more than just 30 lanes to stay competitive. We found an alley in a nearby city that not only had almost 40 lanes, they also had a huge concession stand, two huge arcade rooms, pool tables, and a very large ‘birthday party’ room which is what we rented. For $12.50 per kid, they got pizza, drinks, and got to bumper bowl. The birthday room was right next to the arcade rooms which worked out perfectly. While everyone arrived, the kids played games while the parents got things setup in the room. Then we had pizza, delivered from their concession stand hot and fresh – one of the employees even served it and made sure we were happy. After pizza we had our little awards ceremony and then moved to the lanes. We had 8 or so lanes at the far end of the alley all to ourselves. The kids had a ball and some of the parents even rented shoes and gave it a go. Everyone had a REALLY good time.

Granted, part of the success was how this particular alley handled it. They clearly did this often for birthday parties, etc. and having someone there to help out as needed was really nice. The combination of the arcade games, decent pizza, and bumper bowling made for a fun party. I was pleasantly surprised.

So if you’re trying to figure out a decent end of season party, call your local bowling alley and see if they have any type of party program. You might be surprised at how much fun the kids have.