London's children's party market is changing. Beautiful styling and great entertainment are no longer enough on their own – families are increasingly looking for fully produced experiences that bring design, storytelling and interaction together.
Jenny Otavina, founder of KID CITY Parties, shares her perspective on where the luxury children's events industry is heading, what "premium" really means for modern families, and why the next generation of children's parties will be less about decorating a room and more about building a world.
This interview was originally published by Bizpreneurme.com on 18 August 2026.
Tell us about KID CITY Parties
I'm Jenny Otavina, founder of KID CITY Parties, a London-based luxury children's event production studio.
We work with families across London to design and deliver beautifully produced, immersive celebrations – think proper set design, staging and production values, not simply entertainment booked from a list.
Whether it's one of our signature experiences or a completely bespoke immersive world, we handle the event end to end so families get one cohesive production rather than a collection of separate suppliers stitched together.
In practice, that means a family doesn't come to us with an idea and then leave to manage the details themselves. We take the concept and build it out properly – design, staging, entertainment, logistics and timing – and then deliver the entire day.
It's a different way of thinking about children's parties, and I believe it's increasingly where the industry is heading.
Who have you worked with, and what has shaped your reputation?
We've worked with premium venues across London including Soho House, The Jumeirah Carlton Tower, Bluebird Chelsea and Rosewood London, alongside private residences and families looking for something genuinely bespoke rather than a standard party package.
But what has built our reputation isn't one particular event or design. It's that we care, properly and personally, about every celebration we produce, regardless of scale.
That human approach is what keeps clients coming back and referring us to other families.
In an industry where it would be easy to template things and scale quickly by cutting corners, we've deliberately stayed close to the detail. Clients notice that, and it has become one of the things people talk about when they recommend us.
What do you think the future of children's parties looks like?
What excites me most is the shift towards fully immersive worlds.
The last decade in children's events has been heavily defined by décor – better backdrops, better styling, better photographs.
I think the next decade will be defined by something more ambitious: cohesive design combined with active games, storytelling, theatre, music and interaction.
Not simply a themed room children walk into and admire, but a world they actually step into and become part of.
That's the direction I'm building KID CITY Parties towards. I think the brands that successfully combine strong design with genuine interactivity and narrative will help define the next phase of the industry.
What is KID CITY Parties doing differently?
I think one of the biggest shifts will be away from selling individual party elements and towards taking responsibility for the entire experience.
Families don't necessarily enquire asking for "full production management". What they really want is somebody who understands what they're trying to create, makes the right decisions, brings the right people together and ensures everything works seamlessly on the day.
Once you've experienced the difference between coordinating six different suppliers yourself and handing the whole celebration to one experienced team, the value becomes obvious very quickly.
That's the gap I think more of the children's events industry will eventually move to close.
What does "premium" mean in the children's party market?
Premium means the parent never has to worry.
In the modern, busy world, the truly precious currency is time – and what we give parents is the luxury of that time back.
From the first enquiry to the final moment of the celebration, our job is to absorb the stress so the family doesn't have to carry it.
That appears in small things – clear communication, no surprises and nothing being left to chance – just as much as it appears in how spectacular the party looks.
A beautifully designed event that costs the parent huge amounts of time and headspace in the lead-up hasn't delivered on what premium actually means to our clients.
We therefore treat responsiveness, organisation and clarity as seriously as we treat creative design.
Why are immersive children's parties becoming more popular?
Children's expectations are shaped by everything else they experience – the games they play, the shops they visit, the entertainment they consume and the experiences they're exposed to from a very young age.
Much of that now happens on a screen.
What excites me about immersive events is that they're the opposite: a world children physically walk into, touch, explore and experience together with other people.
That's becoming genuinely rare for children, and I think it's part of why these experiences land so powerfully. It's real, in-person magic beyond screen time.
For families looking for a premium experience, traditional entertainment and beautiful decoration alone are increasingly not enough. Children want to interact, discover, compete, play and feel part of what's happening around them.
But raising the creative bar shouldn't mean increasing the parent's workload.
The event should become more layered, more considered and more exciting for the child while becoming simpler for the parent.
That's the balance we're always trying to achieve: ambition on the creative side and simplicity on the parent's side.
Can you describe an event that captures what KID CITY Parties is about?
One that really stands out was a Science vs Magic-themed party we produced at The Jumeirah Carlton Tower.
It was a fully immersive concept created entirely from scratch. Guests entered through a portal into two competing worlds, with magic and science clashing across everything from the set design to the entertainment programme itself.
It wasn't only for the children, either. Parents stepped into the story too, taking part in experiments and casting their votes at a bespoke Science vs Magic bar we created for the day.
The experience eventually culminated in our signature Paper Disco.
That's the kind of event that captures what we're trying to build: a genuinely constructed world rather than simply a themed room, with the production values extending through every part of the experience rather than just the headline décor.
What has scaling KID CITY Parties taught you about leadership?
It's shown me how endlessly diverse the children's events market is – and honestly, that's one of the things I love most about it.
Children are a constant source of inspiration. Our little clients keep pushing the creative boundaries, whether they ask us for Magic vs Science, a Secret Garden world or a high-energy Paper Disco.
You can genuinely never get bored working in children's events because every brief brings a completely different imagination to work with.
For me, leadership is about making sure we can bring those worlds to life effortlessly for the children while operating like a perfect mechanism behind the scenes.
Most of that work isn't glamorous. It's supplier relationships, planning timelines, quality checks, logistics and ensuring every person involved understands what "premium" means in practice.
I'm still very close to the creative process myself. As we grow, the challenge isn't simply finding more people – it's finding people who instinctively care about the details as much as I do.
That's ultimately what determines whether you can scale without losing the thing that made clients choose you in the first place.
What's a business decision you've made recently that you think matters?
I've stopped assuming that bespoke has to mean open-ended.
Parents have increasingly less time and headspace to devote to planning a party, and I don't think the traditional approach of "let's think about your event together" always works particularly well anymore.
Families don't necessarily want twenty possibilities and weeks of back-and-forth.
They want someone they trust to understand the brief, narrow the choices and confidently tell them what will work.
Even completely customised work needs structure.
I've deliberately built KID CITY Parties around making the process clear and low stress for the parent.
The creativity still happens – a huge amount of it – but much of that work should happen on our side rather than becoming another job for the client.
I think too many creative businesses confuse giving clients endless choice with giving them a premium service.
Sometimes the more premium thing is having the expertise to say: "Based on what you've told me, this is what I recommend."
What is your vision for KID CITY Parties?
To become the name in London that parents trust to take a stressful job off their hands entirely.
Of course, I want KID CITY Parties to be known for extraordinary children's experiences.
But I also want parents to genuinely enjoy those experiences – not simply watch from the side while everything happens, but actually be part of the joy of the day alongside their children.
By using KID CITY Parties, they should get none of the work and all of the joy.
In a world where time is the one thing nobody has enough of, that's the luxury I want us to give back: not simply ease, but real shared joy.
And if, along the way, we can help move the children's events industry towards more immersive experiences, stronger production standards and genuinely better service for families, I'd be very proud of that legacy.
Planning a Children's Party in London?
From fully developed immersive experiences to completely bespoke productions, KID CITY Parties designs and manages celebrations from concept through to delivery.
Luxury Children's Parties & Immersive Event Production Across London