Tron Party - The Real Deal

Last month, I posted about all these super cool ideas I had for a Tron birthday party for my now 7 year old son.  Well, we had the party with 20+ kids and several adults.  From what I've heard, it was a huge success.  Kids that had never heard of Tron or didn't know what it's about are now begging their parents to watch it and learn more.

This post is dedicated to the tips, tricks, and helpful hints I learned from having the party.  You know, the things you didn't read about in the cool "Tron Party" article because I hadn't actually had a chance to test my ideas out yet.



Here goes:
The black lights were the hit of the party (and the morning after).  I was fortunate enough to borrow 4 of the 18" lights from friends to make the room glow.  Really, more would have been even better, but we could see well enough with just four on and no other lights.  We bought white crepe streamers from Dollar Tree and made 'grids' on the walls and floor.  The streamers turned out to glow really well.  The soundtrack also set the tone just as I had expected from the first post.

Our guests were really good at coming in all black or white.  With this, we decided to make the Programs and Users right as everyone came in.  A few of the parents that were there helped with this.  The major thing that I found out here was that the fluorescent duct tape I had bought did not glow in the dark.  So, we resorted to tape and streamers.  The kids didn't seem to mind and were really excited to get streamers taped all over their arms and legs.  Their favorite key piece was the disc on their backs - make sure everyone gets a disk as they are particular about this detail.  Also, make sure to have several rolls of tape as this tended to be somewhat chaotic with a lot of kids wanting their streamers on at the same time.

We did the arcade food but nixed the glowing drink.  Instead I bought blue juice drinks at Dollar Tree and straws for the kids to stick in the aluminum tops.  When at the safehouse, Flynn is seen drinking a blue drink, so it fit right in.  This was also a great alteration as less spillage happened due to (mostly) contained drinks.

Our cake was pretty generic.  My son insisted on a store bought cake this year even though he knows I am perfectly capable of making one from scratch (and cooler looking, too!).  So, we had a Sam's cake.  I was going to use the free 3-D model of Flynn's light cycle as a topper, but ran out of time to finish it.  My kids ended up making the models on their own after the party - a great snowy day activity.

It was a bit crowded to pull off the Light Cycle games as my main living room is pretty narrow (and over 20 kids participating).  The kids followed the rules as described in my first Tron Party post and the game was a big hit.  At the end, each kid got to keep one of the bracelets from their light cycle beam.

We did not do the flying discs competition as I couldn't find discs to use though since then I have found two options for discs.  1. The Disney Tron site has a ring toss game on it and instructions as to how to make it.  2. There is a new Twister Hoopla game that uses different colored rings that you could incorporate into the party.

I'd have to say that the Grid Drawings were the favorite part of the party.  I purchased packs of cheap canvas boards from Michaels and each kid used this as their basis for their drawings.  The canvases did not glow under black light, but the highlighters sure did!  The kids were assigned to draw grids with their highlighters were in awe when they saw how the highlighters lit up on the boards - and their hands.  We then took mini cars (I found 4 packs at Dollar Tree, too) and dipped them in washable (this is important!!) fluorescent paint.  They drove the cars across the canvas and ended up with really cool 'glowing' art to take home.  A couple notes on this activity: 1) lay a cheap tablecloth down before begining so you can toss as soon as it's done 2) when done, put all canvases out on the sidewalk and driveway to dry and parents to see as they pick up their kids 3) have baby wipes ready to do a quick clean up of hands once painting is done 4) kids will be speckled in paint from head to toe, but it's okay because with washable paint it all comes out - skin and clothes!

The games we played actually took up a lot of the time from the 2 hour party.  We ended with opening gifts and had to turn a light on for that, but no one was disappointed.  My son agreed to a great idea when it came to gifts.  We decided that he would keep just a couple and the rest were donated to The Children's Hospital.  The guests new this ahead of time and several chose great gifts based on the donation idea.  On a separate day, we went to The Children's Hospital as a family to donate the gifts and have a special lunch in the cafeteria.  This was a great way to teach a bit of volunteering and donating at a young age and he was really proud of himself at delivery time.

Our goody bags are usually theme related, but I didn't feel ours were as close this year.  We had play dough, magic bubbles, and same kazoos.  Of course, the kids already had their glow bracelets and art from the games, so that was the bigger part of their bags.

Overall, all kids went home happy.  I don't think any of them had seen a black light before.  In fact, I'm considering purchasing one myself as the next morning my 3 year old daughter was very entertained by using one while she drew on some paper with highlighters.  There's just something to that 'glowing' effect that has such a 'wow' factor...


Signing off...for now.