Summer birthday party ideas for everyone

Imagine you’re throwing a party right on the heels of a summer vacation. You need something you can put together quickly and with a minimum of fuss.

If you didn’t spend every penny on vacation, consider ordering trays of food from your local grocery store or catering from a favourite restaurant. There’s also nothing wrong with making the most of easy summer cookout staples like hot dogs.

Here are some ways to make those simple food ideas really pay off:

Easy Summer Birthday Party Ideas for Kids

• A fire-pit party. This is best done late in the evening after the hot summer sun has gone down. The kids can stay up late—it’s summer, after all! Roast weenies, make s’mores, decorate with string lights and buy little flashlights or glowsticks for all the kids.
• A scavenger hunt. Use stuff you have around the house. Hide items all around your yard and type up a list of them and make copies for all the guests. Winner gets to take home an extra piece of birthday cake. If you have a little more time, you could make a treasure map of the backyard with clues about where to find certain things, and decorate with an adventurer theme, like Dora the Explorer, Indiana Jones or Captain Jack Sparrow. Make this idea even easier with our free printable!
• An indoor camping party. Unveil an epic blanket fort or forts premade by adults. Put pillows, lanterns or flashlights, and of course, snacks inside.
• A sunshine and sprinkles party. Is there anything better than a colourful party idea that comes with free printables and an easy-as-boxed-cake-mix DIY? Not in our book.

Easy Summer Birthday Party Ideas for Adults

• A takeout picnic. Meet at a park and encourage everyone to bring their favourite takeout to share. You can bring the cake, plates, napkins and forks. You don’t even have to clean your bathroom for this one!
• Have a house party with a music theme. Could be the guest of honour’s favourite genre or music from the year they were born. You could have a dance contest or karaoke contest if you have the equipment and your guests are game. Decorate with printouts of album/CD covers from the internet. And no need to spend hours curating songs—you can find lots of pre-made playlists on your favourite streaming service.
• A summer camp-themed outdoor party. Summer camp was always the best, so bring those memories back with games, songs around a campfire and marshmallows for roasting. Print out your favourite camp songs and copy them so everyone can get into it. Play games like “Would you rather…” and “Telephone.”
• A “destination” party within a 90-minute drive. Find somewhere that isn’t so hot! Depending on where you live, that could mean the beach, a mountain, a shady forest, or a favourite treed-in park. Bring a frisbee, a ball, badminton set, or anything you already have at home. Bring a cooler of cold drinks and an outdoor-themed cake.

If you love to throw a great party, but don’t have a lot of money spend, it’s sometimes harder to make it unique and memorable. Foods like popcorn and bowls of cheap candy can really cut down on cost. And of course, it’s always okay to say BYOB on adult party invitations. The fun can come in with the theme, a cultivated music playlist or homemade party decor.

Here are some inexpensive summer birthday party ideas that pretty much any crowd would love:

Budget Summer Birthday Party Ideas for Kids

• Water balloon extravaganza! Have the guests wear swim clothes and bring a beach towel, serve frozen treats or ice-cold punch and fill a kiddie pool with a ton of water balloons. When the water balloons are all thrown, turn on the sprinkler. Have a contest for the most impressive sprinkler jump.
• An outdoor adventure party for older kids. Go to a local state park or conservation area and hike around in nature, maybe go swimming in a lake, have everyone take pictures of stuff they saw that day on their phones and text them to you. Create a slide show and send it out after as a fun memory of the event.
• Make-your-own-pizza party. Buy some premade pizza dough or just get some bagels and arrange them on cookie sheets. Then, let the kids add their own sauce and cheese and choose their own toppings. Pop the personalized pizzas in the oven to bake. Dessert could be a cookie pizza!
• Have a low-stakes talent show. This could go two ways—talents could be legit, but kids might have more fun demonstrating silly, useless skills, like singing along to armpit noises. Have the kids make ribbons for the person they thought was the best. Play a circus music playlist from your favourite streaming service.

Budget Summer Birthday Party Ideas for Adults

• Cold soup contest. Summer’s answer to the chili cook-off. Have everyone bring their favourite cold soup or salad. Make a crown out of construction paper for the winner or give them a $10 coffeehouse gift certificate.
• Wear all white party. It’s such a fresh bright colour! Serve easy-to-eat, non-messy finger foods that won’t drip on clothing, like fruits and veggies or sturdy chips and a hearty dip. Take group photos and make them into a digital album to share with guests later.
• A staycation party. Serve a signature drink, make a passport with stops in different rooms of the house/parts of the yard, and a photo area with beach towels, a beach ball and whatever you can pull together to look beachy in a corner of the yard. Make a playlist of tropical music. If you live in a tight-knit community, you could also do this with your neighbours and make each person’s home a different “country.”
• An outdoor home movie night. Project on a sheet or the side of your house. Make it all about the birthday person by decorating with nostalgic items like their old toys, printouts of photos, images of TV shows they used to love, etc. Bonus if the movie is one of their favourite childhood films!
• A clothing or thrift swap. This is so much fun to do with friends. Set out tables and blankets for guests to set their offerings on, give everyone a grocery bag to take away their new treasures. Consider a green theme with earth-friendly decor and whole foods like fruits and veggies that don’t require packaging.

The best thing on your birthday is to be celebrated by the people who really know you. And a good place to start when trying to show the guest of honour how well you know them is by thinking about their hobbies and habits. Are they always throwing out movie lines? Do they live for going on beach vacations? Are they always planning their next casino trip?

These are good places to start when trying to personalize a party theme:

Personalized Summer Birthday Party Ideas for Kids

• Your kid’s favourite movie party. Or an upcoming movie they’ve been seeing previews for and are really excited about. Mermaids, pirates, video games—all would make for a good party theme. For instance, at a pirate party you could have them make swords out of cardboard or lay out a bunch of kiddie pools for a mermaid adventure.
• A big rigs party. Dump trucks, tractors, fire trucks, construction cranes and things like that always seems to be a big hit with the littles. If you can find a museum or exhibit with real ones, have everyone meet there. Alternately, you could set up some fake construction areas in your backyard and have all the kids bring their favourite truck to play.
• A gamer gathering. For tweens and younger teens, a marathon video game session or a variety of board games or role-playing games like D&D could be fun. Just set out lots of chips, soda and candy, and you’re set.
• A meme dress-up party. Older kids are always on their phones and know today’s memes by heart. Encourage guests to pick one and dress the part! Make a viral video compilation (or better yet, have your kid make it) and have that playing on the TV. Give prizes for the most accurate costume, most creative, most hilarious, etc.
• A rainbow unicorn-themed party. Did you know you can have a horse come to your house dressed as a unicorn? You can! Take pictures of all the kids with him and go all out when it comes to colourful food. Rent a cotton candy machine, buy rainbow coloured suckers or make these magical unicorn cupcakes. You could also do print outs of this unicorn colouring sheet and have all the kids colour them and use them as decor.
• Everything ketchup party. If you have a kid, you know kids love ketchup. (Sometimes maybe a little too much.) To keep things worry-free, have everyone wear red. Then serve all kinds of food that taste good with ketchup—fries, burgers, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, etc. Too make things interesting, you could buy some different ketchup varieties for taste testing.
• A barnyard theme party. It’s possible to rent a petting zoo, but you could always bring the kids to the petting zoo instead. For food and decor, all the barnyard animals can play a part. For instance, you could make pigs in a blanket and barn animal cupcakes. Or some cheesy chicks mini cheese balls!

Personalized Summer Birthday Party Ideas for Adults

• A Shark Week theme party. You could do fins for party hats, put on the Jaws soundtrack, and serve seafood like sushi or shrimp and cocktail sauce.
• Golden Girls theme party. Set up a DIY mini bar and serve cheesecake or get a cheesecake bite platter. Guests could have name tags with the name of the character they think they’re most like. If you really want to go all out, you could encourage costumes. And, we happen to have tons of Golden Girls gifts to decorate the serving table or give away to guests.
• An outdoor brunch party. Serve up quiches or mini frittatas, pastries, parfaits, and mimosas or a pitcher of white or red sangria. Add a recycled centrepiece to the table and create a smooth jazz playlist to put everyone in a relaxed, Sunday morning kind of mood.
• A trivia party. Use the guest of honour’s favourite movie, TV show (like Friends) or music to create the trivia questions. For instance, if it’s Star Wars you could theme your decor around that vibe. If you’re basing the fun on movies, you can play movie soundtracks in the background.

Search terms for your party playlist

With just about any song available via streaming music platforms, creating (or just finding) a playlist that feels customized to your party theme is easier than ever. Here are a few recommendations for search terms on your favourite streaming music platform:

• Soundtracks (especially for movie-specific themes)
• Summer Mix/Hits/BBQ/Party/Vibes/Anthems
• Vintage Summer
• Cocktail Party
• Classic Beach Music
• Beach Playlist/Vibes/Party
• Dance Hits (add “of the 90s” or whatever your theme is)
• Island Vibes
• Tropical
• Party Mix/Hits
• House Party
• Camp Songs
• Kids Dance Party
• Children’s Songs
• Kids Sing-along Songs
• Kids Birthday Party

The special thing about summer birthdays are the good memories they provide for years to come. Consider hiring someone to take pictures for an hour or so, or take your own. Either way, these can be compiled into a printed memory book or digital video greeting with accompanying music. You could also have guests make something they take with them, like a macramé or pompom keychain.

Here are some more ideas for creating a memorable summer birthday party:

Memory Making Summer Birthday Party Ideas for Kids

• Make a compliment book. Get a blank journal and have every guest write one thing they love about the birthday kid, giving them something to look back on and smile.
• A rock painting party. Have it outdoors and keep a hose handy for wash up. To make it extra fun, take the kids on a hike on a local trail and place the rocks in fun places for hikers to spot them.
• A planting party. First, everyone decorates their own pot with markers, stickers or paint. Then they get to pick from different annuals that can be mixed and matched. Fresh fruits and veggies make an easy snack, and tables covered in floral gift wrap make for a pretty decor opportunity that also makes clean up simple at the end of the party.
• A T-shirt making party. If you want to go all out, break out the rubber bands and tubs of fabric dye and water to make tie-dyed shirts! A simpler option could be glow in the dark fabric paint or puff paint. Have kids decorate shirts however they want, eat some cake while the shirts dry, then have a photo shoot to show off the creations.

Memory Making Summer Birthday Party Ideas for Adults

• A “save the bees” garden party. This is where everyone plants wildflowers or native perennials that attract pollinators. In other words, a party where people come over to help you out with some outdoor tasks instead of bringing gifts. (How smart is that??) You could send home packets of seeds as party favours. And you could make the bees the decor theme in so many ways.
• A group brewery tour. Beat the heat and go inside. It’ll be a great time for everyone and No set-up or clean-up for you! Try a flight or sampler of beers and have fun talking about the pros and cons of each with your friends.
• Decorate a cup party. Provide basic plastic wine glasses or tumblers, or plain white coffee mugs for guests to decorate with stickers, markers, paint, etc. Everyone takes home a memory from your party.
• A petting zoo party. Yes, kids love petting zoos. But most adults do, too. Could be at a local farm or have them come to you and set up in your backyard. Hire a photographer for the first hour and get lots of fun pictures of your friends and family with the animals. Have some allergy pills on hand…just in case. 😉

Keeping accessibility and inclusivity in mind

If any of your guests are disabled or neurodivergent, here are some ideas for helping them enjoy your party to the fullest.

• If your party is at your home, consider blocking off a space in your driveway for them. You can put a sawhorse or a chair with a sign on it. Have them call when they arrive, so you can move the barriers.
• Reserve some seating for them in the shade.
• Bring food and drink to them if it’s buffet style or “serve yourself.”
• If you’re having the party at a venue, call ahead and make sure there’s an elevator or other safe ways for them to access the area you’ll be in.
• Ask for any special needs when you send out your invite. Let them know you want them there and will do what you can to make them comfortable.
• Make sure guests know whether there will be loud music or lighting that can affect some disorders or cause discomfort.
• Ensure bathroom accommodations are easy to get to.