As long as I'm not expected to compete with the people throwing these huge festival parties then I don't care what they do! My kids don't get big parties and up until this year they had a combined birthday party every year as there is only 8 days between their birthdays. I think some of the best parties have been the ones that have just been thrown together. DD1 had a slumber party this year and it has been a benchmark amongst her friends in terms of how much fun they had.