Piñatas have become a party staple, no matter what the occasion and the number of vendors of party supplies online offering them has increased a lot over the past decade. The fact is though that having a piñata at your next celebration can turn out to be lots of fun – a great time for everyone – or, to be honest, a bit of a disaster.
Whether or not a piñata is a success depends not on the item itself but rather on the host in charge. As the party host, it’s their responsibility to ensure that the piñata ‘smash’ is a success and no one gets hurt. Here are a few tips to help you proper implement piñata safety at your next celebration.
When you are shopping for party supplies online and choosing a piñata, don’t forget to pick up a couple of piñata sticks too. These are specially made for use with piñatas and are a lot safer for everyone to use than a real stick, or even worse, baseball or cricket bat, things that could cause serious injury.
As people – we’d say kids but adults often like to get in on the action too – are gathering around to take a pop at the piñata remind everyone that they need to keep both hands on the stick when they swing. And in fact, don’t just tell them, demonstrate, especially if there are children involved.
For safety’s sake take the time to set up a swinging zone before the party starts. Mark it off with brightly coloured tape if you are indoors, chalk if you are on concrete and rope if you are on grass. Only allow the ‘stick bearer’ into the swinging zone (and do so one at a time) and keep everyone else at a safe distance behind the line.
As party supplies online go, a piñata is one of the larger purchases you can make, so you’ll want to get your money’s worth out of it! That means trying to ensure that everyone gets a go before the piñata finally bursts open. To this end choose a flat number of swings that you allow everyone to take. If the kids are younger than five three or four is usually fair, but older kids and adults should really be stopped at two. So there is no confusion on when to stop swinging encourage waiting party goers to count the hitter’s swings aloud as they make them.
