The Story of the ShakeParty Brand
ShakeParty is the story of how two friends and two mums once decided: “Our children need real celebrations. And if they don’t exist here – we’ll create them ourselves.”
How It All Started
It was a cold November evening in Germany. Lera and I were sitting at home, talking about the upcoming Christmas and New Year holidays and realised that the festive format we were used to back in Ukraine was missing here: kids’ entertainers, colourful children’s programs, live greetings from fairy-tale characters, and atmospheric kids’ parties.
I remembered how I used to work in a large company: I was often invited to play the Snow Maiden – I dressed up, congratulated the children and saw their eyes shining. Lera told me that during her student years she had also worked as an entertainer and absolutely loved this kind of work.
That evening the puzzle came together:
“What if we organise a real New Year celebration for the children here in Germany ourselves?”
The First Costumes and the First Bookings
We decided to start with Christmas and New Year home visits: Father Frost and the Snow Maiden coming to children at home. Of course, we didn’t have any costumes yet – we ordered them and worried whether they would arrive in time for Christmas and New Year.
While the costumes were being made and shipped to us, we had already started acting: we posted in Telegram channels and groups where Russian-speaking families communicate and told them that we could come to their children with a New Year program.
The costumes arrived in the first days of December – and almost immediately we got our first bookings. From the very beginning, we knew it shouldn’t be just “drop in for three minutes, hand over a gift and leave”.
We prepared a proper mini-program:
- games and animation,
- interaction with Father Frost and the Snow Maiden,
- about 30 minutes of live celebration plus time for photos.
This is how the first ShakeParty format was born.
Spider-Man as a Girl and Princesses in Pink Skirts
One of our first clients asked:
“Do you have a Spider-Man costume?”
At that time, we only had Christmas props. But this question sparked a new idea: we decided not to say no, but to buy the costume and make that birthday truly special.
That’s how our first superhero appeared. And yes – our very first Spider-Man was… a girl 🙂 We had the absolute minimum of props, everything was literally put together “from whatever we had at hand”, without big investments.
The next booking was a princess-themed birthday. We didn’t have princess costumes yet. So we bought pink skirts, borrowed crown headbands from our children – and suddenly we had “princesses” who made the celebration no worse than expensive costumes.
Step by step we built up our props, bought new costumes, and searched for new ideas and formats.
From Hobby to Official Business and Multilingual Parties
When we noticed that people started booking us again and again, that word of mouth was working, that families were passing our contact details on to their friends, we realised: this is no longer just a “side job for New Year”, it’s a real business.
Even before officially registering the business in Germany, we were more and more often asked whether we only do birthdays in Russian and Ukrainian or if we can also work in German and English.
That’s how we came to the idea of taking it to the next level and invited a third friend to join the team – Katya, who speaks German fluently and helps us grow ShakeParty in the German-speaking segment. Today, three friends and three families work on this project – seven loving parents, all with children of their own. That’s probably why we treat every children’s party with such special care.
We officially registered the business in Germany and decided to move forward professionally. At some point, Telegram groups started blocking our ads – people already knew us, but we needed to grow further and move beyond local chats.
The Website and the Name ShakeParty
To keep growing, we needed:
- our own website,
- a clear, memorable brand name,
- social media profiles and consistent visual branding.
We turned to the marketing agency SaleStudia, which helped us turn the idea into a real brand. At first, we thought about calling the project “Milkshake Party”, but in the end a short and catchy name was born – ShakeParty.
For us, they:
- developed the design and structure of the website shakeparty.de,
- created our visual style,
- set up and launched our social media channels.
From that moment on, families started finding us not just nearby, but all over Germany.
We receive messages and calls from different cities – from Frankfurt and the surrounding area to Berlin, Munich, and cities in northern and eastern Germany.
On Instagram, we already have several thousand followers and are constantly working on our content: we film reels and videos, show the life of our entertainers “behind the scenes” and share ideas for children’s parties. Our web designer from SaleStudia still helps us grow online – and we are very grateful for that.
ShakeParty Today
Today, ShakeParty is no longer just “Father Frost visiting your home”, but a full team of entertainers and characters:
- more than 25 costumes of different heroes and princesses,
- big mascot costumes and walk-around characters,
- well-thought-out programs for different age groups,
- our own client base with families who come back to us year after year.
We keep an eye on new cartoons and trends, refresh our props, and develop new scripts so that every celebration is lively, modern and truly warm.
Our Plans
We continue to grow and dream of the next step – opening our own kids’ room / event space in Germany, where we can host birthdays, themed events and seasonal celebrations as full “turn-key” experiences.
ShakeParty is all about real emotions, children’s laughter and celebrations that we invented ourselves and continue to create for children all across Germany.