Waterlooville's Pink Party Shop puts 2,000 fancy dress costumes up for sale as family business switches to balloon services

Business owner Lana Baynton, who runs The Pink Party Shop in Waterlooville alongside her sister, mother and with occassional help from her young niece, has decided to modernise the shop after seeing a decline in demand for fancy dress hire. The shop, at 30 Stakes Hill Road, will instead be dedicated to party balloon decorating and gift display services including the supply of arches, wedding balloons, balloon walls, corporate balloons and more. The upstairs space which is currently used for storing costumes will be turned into a flat – and roughly 2,000 of the colourful outfits have gone on sale.

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Lana told The News: “I’ve been doing the fancy dress hire since 2007. With the internet and everything, it's no longer viable for the space that we are using. So, I’m selling off the hire costumes to then invest more into the balloon side of the business. People are buying their costumes off Amazon, Shein and things like that - it’s just not viable anymore with the amount of staff that I need to employ to run it.”

The family business is called Fayre Play Limited. Initially based in Hordean, it was started in the late 1960s by Lana’s grandmother who would rent out costumes to local theatres as well as the public at large. Lana said that making the leap is somewhat “scary” but the third-generation head of the firm is also excited for what is to come.

She added: ““We used to go out to fetes when I was younger doing bouncy castles, candy floss and balloons. My parents then opened a shop in Cowplain and were there for five years before they brought where we are now in 1999.

"I was 27 when I opened the hire. I was a single mum - it’s been my security for the past 18 years. Selling it off is really daunting but it’s just going with the times I suppose. People are buying everything online, especially the younger generation. We don’t get any younger people in for the hire. I wanted to cut my losses with it and go in a different direction. The balloon side of the business is what I enjoy the most now - I love being creative and coming up with new designs so I want to go more in that direction. It’s what the customers want.”

You can find out more about the balloon services on offer by visiting the Pink Party Shop website or visiting the shop itself.