Kids’ birthday parties are not what they used to be. More than a small soiree at home, with food, fizzy drinks, games and screaming kids, children’s parties have gone sophisticato. It’s estimated that UK parents are spending in excess of GBP 1 billion on giving their children a party to remember.

With more and more parents keen to outsource the noise and mess, Alton Towers has stepped up to the plate to fill a gap in the market. The latest suite to be added to the Alton Towers Hotel is the Sleepover Suite. A themed room designed to hold the ultimate girls' night-in, where up to six friends can share an evening of deluxe, unadulterated and uninterrupted fun. Picture a sound-proofed, bright pink room, enabling a night of blaring pop-music and girly shrieking. The suite is divided in two – an area for partying and a section for sleeping. The party section features a state-of-the-art home entertainment system with a plasma TV, a Sony PlayStation, a mini-dance floor, a karaoke machine, a pink fridge brimming with ice cream and chocolate and a library of chick flicks for an all night movie marathon.

The sleeping section includes six Chill-out beds by SilentNight which can clip together to make one. The bathroom area is girl-party friendly with wall-to-wall mirrors, dressing tables and lots of complimentary pampering products from UK health and beauty outlet Superdrug. The opportunities for cross promotion with other brands is limitless. :-)

The Sleepover Suite's pilot test launched July 14th and costs begin at GBP 300 per night, with demand already strong for this new concept.

Website: www.alton-towers.co.uk/hotels/sleepover.asp

Contact: rachael.lockitt@alton-towers.com

Please note that we can't help you with booking, prices or availability.
For more information, please contact Alton Towers directly: 0870 999 0251.

A co-operative venture between Stirlingshire Vending and Reverse Vending Corporation brings reVend & Spend, a product innovation that utilizes advanced technology to identify, sort, collect and process used beverage containers.

Reverse vending machines (RVMs) are as the name suggests, vending machines that allow consumers to deposit used beverage containers. Instead of spewing out junk food, the machines invite customers to insert their trash for recycling. Once a customer deposits a used container, the machine sorts it and crushes, compresses or shreds, reading a container's barcode to determine the type of material. Capacity varies per model, but stand alone machines hold 1000 cans and/or PET bottles before needing to be emptied. The machines run on about 40 watts of electricity per day.

The basic premise behind the concept is that consumers get the ‘feel good factor’ by doing something for the environment in an easy and efficient way. Machines can come fitted with a modem that monitors the success of the machine and can publish recycling statistics. In the future, award schemes could be set up whereby organizations/schools can be recognized and awarded for how much they’ve recycled.

Machines can also be fitted to dispense vouchers which customers can collect and cash in as further incentive to reVend. Ideal for workplaces or schools, it’s a great way to excite children about recycling. Every large company, school, shopping mall and tourist attraction could do with a few of these machines. That's a big market. If you're an entrepreneur with a thing for vending machines, get in touch with ReVend!

Website: www.reversevending.co.uk
Contact: info@reversevending.co.uk

The latest in the world of pop-up retail? From Singapore comes the Venue VBOX, a portable store in a shipping container, which can be set-up temporarily. Any place. Any time.

The VBOX enables a brand or company to follow an event they wish to align their brand with, or pop up where consumers least expect it. Tag along with a photography exhibition or set up shop temporarily at a large sporting event. Brands can even showcase items that consumers may not otherwise be able to purchase elsewhere: just fill the VBOX with one-offs or special editions and you'll pull in consumers with the prospect that they'll able to purchase something unique.

The VBOX comes self-contained and equipped with an iMac and iPod HiFi. It's entirely ready to go; all that needs to be done is fill it with enticing products. To date the VBOX has housed collections by some of the fashion world’s most prestigious names: RAF SIMONS (Prada Group) and limited PUMA designer co-labs by Alexander McQueen, Christy Turlington, Mihara Yasuhiro as well as CDs, magazines/books and Motorola phones.

Whether the VBOX is placed in a remote village in Spain, on a beach in California or on the ski slopes of Canada, it's a refreshing way to inject fun and excitement into a brand and win over a swag full of new consumers. Japanese clothing brand UNIQLO used container stores for its recent launch in the United States. More about that here. And for much more on pop-up retail, check out trendwatching.com's overview.

Website: www.venue.com.sg
Contact: jacque@venue.com.sg

Enabling easy online ticketing minus hefty fees, Seattle based Brown Paper Tickets aims to make the sale of tickets fairer for all. A consumer- and vendor-friendly alternative to Ticketmaster, Brown Paper Tickets offers buyers lower ticketing fees (USD 0.99 per ticket plus 2.5 percent of the sale price).

A quick, easy and affordable online ticketing system, all ticket sellers or event promoters need do is plug in the event information and direct people to the website for ticket purchases. The service can also take care delivery and refunds. Unlike other ticketing services, Brown Paper allows clients to sell tickets from their own website, too, instead of forcing a concert or theatrical production to be married to one agency. This allows smaller productions to do as much external marketing as they wish, to maximise ticket sales.

The concept really allows anyone to become an event producer and ticket distributor – charity sports game, dinner with friends, indie concert, high school theatre, you name it. Perfect for minipreneurs! Since fees are low, more money stays with the artists and organizers, and less is taken from consumers. Brown Paper paves the way for other ticketing companies to reduce ticketing fees and change their ways or perhaps lose the markets they currently dominate.

Website: www.brownpapertickets.com
Contact: support@brownpapertickets.com