March 14, 2017

Meet Shawnt Batmanian of Alice’s Traveling Tea Party in West Hills

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shawnt Batmanian.

Shawnt, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I came up with the idea for Alice’s Traveling Tea Party with my wife in early 2011. We were up late one night reminiscing about living on the East Coast, and we started talking about how we missed a little cafe in NYC that was Alice in Wonderland themed (my wife is a longtime fan of the story and loved the cafe) and that it was too bad L.A. had nothing like that. We both said we would love to open something Alice themed here, but with Los Angeles being so expensive, we could never afford to open a brick and mortar cafe (never mind that we had zero idea how to open such things). Then the idea popped into our head to travel. But a traveling cafe would be costly as well. We needed something that would require much less capital to open and that would fill a niche. Parents in Los Angeles love elaborate birthday parties and no one has the time to dedicate to doing it themselves. So what if we did a traveling full-service birthday party where parents could just sit back and relax instead of spending the happy occasion running around? Then the ideas starting coming fast and furious. And thus Alice’s Traveling Tea Party was born. We opened for business in June 2013. During the process I discovered that I had a hidden talent to build, create, and bring ideas to life. I realized that my dream job is to be a Disney Imagineer, since that seems to be a life time away, we decided to expand. Then in June 2015, we opened Blackbeard’s Traveling Pirate Party, which features a giant 30 foot walk-aboard traveling pirate ship that we assemble on location that I designed and built by hand.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There have definitely been bumps along the way. I think that happens to every business. I am a full-time Pharmacy Manager outside of running our business, so I had little idea what to anticipate or what obstacles we would run into when we started. It took us a year and a half to make everything by hand as the only time I could build props was on days off or before/after work. My wife had to work on finding china and fabrics and all the little touches that make our party unique, while trying to raise our son who was 4 at the time. Everything took longer and took more money than we thought it would (kind of like renovating a house). But our motto was “Go Big, or Go Home”. We definitely went big. We would have kept going too if we hadn’t run out of room in our prop trailer! We also didn’t realize how many regulations city parks have, and that many operate under different rules, even if they are all in the same city. We didn’t even think to contact parks before we starting building our business, so after we were all done and we started calling around, we were shocked to think that maybe we would only be able to do our parties at someone’s home. We finally worked it out though and have plenty of locations we can set up in aside from a client’s home.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Alice’s Traveling Tea Party story. Tell us more about the business.
Our parties are upscale (no paper plates or plastic tablecloths here!) and full-service, which means parents literally have to do nothing aside from booking us! For Alice, we provide the food, decor, sweets buffet, games, handmade favors, tables/chairs, etc. We even bring Alice and The Mad Hatter to the party! For Pirates, we bring a 10’ x 30’ walk-aboard wooden pirate ship which is built on site for each party, 8 cannons that fire smoke and make authentic cannon sounds, a large treasure chest full of candy, favors, games, and Blackbeard and his first mate, Smitty. We also have photographers that clients can hire to take professional photos of their child’s big day. We cover it all. The only thing a parent may have to do would be provide food/drinks for the parents who stay for the party since we put all our focus on the kids. We are parents too, so we really tried to put something together that is as fun for the parents as it is for the child. What better way to make the day fun than to take the work out of it for the parents so they can socialize and enjoy their child’s party too? It’s a win-win for everyone!

We are so proud that we make children SO very happy. You can see it on their faces when they sip “tea” with Alice or play games with Blackbeard. They feel so special and you know that day is something they will remember forever. It’s what keeps us going and what makes our crazy workload worth it. The “Pinterest-worthy” details we put into our parties as well as the fact that we are a complete package to this magnitude really set us apart. No one does what we do.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
My wife and I always joke that if we didn’t have bad luck, we’d have no luck at all. Nothing has ever been easy in our personal lives and some days we wonder why we seem to have more than our fair share of difficulties. But our business on the other hand has been very fortunate. Since we are very much a mom and pop business, there aren’t a ton of funds we can dedicate toward advertising. We’ve tried different methods over the years, most of which had relative success, but nothing has been as good for us as good old-fashioned word of mouth. Happy clients bring us more happy clients. We’ve had parents who have thrown their child a party, and then been to 3 others that their friends have booked. It’s so fun to see; they start to become family. We’ve also been fortunate that we have reached a lot of high-profile clients, from actors/actresses, TV and film producers, restauranteurs, etc. We don’t seek them, they just find us either online or through friends who have attended our parties and tell them how well we work with high-profile clientele.

Pricing:

Alice’s Traveling Tea Party is $1700 for 12 children – Each Additional child is $30 dollars. Max of 40 Children
Blackbeard’s Traveling Pirate Party is $2500 for 12 Children – Each Additional Child is $30 dollars, Max of 24 Children
FOR VOYAGELA READERS – We would like to offer 6 additional children at no cost ($180 dollar value)

Contact Info: