>

They spam the living hell out of my email. Daily.
Maybe selling the same shit you can get at Dollar Tree with 1000% markup wasn't the best business idea. >

This right here. It was all cheap garbage with a markup. Then people used to go there for halloween costumes and Spirit Halloween flooded the market. >

I hope American halloween culture evolves to the point where we can have a high quality more expensive seasonal halloween store to compete with the shittiness of Spirit Halloween. Like the Whole Foods to their Walmart. 
No, I'm not still mad about how hard it was to find a cool costume last year that wasn't either incredibly cheap and crappy or incredibly overpriced, why do you ask? >

The problem is people don’t want to spend much on an outfit they will wear one day.  I think the best we can hope for is some kind of costume exchange where you buy a quality costume and sell it after Halloween. >


some kind of costume exchange where you buy a quality costume and sell it after Halloween.

Austin TX had a place like this that jusssssst closed at the end of 2022, after 38 years in business. "Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds" on South Congress
They had cheap shit if you wanted cheap, but they also had decent outfits that you could buy, or "rent" for a weekend for like a third of the purchase price. e.g. a dinner-theater-quality costume would sell for $100 or rent for $35
I went by there last fall after they announced they were closing soon & made all sales final. Asked the store manager why they were closing; he said "it's just time". 
More like, time to cash out & retire in style. I've read online that LSD's owner bought her building in 2002 and the land it's sitting on is appraised at $1.2MM; there's bound to be a new condo tower or lux hotel that would probably pay $5MM or more for that location. >

seems like they could have still sold the business tho…just w/o the building.  inventory and contacts/pricing would be worth a dime, not to mention name recognition. >

to paraphrase someone from a related thread in r/Austin : "If that space makes $10k per month selling costumes, but it could make $40k per month leased out to become an Apple Store... the real marvel is that they stayed in the costume business this long"
EDIT TO ADD: I see what you're saying, that somebody else could continue the LSD name in another location. To which I'd say, nope, Austin rents are too high to open a business like LSD now. I also learned LSD's owner had several other buildings on SoCo and was making more money as a commercial landlord than in selling costumes. 
Assuming she was at least 25 when she opened LSD, 38 years in business would make her at least 63 now. Like I said -- makes perfect sense to sell her building now, while ATX real estate prices are at all-time highs. They moved into "all sales final" mode in like August, they had 4 or 5 months to sell as much inventory as possible. Probably went into "fire sale mode" for Black Friday and stayed there, slashing prices by half or more, they wanted those shelves empty or close to it by the time they closed for good.
So, no building and little/no inventory. Just a clever name and some contacts. Anyone who wanted to get into the costume biz might as well just buy a Spirit Halloween franchise & keep things simple >


Party City filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday, weighed down by competition and years of financial losses.

Saved you a click >

They had competition? And who was that? Whenever I thought of party decorations, Party City was always first on my mind with the regular big box stores coming a distant second after that. And they always seemed to have a wider selection in comparison... >

Target, Bulk Party Supply, Amazon, Walmart, etc. >

Dollar Tree, Big Lots, If I want high quality Michaels or Joanne's... >

Michaels and Joanne's are least likely for costumes. Suitable for other things. >

I have crafty friends who make party favors, decorations, and a couple have been known to make a costume. >

The only party supply store I need is the liquor store! >

As a parent who's had to throw many a birthday party, nothing in that article was a surprise. Target and Walmart sell party goods at a much cheaper price, Spirit Halloweens now dominate that season, and the helium shortage killed the thing that was a huge draw for them.
And not to kick the company while it's down, but I'm going to have a small giggle if my local Party Cities turn into Spirit Halloweens later this year. >


if my local Party Cities turn into Spirit Halloweens later this year.

we have two Party City stores in my area. one in a nice "open air mall" district, the other in a regular strip mall
last fall the nearest Spirit Halloween store was in this weird spot that, as near as I can tell, sits empty & available for leasing 10 months of the year, except when it becomes Spirit Halloween in Sept and Oct
so if Spirit Halloween takes over that "open air mall" P.C. spot, that will be a big upgrade for them >

bummer - their candy selection can't be beat >

Have you tried the internet? >

Never heard of it. >

Few have, it’s this newfangled gizmo the geeks over at the Pentagon are all about though; wait until you get a load of this fancy electronic mail! >

Oh, great. They're already charging an arm and a leg for long-distance. Now I have to buy electronic stamps, too? How much are those gonna be? How the hell do you lick an electronic stamp?! >

Nobody feels like partying anymore?
Well, gee-whiz. >

Where is Sharon Needles going to go now? ☹️ >

I had to scroll entirely too long before coming upon this reference. >

So Party City in Canada is owned by Canadian Tire. Is this going to be like Toys R Us where Canada still has it and the US won't? >

Speaking entirely on behalf of myself from when I was hustling gigs on shipt, fuck party city. 
Driving with a ton of balloons in your back seat for barely any pay was awful. >

Preach. "Okay, $7 to drive a batch 3 miles, and I only need to pick it up, not shop it? sounds sweet"
10 minutes later
"Hi Mr. Smith? This is your Shipt shopper Lucky -- I can't fit your 30 balloons into my sedan. You probably gotta break this up into two orders, maybe even three. No I can't do that on my end, you gotta call Shipt Customer Support" >

Us young people can't afford rent or mortgages or groceries because of greed in the form of low wages, price gouging, refusal to disconnect healthcare from employment, what makes anyone think we can afford to throw parties with hundreds of dollars worth of junk one-use products? >

It wasn’t about people not buying these things, in fact sales overall are up, it’s about outlets like Amazon, Target, Bulk Party Supply online and others which ate their lunch. I get the desire to view everything through a particular lends, but come on, at least read the article before whipping out the soapbox. >

“Party supplies,” ie. mostly useless shit, is too niche to be its own Bed Bath and Beyond. >

I've got news about BB&B. >

Totes aware of the situation, friend.
Looks like they want financing to manage their financing. Ooof. >

I'm sorry to see another store going down due to dollar stores and online stores. >

I have long been anticipating a dramatic decline in commercial real-estate as these national chains go bankrupt in the shadow of Amazon but it has proven to more resilient than initially thought. It still feels like it is inevitable that as more and more of these national chains close more and more locations that the market prices would decline but they have not. What forces are in action preventing increases in supply from dampening demand? The long this pending crisis is allowed persist the more likely a bubble is to pop. >

Until it’s just too obvious to ignore that real estate is the largest way to launder money via tax shenanigans that’s ever existed and… whoopsie! There ARE no true market forces at play, then… Who said what?  I gotta go home, my mom is calling me for dinner. >

This was one of those stores throughout my entire life I never needed to step into. So it going bankrupt doesn't really surprise me. >

Same. Literally everything they offered could be found elsewhere and alongside other things - specifically food and drinks, you'd want to have at a party. >

Not much to party about now a days >

In case you haven't heard, The party is over for everybody but the super wealthy. >

Because there were no parties before Party City??? >

How dare you not participate in the Reddit doom and gloom circle jerk. >

Party is over, nothing to see here! >

It’s probably a bad sign that I came here just to learn who the largest party supplier was. >

I'll know where to look for the Spirit Halloween pop-up in the fall >

I can't believe millennials would do this to them. >

Hardly been much to party over the past three years mind...
I mean, in the current pandemic, balloons at parties could be like little bombs of virus.
Party and card shops have been slowly dying a death for a while now, and like many other industries, Rona just finished 'em off. >

Andrew WK is inconsolable >

It's ironic that anybody old enough to get this reference is now too old to party hard, party, party, party, or party till you puke >

That's surprising, what with all the party worthy good news in recent years. >

Surprised this didn't happen years ago. >

Their problem isn't sales, it's debt
The business has been bought several times, each time accumulating more debt >

Dollar store total: $5
Party city total: $90 >

Go back to Party City where you belong!
Oh... wait... >

Oh, thank God. I thought they meant BevMo >

ugh, i hope they make it out of this ok.  they are super handy >

I like that they have every color of napkins/plates/etc. Yeah I can buy it online but sometimes you want to see the color in person to mix and match stuff >

The past couple times we went there for stuff they didn’t have what we wanted.  Amazon did and was generally cheaper.   Tbh, Party City wanted a super premium for the cheap stuff they sold.  Not really worth it in an era of same day delivery. >

A bunch of balloons for my mom on her birthday,  purple stars and hearts with regular balloons, costed me $85 there. 
It would've been $20 at dollar tree. >

150 million ?? How long does that last ?? Give it all out 8n bonuses and let it burn. >

I guess the parties over LOLOL.. I'll see myself out.... >

Millennials are ruining party supplies. >

Anything else you want to blame millennials and Gen Z for? /s >

Napkins, mayonnaise, toast... >

I own 1 share of Party City. I’m devastated >

MSM attack FUD right before massive FTD flood? Bullish. It's not like this hasn't happened over the last two years over and over. 
Thanks for proving shorts are scared. You can't even fakes some semi-plausible sources for your bullshit. Lame.
Someone needs to remind Cokehead he's got a ten-minute rant on why he hates the stock scheduled for tomorrow. Don't disappoint us now. Inverse Cramer is forever, you know. >

I believe you. 
Also they should be advertising more. Whenever I go in they have the only thing in the city that I need and they are always super empty. If they advertised more, I think they would make it more.