One New Jersey store, then a franchise system.

Party City began as a single shop. English Wikipedia says Steve Mandell founded the business in 1986, opening a store in East Hanover, New Jersey, and naming it Party City. A December 2005 press release from the party-goods maker Amscan, archived by the Wayback Machine, also gives 1986 as the founding year and describes the company’s growth from a one-stop party store into a retail chain.

Halloween arrived early in the story. Wikipedia says that after his first year in business Mandell decided to concentrate on the holiday, and that in 1987 part of the store was turned into a “Halloween Costume Warehouse”. Wikipedia describes that move as the start of Party City’s lasting focus on October, and says the chain later stocked Halloween costumes all year round so that customers would know where to find them when the season came back.

The chain grew through franchising before it turned to company-owned shops. Wikipedia says Party City began franchising in 1989, with its opening franchise store in Hazlet, New Jersey, and that Mandell incorporated the business as a franchising operation in 1990, with his own stores at the core of the chain. During those early years, according to Wikipedia, he refined the store design, the product mix, the choice of suppliers and the systems behind the stores. In late 1993, Wikipedia says, Mandell decided to de-emphasise franchising in favour of opening company-owned stores, which he wanted to keep amply stocked with a wide range of merchandise.

From a listed chain to the Amscan family.

By the mid-2000s Party City was a public company. The Amscan press release dated 23 December 2005 says Berkshire Partners and Weston Presidio, through their holding company AAH Holdings Corporation, had completed the acquisition of Party City Corporation, which had traded on Nasdaq under the symbol PCTY and was then headquartered in Rockaway, New Jersey. AAH Holdings also owned Amscan, the designer, manufacturer and distributor of party goods, so the retailer and its supplier now sat in the same group.

The group then gathered other party chains under the Party City name. Wikipedia says Amscan acquired Party America in 2006 and Factory Card & Party Outlet in 2007, and that both chains began operating within the Party City network. It says that the 2011 purchase of Designware, the party division of American Greetings, brought licensing agreements with Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop and Hasbro, and that Amscan became a licensee for professional and college sports party products and balloons the same year.

The chain also crossed the border. Wikipedia says Party City bought the Canadian retailer Party Packagers in 2011, and that those stores began to re-brand as Party City in 2012. It says Party City bought the New England retailer iParty in 2013, that Thomas H. Lee Partners took a majority stake in 2012, and that Party City Holdco Inc. went public in 2015. Seasonal formats followed the Halloween playbook: Wikipedia describes the Halloween City pop-up stores and says that in June 2018 the company announced Toy City pop-ups for that holiday season, some of them in spaces left by the closure of Toys “R” Us in the United States.

The Canadian business took a separate path. CTV News reported on 8 August 2019 that Canadian Tire had reached a deal to buy Party City’s Canadian operations, adding the chain to its own retail network and its Triangle Rewards loyalty programme. Wikipedia says the Canadian stores, now owned by Canadian Tire, were not part of the later wind-down in the United States.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group all make or sell the things people buy for a celebration: paper plates and napkins, balloons, banners, tableware, decorations and the catalogues and shops that bring them together. Party-supply brands sit at many different points in the trade, from small design studios that print their own papers to wholesale makers and national retail chains, and a single name can turn up on a supermarket shelf, in a mail-order catalogue and on a party table at home.

A party brand’s identity is usually carried less by one product than by colour, pattern and a recognisable name, because the company behind it may have changed hands, moved its production or widened its range far beyond where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its goods are actually designed and made.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its goods are made and how its look has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Two bankruptcies, then a brand without its stores.

The last chapter of the store chain played out in bankruptcy court. Wikipedia says Party City Holdco Inc. filed for Chapter 11 protection on 17 January 2023 and announced in September 2023 that it had completed its reorganisation after a judge approved its plan. NPR reported on 21 December 2024 that Party City had begun a “wind down” of its retail and wholesale operations and was preparing to close its locations, and that the company had filed for bankruptcy protection again, this time in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. The Associated Press reported the next day that it was the company’s second Chapter 11 filing in less than two years. In its statement, quoted by both outlets, Party City Holdco pointed to “inflationary pressures on costs and consumer spending, among other factors”.

The name outlived the stores. Retail Dive reported on 11 February 2025 that New Amscan, an affiliate of the producer and distributor Ad Populum, was buying Party City’s intellectual property and wholesale operations, including related Amscan operating assets, after a bankruptcy auction. The same report said Ad Populum’s portfolio includes the parent company of the Chia Pet and The Clapper. New Amscan has held the Party City brand since 2025; Wikipedia gives the former holding company’s current name as New AmScan PC LLC and says the US website was back online by June 2025.

The brand then found a new kind of shop floor. Retail Dive reported on 22 April 2026 that Staples and Party City had partnered to put Party City sections inside Staples stores across the United States and on the Staples website, with balloons as a core offer and Staples’ print services producing personalised invitations, banners and signs. The report said the concept was due to reach additional Staples locations by the end of 2026. Wikipedia lists the company’s headquarters in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, and notes that franchised stores outside the Holdco, such as those in Puerto Rico and Hawaii, continued to trade after the wind-down.

For a design guide, Party City shows how a retail name can carry a category on its own: the words “party” and “city” promise range and abundance, and the brand has moved from a single New Jersey shop to a chain, a wholesale group and now a shop-in-shop. Compare the party-goods maker that shared its corporate family in our Amscan brand guidelines and the seasonal pop-up chain in our Spirit Halloween brand guidelines. For this guide we use party purple, balloon pink and confetti yellow with a heavy sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Party City’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.