Several departments have been joined by new staff: graphic design, programming, web development, customer service and warehousing. These new roles have been created to continually improve and develop every aspect of the business, and ensure that Fancy Dress Ball can continue to grow from strength to strength over the next year, so sales can hit the forecasted £million mark.

Fancy Dress Ball have also invested heavily in search engine optimization, advertising and the technology used in their website’s construction, to ensure the customer has a pleasant and hassle-free experience when ordering their fancy dress costumes.

“Our second business year was even better than we could have hoped, and so expanding our team will ensure we are well-prepared to deal with orders quicker and even more efficiently than ever,” says Paul Howcroft of Fancy Dress Ball. “We have had terrific feedback from our customers, who not only love our website but embrace our continually high levels of service. We love providing people with a great range of fancy dress costumes, and hope to have another fantastic year.”

Fancy dress has become more popular than ever in recent years, and Fancy Dress Ball have seized upon this by including a number of iconic costumes in their range of stock, including 70s and 80s outfits, superheroes, horror movie villains and cartoon characters. The site received more sales orders in October 2010 than it did throughout the whole of 2009, due to the Halloween season. More than 250,000 people visited the site. In the final week leading up to Halloween there were over 12,000 hits per day.

Fancy Dress Ball believes that finding quality fancy dress costumes at a reasonable price has previously been difficult, with smaller hire shops and online auctions being the main source. However, these companies can sometimes struggle to offer a wide range of choice, and stock can run down very quickly. With their site offering such a vast selection, they believe customers have been delighted with the choice on offer.

“We believe the secret to our success was to approach costume retail through the eyes of the consumer,” says Paul Howcraft of Fancy Dress Ball. “What do they require? What choice do they want? We then turned to the fashion industry to research what the major online retailers were doing and develop Fancy Dress Ball’s website to provide a similar shopping experience.

“In the past (as customers ourselves), we found it difficult to purchase fancy dress costumes online. It seemed as though the industry hadn’t caught up with the consumer’s expectations of today in terms of providing quality information, detailed images, video (our unique catwalk studio) a wide choice of sizes and a high level of customer service. We’re happy to offer our customers such a terrific experience.”

During their tenure as guest bloggers, Fancy Dress Ball hopes to provide readers with plenty of ideas and tips to make a fancy dress weekend, such as Butlins’ ‘Big Weekends’, unforgettable. With the holiday season fast approaching, party-goers can expect to discover many ways to add an extra element of fun to their Christmas celebrations with Fancy Dress Ball’s range of festive costumes and accessories.

The invite is fitting as it was at a Butlins ‘Big Weekend’ that the Fancy Dress Ball story began. Their founding members attended a rock music-themed ‘Big Weekend’ break at Bognor Regis in 2004 and quickly developed a taste for fancy dress. The group’s visits to ‘Big Weekends’ became more and more regular, and as time went by they noticed that fancy dress was becoming a major part of the ‘Big Weekend’ culture.

With this increase in fancy dress’s popularity the group decided that the only way to truly standout would be to make their own fancy dress costumes, starting out with such items as US Army and LA Swat clothing. As the bar continued to rise higher and higher the group found themselves featured in ‘Big Weekend’ magazine and were frequently asked ‘where did you get your costume from?’. It was at this point that the group realised they had something to offer the ‘Big Weekend Community’, and in 2009 Fancy Dress Ball was born.

“The opportunity to write blogs for Butlins’ website is very exciting for everyone at Fancy Dress Ball,” commented Paul Howcroft of Fancy Dress Ball. “It was through Butlins’ ‘Big Weekends’ that we first realised our love of fancy dress and became inspired to start designing our own costumes. Hopefully our blogs will help us inspire ‘Big Weekenders’ to have as much with fancy dress as we do.”

With Halloween approaching, Fancy Dress Ball have over one thousand new costumes, most of which are coming from the US, including designs such as the Cirque Sinister Twisted Clown and the Deluxe Grim Reaper. With US school franchises like ‘High School Musical’ and ‘Glee’ as popular as ever, many of the new items carry a High School Horror theme, with such staple US school characters as Zombie American Footballer, Zombie Cheerleader, Zombie Geek and Zombie Headmaster, amongst others. These and other  costumes are arriving into stock on a daily basis in anticipation of Halloween, and many of them can be embellished with  accessories such as makeup, blood, knives, wigs, masks and even contact lenses.

“While Halloween is still widely popular with children, many adults also love dressing up to celebrate, and these new costumes offer the chance to have spooky fun in style,” says Paul Howcroft of Fancy Dress Ball. “While we are stocking classic costumes like Freddy Krueger and vampires, our new range of Halloween outfits feature fantastic new designs, such as Michael Jackson Thriller Werewolf and The Dark Mad Hatter. We also sell Halloween fancy dress for children, in designs such as skeletons, wizards and pirates, perfect for trick or treating in, or for a themed party. We hope our new costumes will ensure everyone has a fun Halloween.”

Fancy Dress Ball, a leading online supplier of fancy dress outfits and accessories, announce their new range of fully licensed south park inflatable costumes.

Fancy Dress Ball is an online one-stop-shop which provides ladies, gents and children with a wide variety of genuine fancy dress costumes for every possible theme, whether this is 80’s fancy dress or Halloween costumes. They believe in constantly adding to their fancy dress stock, from simple cowboy and cowgirl outfits to the hilarious whoopee cushion costume, their goal is to supply their customers with the very best products on the market, with the hope of providing something for everyone.

Now added to their wide range of stock is the officially licensed South Park collection; these inflatable outfits are available for the first time in the UK and come in a choice of the three most popular characters: Chef, Cartman and Kenny. South Park is one of the most successful cartoons of all time and Fancy Dress Ball are proud to place it with their other cartoon character outfits such as Sonic the Hedgehog and various Disney characters.

Paul Howcroft of Fancy Dress Ball added: “Fancy dress is all about having fun, whether it is for a birthday party, stag or hen night, we believe in providing our customers with the perfect fancy dress costume to suit any occasion. We are proud to say we are one of the UK’s leading providers of hundreds of fancy dress outfits. Our new range of affordable South Park costumes is an excellent addition to our 2010 collection and is sure to provide our customers with great memories for years to come.”

Housed in both the ‘Stag Party’ and ‘Fun Fancy Dress’ sections, the new additions already complement Fancy Dress Ball’s huge array of stag party adult fancy dress costumes – one of the largest online in the UK to date. There are all sorts of costume combinations available for interested customers, from the plain cheeky to the downright outrageous.

Additions to the line up include patient gown costumes (complete with EVA bum), ‘Ace in the pack’ and ‘Joker in the pack’ card costumes, Whoopie Cushion costumes, let’s get physical costumes (for those who wish to look exactly like Olivia Newton John), well-hung Highlander costumes (endowment included), snake charmer costumes, Studmeister beer bottle costumes, giant hot dog and chilli pepper costumes, and vicar and tart costumes (other vicar accessories optional).

“Nothing shows you’re out on the town for a good time with your mates more than outrageous stag adult fancy dress costumes. The right costumes can send your friend off on his new married life with good memories of an excellent last night of freedom,” says Paul Howcroft of Fancy Dress Ball. “Our additions are new in the stag line up for 2010 and we’re able to offer an eclectic mix for those looking for the wildest nights out. All of our costumes are affordable and you’re sure to find everything you need from our huge fancy dress range.”

Fancy Dress Ball have been supplying costumes to theatre groups in London, dramatic societies and the general public more frequently of late who are all clamouring to look like 1940s servicewomen. To meet demand, Fancy Dress Ball have increased their stock of vintage army ladie’s fancy dress for 2010, including Andrews Sisters costumes and American GI lady costumes.

The Andrews Sisters were a trio who entertained Allied forces across America, Italy and Africa during World War II. Characterised by their service uniforms, their style has crept back into popular culture through music videos and other forms. A favourite in women’s fancy dress circles, Fancy Dress Ball have Andrews Sisters dresses in a range of sizes with optional accessories, and other similar army outfits such as 1940′s American GI and Army Girl Camo costumes.

“Christina Aguilera is one that springs to mind. Her dancers were dressed up like the Andrews Sisters in her Candyman video, proving that their unique style is still attractive in today’s modern era,” says Paul Howcroft of Fancy Dress Ball. “Our army women’s fancy dress outfits are affordable and sexy, and we also have a wide range of other army outfits available for ladies who like to stand out from the crowd during a night on the town”.

The increase in the range of stock now means that Fancy Dress Ball has one of the largest online collections of 70′s fancy dress throughout the industry. Fancy Dress Ball attributes January’s growth through increasing their range of ‘Hire Quality’ costumes, as produced by Belgian costume manufacturers Magic By Freddy’s.

Fancy Dress Ball’s 70′s Magic range is available to view on their catwalk and through their online store. They have a wide range of 70′s wigs and accessories to complement outfits, including medallions, disco hats, stick on hairy chests, pimp canes and more. The costumes themselves include ladies outfits such as Go-go Girl costumes, groovy-themed outfits, cutaway dresses and mini-skirts, catsuits and more. The men’s range includes power love suits, pimp daddy costumes, Elvis outfits, and bling suits. Fancy Dress Ball are looking to increase their ladies fancy dress range during February 2010 to include ABBA catsuits and other dresses.

“We’re huge fans of the disco-dancing 70′s at Fancy Dress Ball and feel our costumes are totally unique from any other supplier in the UK. They’re colourful, psychedelic and simply groovy!” says Paul Howcroft of Fancy Dress Ball. “That we’ve had to increase our range due to January’s demand shows that the public also aren’t going to fall out of love with the decade any time soon, and we can provide them with the best, most outrageous and funkiest 70′s fancy dress around.

2010 is the decade where people born in the 1980′s will celebrate their thirtieth birthday, and will want to revel in the era by partying in 80′s fashions and costumes. Fancy Dress Ball are increasing their stock of 80′s costumes to salute the 80′s, which already includes apparel such as tutus, leg warmers, wild girl wigs to complement a Madonna costume, neon outfits, film and cartoon-related costumes and more.

The Fancy Dress Ball team themselves are dressing up in their own eighties fancy dress costumes for the first major 80′s party of the season, 80′s Madness, which is being held at Butlins, Skegness, during the weekend of 26 February 2010. The event sees many 80′s headline acts performing such as Bucks Fizz, Musical Youth, Bad Manners, Sonia, Toyah Wilcox and more besides. The event lasts for three nights and is homage to new romantics and power dressing.

“The eighties is a decade fondly remembered for its music and extreme, groundbreaking fashions. Not only do the older generation look back on it with nostalgia, but a younger generation has embraced its influence and are always on the hunt for 80′s fancy dress,” says Paul Howcroft of Fancy Dress Ball. “We’re looking forward to dressing up ourselves when we head over to Skegness for the 80′s Madness weekend, and luckily, we have a huge stock of 80′s costumes to choose from”.

Fancy Dress Ball have noticed how men like to splash out and indulge when it comes to dressing up to impress their friends and ladies alike. On their recent trip to a Butlins party weekend, the Fancy Dress Ball group decided to combine items to create an experimental range of Army and SWAT fancy dress costumes unlike any seen before.

The response was emphatic, with the general public wanting to know where to purchase the costumes for themselves. As the costumes were an amalgamation of other parts and accessories, Fancy Dress Ball knew they were on to something unique and now stock the costumes on their website. The new range available includes a Police S.W.A.T. costume and a U.S. Army Soldier costume.

“The response to our fancy dress costumes at the recent Butlins party weekend was so good that we knew we were on to something good!, so much so that even off duty Police Officers commented just how authentic the SWAT costumes are” says Paul Howcroft of Fancy Dress Ball. “The costumes look really realistic, yet have a sense of fun about them that gives them a unique sense of costume that you won’t find at any other fancy dress costume provider. We’re delighted with the public response and these costumes are sure to get people noticed wherever they go.”