Our practical tips for organising a successful party

Our practical tips for organising a successful party

To organ­ise a suc­cess­ful par­ty in the 21st cen­tu­ry, you had bet­ter do some seri­ous brain­storm­ing and roll up your sleeves. In this post, we won’t just tell you how to organ­ise a par­ty, we will also give you tips to organ­ise an unfor­get­table evening!

Plan and do your prep work

Any self-respect­ing par­ty requires good prepa­ra­tion. Pre­pare your­self and cre­ate your action plan sev­er­al weeks – or even months – ahead if nec­es­sary.

Close your eyes, and imagine your ideal evening

Prepa­ra­tion is first and fore­most men­tal. You must have a clear vision of what you want for your par­ty. The dec­o­ra­tion, the lights, the peo­ple… in short, you must be able to visu­alise the par­ty just by clos­ing your eyes. This will boost your morale and guide the rest of the prepa­ra­tion process.

In the same vein, think about defin­ing the theme of your par­ty. You should always seek to have a clear idea of your theme and to devel­op it by tak­ing your imag­i­na­tion as far as pos­si­ble. A Hal­loween par­ty can be fun­nier if a mum­my wear­ing sun­glass­es finds itself danc­ing among the guests, just as a Safari par­ty would be made more inter­est­ing with a fire-cross­ing chal­lenge! All those lit­tle things will make your par­ty mem­o­rable.

Budget your wishes

Once you know exact­ly what you want for your par­ty, think about writ­ing all the details down on a doc­u­ment (paper or dig­i­tal). How do you see your par­ty? What will it take for this vision to become a real­i­ty? Make a list! It will pre­vent you from for­get­ting any­thing.

A crys­tal ball, flu­o­res­cent paint, mir­rors, soft toys, a cater­ing ser­vice, an emcee… try to make a some­what exhaus­tive list of what is essen­tial to the evening you have in mind.

Then, add a col­umn where you will indi­cate, for each ele­ment, the cor­re­spond­ing expense. This is the bud­get­ing stage. Do not for­get to con­sid­er quan­ti­ties and to plan a bud­get for trav­el and any unex­pect­ed ele­ments. These last two are very often under­es­ti­mat­ed by event plan­ners – what a mis­take!

Create a communication plan

How­ev­er you see it, a par­ty remains a mar­ket­ing prod­uct. You must there­fore answer the ques­tion: who is the par­ty for? Who can be inter­est­ed in this type of par­ty? Who do I want to see at this par­ty?

The answers to these ques­tions will help you cre­ate your com­mu­ni­ca­tion plan. If it is an evening between rel­a­tives, a call, a text mes­sage or a reminder e‑mail will suf­fice. If it is a tick­et­ed par­ty, plan to design a media kit with posters, fly­ers, and social media posts. Dis­play them in loca­tions where your tar­get is most like­ly to see them and cre­ate them to appeal to your tar­get. A graph­ic design­er is often rec­om­mend­ed. Do not for­get to bud­get your com­mu­ni­ca­tion plan.

Prepare an action plan

Final­ly, make a time­line of all the actions: loca­tion research, sound sys­tem rental, pur­chase of dec­o­ra­tion arti­cles, com­pe­ti­tions, etc. That way, you will have 360-degree mas­tery of your party’s mate­r­i­al plan­ning.

You should plan to use a solu­tion to man­age reg­is­tra­tions and invi­ta­tions to your par­ty. It will allow you to man­age your var­i­ous guest lists in a sim­ple way and just con­trol entrances on the day of the event.

Avoid trouble

A par­ty is not with­out con­se­quence on its direct and indi­rect envi­ron­ment.

In terms of direct envi­ron­ment, if your par­ty is in a res­i­den­tial area it is bet­ter to warn your imme­di­ate neigh­bours, and maybe dis­play a poster at least 3 days before the par­ty. Some Town Halls also pre­fer to be warned – inquire about it!

In terms of indi­rect con­se­quences, make sure your par­ty com­plies with the laws and reg­u­la­tions. For pri­vate par­ties, you gen­er­al­ly do not need to go through any admin­is­tra­tive pro­ce­dures. How­ev­er, par­ties with pay­ing entry with posters, alco­hol, and music, gen­er­al­ly need to com­ply with cer­tain reg­u­la­tions. There may be tax­es on posters and the music played.

It would be frus­trat­ing to have the police stop the show at the peak of your par­ty.

Take security into account

You should know that you are respon­si­ble for the safe­ty of your guests. The pres­ence of a per­son or a team ded­i­cat­ed to secu­ri­ty has sev­er­al advan­tages: it reas­sures your guests, allow­ing them to relax; it deters the most reck­less and pre­vents any mis­guid­ance.

If your tar­get audi­ence is quite young, con­sid­er recruit­ing some­one to man­age the door and – if pos­si­ble – anoth­er one to cir­cle inside the venue.

Make sure the sound system is good

Here is the Yin of a suc­cess­ful par­ty. Take the time to rent the sound equip­ment from a seri­ous oper­a­tor. The con­di­tions must be clear: who moves the mate­r­i­al? What time should it be set-up?

You must know that sound is one of the most impor­tant aspects of a suc­cess­ful par­ty. This is what gives mean­ing to the drink­ing, and vice ver­sa … The Yin and Yang of a suc­cess­ful par­ty! Remem­ber to test the sound sys­tem with the oper­a­tor (DJ, emcee) a few hours before the par­ty starts. If you opt for a DJ, check-out his per­for­mances online or go to one of his gigs. Rec­om­men­da­tions can also be help­ful.

Take the time to test the sound sys­tem even if it’s yours. Avoid unnec­es­sary scares!

Plan the drinks

Here is the Yang of a suc­cess­ful par­ty. If you want your guests to have fun, drinks should flow — whether they con­tain alco­hol or not.

The peo­ple who come to your par­ty are there to have fun, dance and socialise. If at first, your par­ty does not look like it is tak­ing off, after a cou­ple of drinks you will feel the atmos­phere become a lit­tle more relaxed. This is why some event plan­ners pro­vide a drink at the door. You’ll need to store enough alco­holic bev­er­ages and soft drinks for your guests.

Now, all you have to do is apply these tips and adjust them to the specifics of your par­ty for guar­an­teed suc­cess!

 

Ready to organ­ise your own suc­cess­ful par­ty? Start now with Weezevent:

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