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- Hacker News
- I did a fun one at a party of mine where I had name tags for everyone (a pretty good idea by itself) but each person's name tag had the name of someone else they had to talk to at some point. Most of the pairings were quite intentional but a few ended up being random. Got a lot of compliments about it!by OisinMoran
- "21) The biggest problem at many parties is an endless escalation of volume. If you know how to fix this, let me know."
Only way I know is to have a porch, garage, or other connected-but-not-the-same-space open for people to spill into.
by rossdavidh - That one struck me oddly; escalation of volume is a problem you want to have. If the party is quiet, it feels dead, and people leave early. I always used to deliberately leave music playing at a level which would require people to speak up a bit, so it would feel like something was happening right from the start; the glorious roaring chaos would then build of its own accord.by marssaxman
- db meters are available for purchase, which helps with the problem of not being sure how loud is loud while in an altered state of consciousness and need something to compare the volume to.by fragmede
- On the flip side, is there such a thing as a good, quiet party? Only if it's very small.by adriand
- Sound deadening and insulation, whether purpose-made or simply walls/trees/incidental stuff. Fifty people in a 200sq/ft space will almost always louder than twenty-five people in two 100sq/ft spaces connected by a doorway.
Unless the space has amazing purpose-built acoustic qualities, put physics obstructions between groups of people (walls, doors, bushes, trees, fences, whatever).
If a house-party is unbearably loud, there's just too many people for the space, or there's some anomaly that is concentrating too many people in one area.
by nkrisc - That is often coincident w cannibis consumption and if they aren't super drunk people can be prompted politely to bring their voices down. With the music itself volume is best moved gradually enough to not be noticed. Main thing as a host is to guard the volume. It is always a balance to make people want to dance, to provide shelter for intimate conversations which don't travel against too loud where shouting and law enforcement may arise. Rock musicians and their engineers eventually figured out an audience can match nearly any decible level below 110 and can move above it.by Projectiboga
- Spaces, as in have multiple locations for smaller groups to enjoy the scene. There is a real reason that some of the better night clubs are not a single spralling space, but a multi-floor building with each floor sub sectioned into dozens of little back to back living room like couch setups. Intimacy works.by bsenftner
- If it's the kind of party where there's music, stop the music. Everyone will hush, expecting for something to happen. After a minute or two, turn the music back on at a lower volume and the crowd will adjust.by hamdingers
- "Couples often flake together. This changes the probability distribution of attendees considerably"
It's interesting to consider the full correlation matrix! Groups of friends may tend to flake together too, people who live in the same neighborhood might rely on the same subways or highways...
I think this is precisely the same problem as pricing a CDO, so a Gaussian Copula or graphical model is really what you need. To plan a great party.
by jkaptur - We tend to calculate "people at percentages", ie: 2 adults, 2 kids, 50% chance of showing up rates as an attendance-load of 1.5 virtual people (for food calculations).
Then sometimes you need the "max + min souls" (seats, plates), and account for what we call "the S-factor" if someone brings an unexpected guest, roommate, etc.
Lastly: there is a difference between a "party" and a "soirée" (per my college roommate: "you don't have parties, you have soirées!")
All the advice is really accurate, makes me miss hosting. If you want to go a little deeper, there's a book called "How to be a Gentleman", and it has a useful section on "A Gentleman Hosts a Party", and then "Dads Own Cookbook" has a chapter on party planning, hosting, preparation timelines... there's quite a bit of art and science to it!
by ramses0 - Being brutally honest, I wouldn't be too keen to attend a party from someone that writes up about their 21 party facts lol. This sounds more like a meticulous plan to maximize human socialization than an actually just fun party :)by knuppar
- Best comment.by nxor
- Casual hangs are definitely fun, but there's also a lot of fun to being at a bigger "party" or "event."
It's everything from the organization of the space and the flow of people during the night, to the mix of invitees, to possibly having some kind of gimmick there for people to connect over and for the shy people who need some social lubricant (like palm readers, a caricature artist, etc), to the music, to the decor, to the food, to people hired to help pass out the food, to the theme / dress, to the interlude that brings people together (like a vote / contest)...
When done well, it looks effortless, and it can be really fun to attend!
by Esophagus4 - I am reminded of an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants where he meticulously plans a party with a huge list of scheduled, mandatory activities, and hovers around guests and tries to direct them on how to talk to each other and have fun. No one has fun until he leaves to perform errands and then gets locked out of his house. I wonder how much of that episode's plot was intended as a morality tale for children, and it's funny to consider that children's cartoon animators may have wide discretion to create stories meant to instruct kids on issues the animators have personally experienced. It's funny to imagine someone like Stephen Hillenburg or Derek Drymon or another writer going to a party that wasn't very fun and then saying "we need to let the future generation know that they shouldn't be too authoritarian about their parties", haha.by Edman274
- I prefer to invite people individually, and create a group chat with those who confirmed. Nothing is more demoralising than 24 hours of people saying they won’t come, in the group chat, right before the event.
My flake rate is close to zero, mostly because people personally told me they’ll join.
It doesn’t hurt to get the group chat hyped up on the day of the event. The activity is enough to get people excited. I also pin the time and location so people find it easily.
Besides that, just chill. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Once a few good people are there, the thing mostly runs itself. Try to relax and enjoy your own party.
by nicbou - This is ridiculous. When I throw parties I tell a couple of my friends and tell them to tell others and people just show up. Americans are living in some sort of parallel dimension.by dyauspitr
- I miss the days when Facebook events worked well for getting people to attend a party.
Now, nobody is on Facebook so those event invitations get missed and you need to hustle much harder with individual chat messages to get people to attend.
by kelseydh - I was looking for this comment.
Creating a group chat with everyone invited is a terrible idea because of the snowball effect of the first "Sorry, can't come, but have a good time for me!" message triggering a neverending stream of similar cancellations until sometimes the entire event ends up cancelled on the day of.
People are way less flaky if you invite them 1-on-1 (even if you copy/pasted the invitation message) vs. a group chat.
- I've organized so many parties that I feel qualified to comment here :D (actually sorry but the other commens I've read feel silly).
Love the number one advice of the post: focusing on yourself having a good time. Although the more you organize the easier it gets.
> 5) Use an app like Partiful or Luma
I refuse to use an event page personally because I think it makes it less personal. I always DM people directly if I want to invite them.
Also always try to get people to invite their friends as well. That'a the upside of gatherings: you get to meet new people effortlessly. And this solves a number of the problem in the post's list.
> In a small group, the quality of the experience will depend a lot on whether the various friends blend together well
Na, just invite everyone, diversity is a feature.
IMO most of the advice are over engineer. Here are more from mine:
- soundproof with plants and rugs and stuff in the room so it doesn't get echo'y
- play some background music at low volume
- always prepare a punch. People don't realize it but there's alcohol in this thing
- don't have seats otherwise people will sit down, and sitting down is the party killer
- don't prep anything. The place will get messy anyway. Just make sure people bring food and drinks.
by baby - > - don't have seats otherwise people will sit down, and sitting down is the party killer
I agree with all your points but this one. My parties go for hours, people wanna chill. Usually there's some corner playing board games or smoking hookah, it's the perfect couch scenario and a great way to let a party go loooooong. People's feet get tired! Also I've had all sorts of all ages, people with MS or whatever else, pregnant people, etc.
I would say split your house or apartment into sections, just like clubs do: the biggest area is the music area, the kitchen is the stand around and snack and have ridiculously deep conversations area, wherever the couches are is the smash bros / hookah / just take a break area, the balcony or backyard is the smoking / drunk wrestling area. Definitely no seats in the music area. And NEVER let someone bring a guitar.
by komali2 - > always prepare a punch. People don't realize it but there's alcohol in this thing
Why is it that alcohol seems to be a necessary ingredient to people having a good time? Or at least everybody assumes this to be the case?
Why is nobody able to be themselves and relax and have fun without being intoxicated, mildly or more?
Serious question, I don't get it.
by teiferer - > I've organized so many parties that I feel qualified to comment here
> I refuse to use an event page personally because I think it makes it less personal. I always DM people directly if I want to invite them.
These parties you've organized, I'm sure they were quite lovely, but can't have been truly epic, yeah? DMing, say 30 people is one thing, but if you're looking at, let's say 500, is another matter. If you need to spend 30 seconds per attendee to get their name and their telephone number and then paste in the same message, 500 attendees makes that take over 4 hours!
by fragmede - > - don't have seats otherwise people will sit down, and sitting down is the party killer
My Nan used to always say to me:
"You know what happens to girls that sit down at parties?"
"What Nan?"
"Nothing!"
by barbs - I sure miss the kind of parties where they have to get an emergency court order to cut power the building at 3am.
I learned everything I need to know about throwing parties from Dave Barry.
If you throw a party, the worst thing that you can do would be to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw another party next year.
What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake up several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've been indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious to avoid a recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning parties of their own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from having another one.
If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas through your living room window. As host, your job is to make sure that they don't arrest anybody. Or if they're dead set on arresting someone, your job is to make sure it isn't you.
by buildsjets - Haha this seems to be a great success of a party then!
https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/bengaluru-news/police-...
by vishnugupta - Dave Barry is a great source of accurate information, e.g. on how to buy gifts for Christmas. This column [1] includes vital information about parking at a mall, children, etc. A must read for the upcoming season.by tgv
- 3am? This implies that the party is in a rush to be over by morning.
No no, the trick is to just keep the party going. Indefinitely. A good party will have several police callouts over the course of several weeks. You will need to recarpet your home afterwards, but the takings from the roulette and poker tables will cover it. You will make friends, lose friends, and people will thank you for it in 20 years, never mind the next morning.
I think my longest party stretched to about five weeks - of course people came and went, and having a core of unemployed/student insomniacs to keep it going through the wee hours of Tuesdays helped (for many saved themselves for Wednesdays, which had a particular focus on gambling) - and in the end it only ended because some wag decided to list the party on google maps, and I only narrowly squirmed my way out of charges over running an illegal casino.
Anyway. Parties should not be single night or day affairs, in my view.
by madaxe_again - "Dave Barry: The Greatest (Party) Generation" https://archive.ph/Uyrysby smallerize
- Posts like this really make me feel like I'm living in a completely different reality from some people. I can't tell how much of this is exaggerated for comedic value and how much of it is genuine.