I have hosted many parties and events in last decade. These include: pool parties, board game events, birthdays, friendly artificial intelligence discussion groups, effective altruism events, improv game events, paleo potlucks and even drunken college ragers. Many of them have been exciting and successful with people asking me to host more, some have flopped terribly.
Hosting events can be an extremely satisfying experience because it can help foster the kinds of feeling of community that is frequently missing from the current life, win you friends and generally improve the quality of our own and many people’s lives.
Here is the collection of tips that I have found helpful in thinking about how to organize parties.
First a dirty little secret of our social reality:
Lots of people don’t like “normal conversations”
Most of this post centers around good ways to get away from “normal discussions” at your parties.
This is a hard thing to admit, both to yourself and others. You might just get a weird feeling of “not knowing what to say,” or isolation or boredom and not know why you have the feeling. You might dislike the conversational dynamic, but lack the ability to change it. There are a few main problems with many “normal discussions:”
Problem 1: Too much small talk (described here)
Problem 2: A certain person or group takes up too much conversational space. This can be *very* uncomfortable, especially if an opinion is taken for granted in the conversation and it is not actually shared by everyone in the group.
Problem 3 (less common): The wrong type of flirting can take place
One might ask, how can I make such a bold claim without many people explicitly telling me? Generally, I have observed a very strong revealed preference for activities and structures which get away from all of the above. While “banning things and waiting for the right interaction can arise” can sometimes work, I view this is a worse strategy than “providing better options”. So, one of the many things to think about while hosting a party is:
1. Conversational Structure Activities
The best example of an activity that provides conversational structure is Hot Seat. It goes as follows:
a) At any moment, a person is in the hot seat and everybody has the affordance to ask them questions. Before starting, you might ask for the “spiciness level” of the questions you
b) Once the timer (4-6 minutes) runs out or they refuse to answer the question, their turn ends and somebody else picks it up
The goal of the game is to equalize talking time between people. This allows people to participate, who tend to have difficulty participating otherwise due to language barriers, speech impediments or general fear of breaking conventions. This addresses dominance of certain people, and can also help with making conversations more meaningful, especially if people are already socially “warmed up.”
Other conversational structure activities include such broad classes as: improv games, authentic relating games, discussion guided by an external reading or agenda and lectures. Even something as simple as: “let’s brainstorm for 3 minutes in silence and then go around the room talking about our ideas” can be helpful for making people feel heard.
I highly recommend having a few games, activities or rituals that allow for “equalizing conversational space” in the back of your mind as a party organizer. They can either be explicitly planned and put into the event description or organized “on the spot.”
Another way to have a welcoming environment is to *restrict* attendance to people with who are both comfortable by themselves and are aware of the need to be inclusive.
If you do not have any games, then you at least need to speak with every shy person who nobody else is talking to one on one to make sure they feel welcome. I have been the shy person a few times at events when this didn’t happen. The feelings about the situation ranged from *mild annoyance* to *loneliness* to a *fundamental existential clawing to attempt to conserve a rapidly disappearing sense of self*.
One way or another, please be nice to shy people.
Group Meditation for 10 minutes is an awesome activity to throw in because it both pauses the discussions, is healthy and re-charges people for further activities.
Many parties revolve around mind-altering substances, such as booze, that get away from the usual “in your head” conversations and signaling. I tend to avoid these for safety reasons, but it is an option. An interesting way to get away from the usual annoyances of “normal” conversation is to limit conversation all together by:
Attentional draws include anything that can occupy people’s attention in the party, which can be used by shy people by providing an “out” as well as occupy the mind of the dominant people allowing for shy people to get a word in. This includes:
a) Movies (don’t necessarily recommend, because it cuts conversation too much)
b) Video game tournament broadcasts on the background (can be tricky if you don’t play the game)
c) Video games
d) Work (hackathons / personal hackathons / blogathons, etc)
e) Board games (lots of variation there)
Which board games to pick is an interesting problem. I have been to a few events where the board game was WAAAY too complicated and the complexity was clearly getting unto some people’s nerves. Another positive feature of board games you might want to look for is the ability to “building something of your own,” where the zero-sum component of the game is not too dominant.
With that in mind, the top board games I have seen done well are:
1. Wits and Wagers. I always have a great time playing, even though I have not won. This is in the category of “games which build potentially useful skills,” and are therefore easy to think positively about even if you lose.
2. Deck-building games without too many expansions (Dominion, Star Realms, Ascension)
a. There you are building your deck and while there are “attacks,” this is not as cutthroat as, for example, risk
3. Team vs Team games (Code Names) – combines competitiveness with cooperation.
4. Deception Games (Werewolf / Codenames) – these can create a very strong desire to pay attention to body language signals of particular people in the group, which is frequently a positive change from being ignored. That said, seeing people lie well can be a jarring experience as well.
5. Settlers of Catan. Solid all-around game without too many particular strengths or weaknesses.
Another way to create “attention draws” is to have interesting objects in the environment. This can be provided by you or by the other people in the party because it is “themed” or “costumed”
Another semi-annoying feature of a poorly planned event is sitting down all the time, which is not great for your body and makes me and other people feel a little fidgety. Which means you, as the party organizer, might want to consider:
3. Movement affordances
Dancing / yoga / physical challenges / having a swimming pool nearby all allow people to express themselves physically / have a more fun time, especially as a break from “in your head” discussions. Of course, different people have vastly different physical abilities and in-securities, and physical activities will frequently limit who can come, however this is a tradeoff one sometimes needs to make. Making the kind of tradeoffs between “having an overly difficult physical activity” vs “having an overly annoying discussion” is quite tricky, but you can at least get a good feel for it by going to other parties.
Some of most enjoyable experiences I have had at parties (outside of hookups) were ecstatic dances, where “talking on the dance floor” was *banned* altogether and party goers were instructed to try and “acknowledge each other more” through eye contact, smiles and head movements.
You can simply host a dance party and remove discussion al-together, but this generally slows down the ability to build a community and gives people less affordance to meet outside of your event.
Movement requires calories, which brings to another subject of:
4. Food
I am paleo and almost all food I provide is paleo vegetarian, aka, fruit, nuts and vegetables. Another obvious, but lesser known secret of party organizing is the following:
What food you provide will change the atmosphere significantly
Having more paleo / simple foods prevents food comas and sugar spikes which can either over-dampen or over-excite the atmosphere. It removes the issue of people wondering about food restrictions and allergies and fear that people are coming to the party *just* for the food. A discussion of how food affects mental states can probably fit into a book, so I am not going too deep into it. If you are doing anything *more complicated* than cherry tomatoes, it’s worth putting all the ingredients next to the dish. Keep in mind / highlight the common allergens:
- Milk
- Eggs
- Wheat
- Fish
- Soy
- Peanuts
- Onions / Garlic
Of course, none of this will matter if you don’t take care of
5. Logistics and Advertising
Some basic musts: always put the address and your phone number in the event description.
Generally, the best time to announce parties is 2 weeks in advance with a 1 week reminder.
Having a photo of either the space or a photo of a good view from space is a good idea.
Have an optional afterparty planned. For me this generally involves going out to get food and having another party in the same or more intimate space.
It’s easier to get people to come to location when you have already hosted things there a few times, especially if you have a consistent schedule.
Generally allowing, but not requiring people to bring their own food / booze is a big plus. I personally will want to bring paleo snacks to any party, where the food doesn’t quite fit my needs.
Other things to keep in mind: what’s the parking story, how late do buses run, are there any large events going on at the same time, is anybody else hosting something?
6. Safety
I generally don’t have an issue with this, partly because I keep these things in mind:
a) Be aware of dangers in the environment (bad corners, low ceilings)
This becomes more important as you increase the physical activities.
b) Don’t peer pressure people into un-safe activities
Some people are competitive [citation needed] and also don’t always understand the limits of their bodies
c) Either don’t have booze, or be hyper mind-full of who is driving back who might have had too much. This point puts such an annoying mental demand on me, that I never buy my own booze, while I am ok with other people brining it.
d) Booze *also* significantly increases chances that arguments can escalate into a physical confrontation. It’s worth knowing some de-escalation conversation techniques such as NVC. The chance of needing to confront people physically is small in the kinds of nerdy tech circles I run, but it can be more problematic with different demographics.
e) If somebody comes in with medical equipment (insulin pumps / guide dogs) on them, it’s worth asking: is there anything I need to know in case of emergency? The answer is generally no, but the question is worth asking.
7. Random shit you need to deal with
a) Personal anxiety about nobody or almost nobody showing up
>Be me
>Have $80 worth of paleo snacks
>Sit by pool and watch a lovely group of bros with a few girls having fun in the area completely unrelated to my event
>Have a facebook event with 100+ people invited
>Be alone
>Check reddit / facebook constantly
>Don’t let the existential dread set in
>Eat cherry tomatoes.
You get the idea. Shit happens. It’s going to be okay. If nobody shows up, it might be that they are sick, have a work function or you scheduled things during Burning Man.
b) People asking “where are all the girls?”. This is almost always asked by a girl. On one hand, I love the question because it places agency on me. If I was truly capable of having an equal gender ratio and simply messed up a detail or two, this assumes significant agency on my part in my ability to command lots of women’s time. Even if have no such agency, the false assumption is mildly encouraging. On the hand, this question is *deeply annoying* because I simply don’t have a great answer.
c) People disobeying the rules of the space just to be contrarian.
“Oh hey, is it really not ok to drink beer in the hot tub?”. Yes, in fact, it is not ok. Some rules are stricter than others.
Prevent them by the large set of techniques described above.
8. How to get better
I realize some of the advice I have described here can be quite difficult to implement. So, get some practice hosting parties and going to other people’s parties. The second thing also increases the chances they come to yours. Don’t fret too much if people don’t come. Avoid too many scheduling conflicts with events in the same circle and it’s going to be ok.
May the party spirit be with you!
