Love all of these tips. I've hosted dozens of events since moving to NYC and figured I'd add 5 more:
1. If this is a dinner party (or people are all seated), force people to get up and move in a way that they'll meet new people. Do this when you're about 2/3 of the way through the party. Some will complain - do it anyway.
2. Plan 1 (ideally 2) interludes. It can be a small speech, moving people around, changing locations, having people vote on something, etc. For whatever reason, they make the night more memorable.
3. Do your best to make introductions natural and low-pressure. Saying things like "you two would really get along" can put pressure on people - especially shy ones. Bring up something they have in common and let them chat while you back away.
4. Go easy on folks who cancel last minute. They often don't feel good about doing it and you don't want to add more stress to them or yourself.
5. More music != more fun. Some music is good, but if people can't hear each other, turn it down.
If you're interested reading more about this stuff, read The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker.
#4 has been tough for me - I take it semi-personally, as a sign of disrespect. I get that everyone has things going on. That said committing to an event where the host spends time + money to prepare forand then not going just seems so rude to me.
I try not to give folks a hard time, but after a couple strikes I just won't invite them anymore. It's not worth accomodating people who regularly flake, they can hang out with other flakes.
I feel like hosting in NYC is even more of a public service given that space is limited and not everyone has a living situation suited for it. Props to you for making it happen. Been doing what I can here as well. Cheers!
>1. If this is a dinner party (or people are all seated), force people to get up and move in a way that they'll meet new people. Do this when you're about 2/3 of the way through the party.
Better, I've found, for compelling people to interact with others they may not know, is to assign seats. This enables separating couples or others with a preexisting connection. The act of eating offers the benefits of a subject to discuss (if needed) and makes it so it's acceptable to periodically look away from the conversation partner. Just note that depending on the size/shape of the dinner table, it may be necessary to think about who people will be seated adjacent to and seated across from.
It used to be custom (in high society, not anywhere I have dimmed) to sit boy girl boy girl, and for ladies to talk to the man in their left during the first course, right during second... to keep a balanced conversation going
That makes two of us. I've never heard of (or thank god, been to) a party where a host is forcing people to move around, especially in an unnatural way. Nothing feels like a forced party more than, well, forcing.
> I've never heard of (or thank god, been to) a party where a host is forcing people to move around, especially in an unnatural way.
You've never been to a party where you had dispersed throughout the location, and then the host gathered you to eat a meal or a cake (possibly singing a song prior to distributing the cake)?
> You've never been to a party where you had dispersed throughout the location, and then the host gathered you to eat a meal or a cake (possibly singing a song prior to distributing the cake)?
This isn't "an unnatural way". I don't know what the point of mischaracterising the previous comments is.
Calling for dinner is one thing. Forcing seating or forcing rearrangement sounds lunatic but I'm happy I can choose friends well enough that nobody ever tried. Most points in the original article sound crazy to me as well though.
I think a lot of stuff is cultural. For me, I detest music at social gatherings. I'm there to chat with people, not to listen to music. Music, for me, can only be neutral at best (and more often it detracts fun), not a value add. My wife, on the other hand, considers an event "like a funeral" if there isn't music playing. Just different cultures. Sadly, it means stuff hosted at my house doesn't ever align with my preferences, because happy wife and all that.
She's right though, when's the last time you've been to a public gathering place that hasn't had background music? It doesn't need to be loud, but without music if there's a natuural lull in the conversation it can just be a little awkward haha
> Is there a culture where they don't listen to music at all?
I don't know if there's one that dislikes music but Brazilians definitely like it more than other cultures, music is everywhere here, sometimes a bit too loud
Get up and move is the best thing to do, there was an article on HN with the correct algorithm for this but cant find it.
Having a follow up email with everyones contact helps a ton.
I've also given people a prompt of what the question is to ask to get the convo started when people move around. Let people focus with 2-3 people listening mostly to the story of one person.
Sure, in an ideal situation people would naturally mingle, but a lot of people are shy or will just stick to people they know, which makes it less valuable as a social event.
I feel like this is really an American culture thing where parties or dinner parties are mostly the responsibility of the host. In movies or TV there’s even a common theme of guests judging the host’s hosting abilities.
In Brazil you throw a party to people you like and they all have a hand in helping you, sharing the load. Everyone will be responsible for some part of it, all of it is organized informally, there are no real formalities to the event. No one cares about making a science out of it.
I’ve never heard of a person complaining about party quality or comparing hosting abilities.
House parties are more common in America, so that may be a big reason. A party in that context isn't just about gathering people, it's bringing people into your own living space to be judged upon.
And of course, many US gatherings are also means to move up the social ladder. Meeting new connections, finding mates, or getting intel on an area. Very capitalistic oriented.
America is a huge place with a lot of different cultures. Even within a big city you’ll find social circles with different ideas of what partying is like. I have friend groups that have completely different ideas of what gatherings are and I adapt depending on the group. There is not a singular American party style.
> In movies or TV there’s even a common theme of guests judging the host’s hosting abilities.
That’s a movie trope. You can find parties and social groups like this if you search around long enough, but most people are decidedly not like this.
Don’t take American movies too seriously as an indicator of American culture.
Nah, Brazilian culture is pretty homogenous in that regard. A lot of our culture is dedicated to not looking posh or seeming too rich, more value is placed on being perceived as down to earth (some exceptions notwithstanding).
Parties are communal and informal partly because of income: everyone realizes bankrolling a large party by themselves is pretty expensive so everyone pitches in. Even if you can afford it you don't want your guests to think you're too rich as that's not as cool.
We're only exposed to formal dinner parties and large orchestrated events through fiction. Even the Brazilian fiction that features it carries a more aristocratic view of parties like that, reserved for the ultra rich who want to feel European.
So I live in Amsterdam and my friends are from about 6 European countries and we do the same as the Brazilian guy.
Imagine being in the playground as a kid. You just are there. And if its fun, its not fun because of you, its fun because of the group which is there. So are parties, they just "are".
All these rules you guys have appear to me like watching a movie about a psychopath lining up pens in the living room.
Dong think of it as rules, think of it as someone explaining etiquette. That is hard to write down without sounding weird.
I bet you are oversimplifying how good parties are created in your own culture. If you tried to write down the actual etiquette it would come out sounding weird to us all.
Humans create odd rituals and expectations about everything social. You only really notice it when polling at other cultures - ie is hard to see in your own culture because you implicitly understand the "rules".
#1 is amazingly insightful:
1) Prioritize your ease of being over any other consideration: parties are like babies, if you’re stressed while holding them they’ll get stressed too. Every other decision is downstream of your serenity
Well written. Unobvious to many. I'm sure we all recognise when a hostess or host is trying far too hard and failing badly. It is tricky to learn the skill of being a relaxed hostess/host (some people do it naturally, or have learnt from others).
I'd also strongly support the notion - the article is very US centric, It feels overly concerned about being a host, providing close to a formal experience and expectations for/from the guests, too.
You're being downvoted probably because hn is too sensitive to you calling me judgy but you have a good point. It's hard to write about this without sounding weird, and I guess if I wanted to write about what makes a good party I'd also sound weird. I guess my point was more about the mindset of how you even think about the thing. For me it just "is", and that's a good part of why it works. I wouldn't want to think everyone at the party is focused on maximizing the fun instead of, you know, just naturally having fun.
Like imagine if during sex you think your partner is just meta-thinking about giving you a good experience - they should just be enjoying and so should you. To me this example makes it more visceral but upon reflection I'm just making a basic "live in the moment" cliche.
It's the same with dating. The American rules about first dates, second dates, the exclusivity talk etc. is just not how it works in Europe. Maybe with online dating it moves towards it, but the regular way is much more informal and low pressure.
Americans tend to think about themselves as informal/loose, but they evolved to be very formal and structural, in reality. Tend to like a lot of formal rules about everything.
If you look at Latin American movies, they themselves are different then American movies and show different culture. They are not the exact copy of their cultures of original, but they certainly show quite different social behavior and values.
It's similar to how they schedule all the free time of their kids too. Or their own free time for that matter. Must spend every minute being productive, every minute counted towards some labeled activity. Everything that isn't classified as one of these things has to be cut out, minimized, made more efficient etc.
> Tend to like a lot of formal rules about everything.
I would amend to: what Americans don't like to accept are what they see as preventable mistakes. The least American sentiment of all is "shit happens". Americans sometimes say that, but they don't mean it. What they really mean: "this shit shouldn't be allowed to happen". Hence the rules, and (in the extreme) the litigiousness.
I think some cultures are definitely more social/cooperative and some less, and Brazil and the US may be on opposite ends. I also think the US may be having a social crisis at the moment.
But my guess is that in Brazil many of the things in this list are things that party host(s) (and their circles) are doing, intuitively and without thinking about it. Or different things with similar effects.
I didn't see anything in the OP about anyone comparing party quality or hosting abilities.
But when you go to a party and it's a great party, often it's because someone put effort into it. The better they are at it, the fewer people might notice. and it might come naturally to them, maybe they never had to make a list like this (a very particular kind of brain, sure). But a succesful party (where people enjoy themselves and it feels good) has people putting energy into making it vibe. Again, perhaps inuitivley and naturally and because it's something everyone learns how to do organically in a society. But I'm gonna guess this is true in Brazil too.
Even potluck parties tend to be better on average when someone or a few people are "in charge". In my experience, even when people are just getting together for dinner out, there are people who step up more to organize.
Are you sure there aren't certain people driving these "informal" parties?
> In Brazil you throw a party to people you like and they all have a hand in helping you, sharing the load. Everyone will be responsible for some part of it, all of it is organized informally, there are no real formalities to the event. No one cares about making a science out of it.
> I’ve never heard of a person complaining about party quality or comparing hosting abilities.
This is all true in my experience as well, and I live in the US. Maybe I don't go to enough parties, though.
1. Sometimes an "inner circle" will co-host a party but the other attendees are not expected to do anything except show up and have a good time, and maybe bring booze. This is common with roommates and in college.
2. What you're describing verbatim is a potluck. Potlucks in the US are popular among immigrant groups, family friend groups, or parties for clubs or associations. But ultimately they're considered a bit uncool/laidback and don't fit the definition of an American party. They're better described as "get-togethers".
> What you're describing verbatim is a potluck. Potlucks in the US are popular among immigrant groups, family friend groups, or parties for clubs or associations. But ultimately they're considered a bit uncool/laidback and don't fit the definition of an American party. They're better described as "get-togethers".
As a foodie in the Pacific Northwest I disagree with this statement.
Potlucks are a chance for people to show off their skills. Some of the best potlucks I've been to have a competition aspect to them, complete with prizes.
As a host of a potluck I'll handle drinks, entertainment, and renting a venue, but the guest list is around 80% people who I can rely on to cook a damn good dish.
I would not consider this to be a potluck. I've been to many parties in both LATAM and the US. LATAM parties are indeed just like US parties very often but in many cases they are much more "communal" without being a potluck per-se. A potluck is still too formal a name for what I've experienced at least. Someone's uncle will bring a piñata, someone's aunt will cook pozole, a cousin will bring a speaker, and so on. And these types of parties are not "uncool" or even "laidback" they can be wild.
For me in the US, potluck describes the style of food and culinary expectation of guests. The actual gathering could be fun and wild if it’s a fun and wild family potluck or uncool and lame if it’s an elementary school fundraiser potluck.
There's two modes that I know of in American dinner/meal party culture. 1) Host provides main dish, and guests bring miscellaneous supporting items (ideal for a casual party where the menu need not be coordinated carefully, and people spread throughout the house). 2) Host provides everything or almost everything (more formal occasions, typically sitting at one table; guests might bring wine or dessert). The latter is a holdover from peak 1950s culture/expectations. Many of the expectations and protocols have relaxed tremendously. But it's still a thing. And it's a ton of fun to pull off, if you're into it. A well-executed dinner party leaves me with a warm glow that lasts well into the next day.
1 can definitely be split into 1a) host provides main dish and assigns specific dishes to specific guests, and 1b) full-blown potluck with no official dish assignments at all, hopefully no load-bearing grandma has died since the last potluck.
I like that idea as it means yiu are more likely to host a party. It is also less expensive to do so.
The UK has a show dedicated to a competition to see who is the best host of a dinner party. (come dine with me). Its a great show but shows the culture. The poor host has to pay for everything, prep, cook while entertaining the guest and usually put on some show or activity for extra points.
> I like that idea as it means yiu are more likely to host a party. It is also less expensive to do so.
Yeah, you're expected to help in some way. The idea being that a party at someone's house is likely an inconvenience to that person so if you want more of that to happen you should make sure the host feels barely any pain. Even if you don't bring anything to the party you should be helping place the table, carrying furniture, doing dishes...something.
People who don't help at all aren't well perceived and will probably not be invited again.
I think parties in the Netherlands consist mostly of “have house, bring booze” and things get taken from there. At least, when I was in high school/university (we got to buy alcohol from 16 at the time).
High school/University house parties in capitalist America have a "have house, bring money" theme, because drinking age is 21, so the oldest person buys the alcohol for everybody else, and things get taken from there.
> I feel like this is really an American culture thing where parties or dinner parties are mostly the responsibility of the host. In movies or TV there’s even a common theme of guests judging the host’s hosting abilities.
This is really a function of the type of party and of the type of people one is inviting to a party rather than a universal among Americans. I was brought up that you don't come to a party empty-handed. If you're going to a party where you know everybody else was brought up that way, you call ahead to see what will be lacking (mostly so everybody doesn't bring alcohol.)
I've brought chairs to parties; if you haven't ever done that you probably don't know what I'm talking about.
There's also a "dinner party" culture, though, where you're going to cook for a bunch of people. They should bring alcohol, but they don't always because people don't always drink, and their bringing alcohol doesn't get you out of providing alcohol. The expectation is that you have a reciprocal party rather than everyone contribute at this party i.e. you're inviting people who also might have dinner parties. They're bringing a guest or two to yours, you'll also bring a guest or two to theirs.
The second type of party is more conversation-oriented, and sometimes the contribution you're making is how interesting your guest is. I'm still bringing wine or something, though. Can't show up empty-handed.
They are called potlucks or cookouts in the U.S. and they happen all the time.
In fact, they are probably a lot more common than having a huge party (so large that you have to invite people in batches of half a dozen at a time) completely planned and executed by a single person.
This article is good, don’t get me wrong, but this type of event planning is not really representative of how folk in the U.S. get together
Some summers I plan on BBQing every weekend and I throw invites out on Thursday. People typically bring something and we all have a good time.
For the parties as described in the article, I maybe go to one or two a year tops. Before I had a kid I used to host large parties like the kind described (~15 people tops though), now I just attend and contribute.
Could be a handful or a couple dozen, depends on the person really. Birthdays are more packed.
There’s no real expectation in a party here. Usually you’ll call up people you know from different parts of your life. People bring plus ones so someone from work will be chatting to your family member, a high school friend to someone’s plus one, etc.
That’s usually how people strike new relationships after a certain age.
Yeah as a naturalized immigrant, Americans are judgy. Everything will be judged relative to something similar. In Asia a party is a party. Food and drink are usually accounted for and the rest just happens. No one really thinks of “rating” it the next day. The whole thing is low pressure and parties are frequent and plentiful because of it.
> The biggest problem at many parties is an endless escalation of volume. If you know how to fix this, let me know.
Ideally, a guest breaks a cheap glass. The sound is heard across the house. The helpers immediately spring into action, leaving their conversations behind, looking for towels and a dustpan. The people nearby go mute with sympathetic embarrassment. Much ado is made of finding every shard. Meanwhile you are laboring over a replacement drink for the guest, which you graciously present in protest to their apologies. The party resumes at 70% volume.
This is ingenious. If I ever host a house party, I might consider stocking on some cheap glassware just in case (and figure out which friend I can trust to do the dirty work)...
I have been at a party where (as I later found out) the host had hired an actor to be one of the waiters, and she paid him to trip and fall and spill a tray of food.
It made the night memorable and got everyone talking and working together to help clean up!
Haha, my first thought too; I'm sure you can also just find some spots where someone is bound to bump one over. It might just get suspicious the fourth time around, though then again, that might make the party memorable.
Even though I drink some alcohol as well, it think kind of sad that it has such a reverse association with not having fun.
I am sure almost all people would have an awesome time regardless. It's very deeply ingrained in our culture and just the default behaviour when meeting in the evening.
22) Turn the AC wayyyyyyy down when the party starts
23) Buy frozen finger food and put into oven in staggered batches. When a batch is ready, immediately transfer to serving tray and walk through party offering people food. Great task to delegate to that one attendee who doesn't know anyone!
24) Polaroids/Disposable cameras are cheap and seem to be universally adored. Get a few and scatter them throughout the party.
25) Sharpies/labels for marking solo cups, drastically cuts down on clutter as the night goes on.
26) If someone brings a bottle of wine or a bottle of liquor as a gift, just crack it open and ask them to share it with other attendees. Same with food. Makes for a good conversation starter.
If you give people glasses instead of solo cups, I find that partygoers will tend to treat your house with a lot more care and respect. We have a set of glasses that have little black stickers on them that are a material that works well with chalk, so people can label them.
Yes, there's a risk of breakage & having to clean up, but overall I think it sets a better tone.
> Polaroids/Disposable cameras are cheap and seem to be universally adored.
I do this on my parties! Also sometimes people ask me to bring my gear to their parties.
The guests can either keep the photo and take home some memories or gift it to the host.
My more advanced version is that I take photos with my "good" mirrorless camera, transfer the photos to my phone, and then send them to the polaroid (Instax mini) for print. Too much work as a host, but as a gift when I'm a guest I might do it :)
The polaroids is a good idea; some more expensive / corporate parties I've been at had photo booths with random silly accessories as well. I mean it's not for me because I have no whimsy but other people appreciate it.
Not being a USian: what does turning the AC down mean? Set the thermostat to a lower temperature or make it less active (i.e. set it to a higher temperature)?
As someone who's been in a room with many people: I'm confident it means that the temperature should be low, because the room will quickly heat up otherwise.
(This is also the reason I'm hesitant about the oven tip, given that the kitchen is where the true party is.)
Call me bad at parties, but a dedicated app for inviting people to the party is too much fanfare for my taste. If everyone waits around to see if their friends are going, nobody will RSVP because they're all waiting on each other to RSVP. We're all friends here. A good party fosters serendipity.
Granted, I'm the same person who accepts any invitation to any concert, and intentionally doesn't listen to the band ahead of time because the experience of hearing an artist in a live setting for the first time is so fun. I may have a bias towards serendipity.
That the thing I miss the most from Facebook. I mean, it still exists, but back then, almost everybody used Facebook, and for actual two-way communication, not for following "influencers" or trying to be one. And that was the true value, the features are nothing special, but the networking effect was unmatched.
It means you could make your invitation on Facebook and everyone was on it, with maybe a few exceptions that could be dealt with separately.
Serendipity is nice, but if you are the host, you need to at least get an idea of how many people will be there. And while we may all be friends, things can get tricky when you start inviting friends of friends.
I'm glad im not the only one who found that bizarre. I'm not exactly a social butterfly, so i was wondering if im just out of touch with the more sophisticated social scene, but the idea of having an app for a private party just seems nuts to me. Maybe if its a wedding or something.
Then again the entire thing seems predicated on having large (> 10 people) house parties, which, at least in my social circle, is something teenagers do, not adults
> nobody will RSVP because they're all waiting on each other to RSVP
The article discusses this. “Start by inviting your closest friends, get some yesses, then expand from there.”
The trick is that you already discussed the party with a core group. They are basically co-hosting the party with you. You already cleared the idea with them, heck throwing the party might even be their idea. So they won’t be waiting for others to RSVP. And then their yes-es provide the social proof to others that it will be a cool party and they too join saying yes. Thus the party grows like a snowball.
> a dedicated app for inviting people to the party is too much fanfare for my taste
It is not for you. It is for the party organiser so they don’t have to copy paste the same information to everyone (date, location, short description). It also sends reminders to people who want to be reminded.
> A good party fosters serendipity.
Yes. I agree. Serendipity at what happens at the party, who do you meet, what do you folks do or chat about. Not quite sure how a party invite ruins any of that.
> Call me bad at parties, but a dedicated app for inviting people to the party is too much fanfare for my taste.
I agree. We threw a halloween party. We just discussed who we wanted to invite and threw everybody together in a whatsapp groupchat to announce the thing.
Where I'm from it's quite common to use Facebook events, and people can see who else is coming. People who don't use facebook I invite "normally" via message.
The good thing about partiful (the most popular and imo best party app) is that you can set the invite up such that they cant see the guest list unless they RSVP yes
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.
I had a halloween party once. It had everything: Substance abuse, debauchery, a proper PA system shaking the floor, good lighting, costumes, good people we knew, random other people we'd never met before, a keg of beer, epic bean dip... everything but the police, somehow.
Anyway, my boss showed up. I don't know if I invited him or if he just decided to be there on his own. He was having a great time with everything, and then he went into the back where some folks were enjoying the not-booze.
It was at this point that I lost track of him.
His jacket was still there. His motorcycle was still parked on the front sidewalk. But he was nowhere to be found, and his phone went straight to voicemail. It was like he'd simply vanished.
"Fuck," I thought to myself. "I've only had this job for a few months."
It turns out that he'd walked home, a couple of miles away. He woke up the next morning sitting at the picnic table in his back yard, shirtless, in the rain.
After that, I always made sure that I invited him to my other parties -- and he always made sure to decline, and tell me that he was never doing anything like that ever again. I consider this to be a win.
I learned you gotta have a “that guy” around and you get police showing up at some point almost 100%.
Once upon a time, during my time in sales, some of the permanent sale guys would throw parties at their shared place (near a University campus) that attracted lots of people no one knew and got pretty rowdy.
It would be mostly fine, sometimes a pair of cops showed up & left without incident -- until later in the night/morning after this one shady sales guy 20+ years our senior, who could sell sand in the Sahara but failed at life, became “that guy”.
Not usually violent (unless his buddys were trying to stop him running into traffic etc), typically property damage related; he would mix a lot of alcohol with a lot if other substances by late in the party basically becoming the guaranteed way to clear people out. Also pretty sure the holding cells were his second address.
Anyway, when you went into talking about the boss I thought he might be “that guy” but he declined.
If you ever played a game called Party House, which is a deck builder that "teaches" you how to organize parties. It's one of many absolutely fantastic games in the UFO50 collection:
It teaches you that if you have too many of "that guys" in the mix, the police will come. The fix is to invite a few hippies and the problem is solved by itself.
I'd like to write about the party where my friend showed up with no clothes at all (neither on him, nor with him) aside from t set of Playboy Bunny ears on top of his head, but I'm out of time for storytelling right now.
When I worked at LSI Logic in the 2000's, there were a lot of young Europeans (mostly Italian) on the staff. They had rented a house in Palo Alto which was affectionately called "The Pleasure Lounge".
It was just one of those houses that had the awesome party vibe. The only rule was that if you had to puke, you had to go in the back yard and do it in front of the Mother of Mary statue.
The best part was if you made it to 4 am, the Italians would break out the spaghetti, cook a big pot of it and serve it with just olive oil (no tomato sauce). Sitting around the kitchen table wicked hammered eating plain spaghetti is the correct way to end a party.
Spaghetti without tomato sauce? That's like pissing in the morning without farting. Sure, it'll get the main job done but it's not the same pure pleasure.
Fwiw, you can neutralize tomato sauce with a little bit of baking soda. Start with a pinch, stir, wait thirty seconds, and taste to see if you need more.
My guess is that the pasta mentioned above is spaghetti "aglio olio e peperoncino" (garlic, olive oil, red pepper), so not just olive oil.
Could be the recipe with the highest ratio taste/effort you can find, something that even a drunk student can pull off a 4 in the morning, so they probably just continued their tradition from the university years
Butter emulsifies into a sauce just from the residual heat of the spaghetti (and some mechanical action - stirring, pan flip, etc)
Oil needs a bit more help, otherwise it's just grease on noodles. The starchy water the pasta was cooked in can do most of the heavy lifting there, but the addition of garlic helps too.
> 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.
I threw a party (illegal, on the beach, with great music) so successful the police just provided security at the parking lot entrance 1km away because they didn’t want > 400 wasted people roaming the affluent neighbourhood if shut down. Oh there were also nudists at the beach when we were ferrying in our gear at sunset who stayed for the whole thing and ended up on the dancefloor in their birthday suits at 2am.
My Finnish gf told me that the police in Finland is so reasonable and human, that often they will stop by just to check in if everyone are safe and well and if anyone needs assistance. She mentioned countless of times she was with her international friends partying, or doing sauna or skinny dipping in the lake, often all the three things in the same night of course, when her friends got nervous when the police stopped by, and she was like "ahh no, don't worry, they just want to check if we are all okay".
Police asked if they are all safe, nodded and wished them a nice party.
Having a lot of partying people at a place, combined with sensible policemen, is the best recipe for not getting busted. Had that at least twice in my life. Once at a house party with a lot of young, just around the driving age, people. Police showed up, and decided to not bust it, because sending people on the road would be more dangerous then letting things just go on. A few years later, I was at an illegal outdoor tekno party, which also got a visit at 8AM by two policemen. They basically just went up to the DJ and sayed: "We will return at 3PM, and you will be gone."
Yep, but it depends. We once organized a party in a soon to be demolished factory building. And exactly that happened, the police decided to let us be because it would've been trouble to have a few hundred ravers in the middle of the city.
The second time we were not that lucky, it was a warehouse, and they came with flashlights and kicked us out.
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.
I'd say a different era rather than a different reality.
The Dave Barry quote is obviously humor. But back from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, I was genuinely at numerous house parties, basement concerts, and un-permitted raves which where broken up by authorities, including some where the power was cut, (or worse, where the music was cut and lights flipped on full bright) and the cops forced everyone to pile into their cars and drive home, with whatever head full of chemicals they might be taking on the road with them. Poor saucer-eyed kids.
Ah, memories, memories. Where is that brain damage they promised us? I'm still involved in a local music scene somewhat. And yeah, there will always be an underground. And yes, some of the underground gets old and had to get up at 7am to pay the mortgage so some of this may be looking back with rozy glasses. But it just seems to get smaller every year. I don't hear bumping bass from the neighborhoods on Saturday night like I used to.
Roughly the same is true for sexual interactions. Was posted on HN a while ago. And I think it makes perfect sense, if you look at Japan they have all that development and are like 10+ years ahead.
How would you know? Sure you would know if you were walking but otherwise braindead, but if you are "5 iq points dumber" (whatever that means) or something like that you wouldn't know since there is no way to know what "might have been"
I say this a bit tongue in cheek, but a bit of rowdiness once in a while does good to the soul. Sure. You still need to be careful, but a world without these experices feels a bit bland.
I do think some people will notice mental decline to a point - I'm nearing 40 and am nowhere near as sharp as I think I once was, for example. But would you be aware if you never had a period in your life where you did feel sharp?
You're equally fine with how you are now or having 20 to 50 less IQ points? Of course you're missing something, probably the most important thing in the world after rich parents is being smart.
If you aren't born smart or with rich parents, the next best thing is to have a big wide network of diverse sorts of people. Sacrificing a couple IQ points is worth it to get it.
I'm a nobody from nowhere with an unremarkable brain, but I've made it far in life just chumming it up with way smarter and luckier people than me at the Burn or poly parties or other random shit I get up to.
The previous comments were talking of IQ in a quantitative way ("x points less"), so they fit in the first definition.
Even the second definition is not really a thing. Intelligence as a concept doesn't mean much and needs to be defined properly. Using it this way is just another way to divide people superficially.
The previous comment were talking about IQ in a quantitative way.
Even your second definition is not really a thing. Intelligence as a concept doesn't mean much and needs to be defined before comparing. It's just another artificial way to divide people by imaginary values.
Dave Barry is a humor writer. I've followed him for 20 years and this is absolutely his style of writing, perhaps even paraphrased from one of his pieces.
Hats off to OP if this is their original writing, it nails his style.
My introduction to Dave Barry was Slackware Linux and the fortune cookie program, which greeted me with random quotes, often some humorous remark by Dave Barry.
Because of this, I both like him and associate him with my early nerdiness.
Generational divide too. I grew up watching stuff like Project X, and then meanwhile it just seems like Gen Z can barely gather together for anything anymore. Let alone a rager.
In the 90s I was stationed at Anacostia Naval Air Station and would drive in to the base every morning through the warehouse district (it's now the stadium the Nationals play in). At 04:30 most of the raves would be letting out and bleary saucer-eyed teenagers would stagger into the streets of Southwest DC to start walking to their suburban homes.
Some comedy, for some this is the view of a party. I know people for whom a night out isn’t a night out unless they struggle to remember anything and the quality is measured by how awful they feel the following day. It’s not for me, but they can enjoy it how they like.
If I want to feel bad, not remember anything but have a good story, I’ll read a book then run face first into a wall.
I’d say is not different to having a hobby. If you spend so much time on any hobby such that you neglect your work or your family then yeah it’ll lead to trouble.
It's one of my greatest fears to see the Gonzo going out from the world. Whether or not it's the truth, this post captures a value-system that used to be strongly coded into the world, a domain of part truth part bullshit, but all yes forward excitement that the in the know smart exciting people were in for in abundance, accepting the tongue in cheek along side the sheer raw ambition to outdo the meager reality about us.
Its from an author who mainly wrote newspaper columns in the 90s. It's his style of tongue-in-cheek humor, and it's aged about 3 decades. I won't say "hasn't aged well", but just "aged".
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.
I was at a rooftop party in Dublin once, and when the cops showed up to shut it down the band started playing "I fought the law" and one of the cops jumped in behind the drumkit and played along
We threw a few big parties at my apartment in Clemson around 2001. Never had the cops called, but it’s mainly because we let all of our neighbors know in advance and asked them to let us know if there was a problem.
I will never forget the nice 70 year old lady who lived in the apartment above us. She said, “If it gets too loud, I’ll just turn my hearing aid off.”
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.
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.
People are able to be themselves and relax when they feel safe. Safe from judgement, rejection, reprisal, etc. When you're with a group of people you don't know, you don't know how safe they are.
Getting drunk helps people feel uninhibited from all of that. There are a million other ways to feel safer with new people, but drinking happens to be extremely easy and quick.
> People are able to be themselves and relax when they feel safe. Safe from judgement, rejection, reprisal, etc. When you're with a group of people you don't know, you don't know how safe they are.
And how is any of that related to alcohol? My friend can open up to me when we are in a safe environment without the need for first ingesting a drug. It's not the alcohol that causes the safety.
Maybe it's a ritual, that could explain things partially. But maybe a ritual worth abandoning. Just like we did with smoking, and everybody gained (well except the tobacco industry).
I'm sure the boozemakers won't let go without a fight though. But so far they have plenty of help.
> My friend can open up to me when we are in a safe environment without the need for first ingesting a drug. It's not the alcohol that causes the safety.
But that's not a party. I mean, there are people that open up when drunk, but they do it with strangers. But if you are opening up to a friend, a real friend, I would say the norm is to do it without any substance involved. Because the barriers are already not there.
Because people have psychological barriers (naturally or "imposed" via education) that alcohol or other psychotropic substances help tearing down. Not having those barriers is a great help in having a great party.
But obviously not everyone is the same in that regard and also the very definition of "party" and "great party" can change.
Indeed. In my experience, once the alcohol level has crossed a certain threshold, you need to be taking part to think it's great. If you are a non-drinker, for whatever reason (pregnant, medication, morals, ...) what you get to observe beyond that threshold is a huge turnoff and the opposite of a great event.
Well it's a fact that you do get more open and relaxed with alcohol. The barriers go down.
And over the lifetime people almost all the time had alcohol when they where at parties. You start to associate alcohol with fun and parties.
Of course this is generalized and depends on cultures and groups.
That's what I like about them young Gen Z, they drink less alcohol. Sadly they also socialise less.
I once heard a story that Inuits in Greenland did not have access to alcohol so everyone could drink. Instead only half drank, and the other half had water but where allowed to act as if they where drunk. I'm not sure this is real, but I can see it happend.
> You start to associate alcohol with fun and parties.
That's probably it. It's a ritual. A costly one though, in terms of money as well as health. Direct cost (liver, brain cells, ...), as well as indirect (accidents, fights, ...).
> That's what I like about them young Gen Z, they drink less alcohol.
I wouldn't celebrate to soon. Every movement eventually spawns a countermovement. Next gen might be the most booze consuming ever.
> 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!
> - 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.
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.
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 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.
In my social circles Partiful feels like it's becoming a good replacement for the golden era of Facebook Events. At first you had to invite people manually by sending them a Partiful link, but now they have their own internal invite system where you can invite your "mutuals" (people you've partied with) directly on the platform. It's become the clear standard for house parties in my sphere. Not quite as good as Facebook events used to be though.
Oh man this definitely makes me wax nostalgic for that golden era ... it was 2013-2016 for me. I would throw an annual holiday party w/ my roommate in SF every year and I recall being able to just go down the list of my FB friends and click "invite, invite, invite" and everyone I cared about would show up and we all had a wonderful time. Sigh.
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.
indeed. It's a flaky culture where half the people you do invite may not make it last minute. Let alone any friends they'd invite. Turns out hyperindividualism doesn't work well when you want to engage in social gatherings.
There are certain kinds of styles of gatherings that do much better when there are 40-50 people present, rather than 10-20. If you are going for a low pressure hang and want 10-20, it's easy enough to just tell friends and tell them to tell others, you'll hit those numbers easy. If you are trying to do something a bit more memorable and you want to guarantee a higher turnout, you have to invest more effort into ensuring attendance.
If you can get 50+ people to "just show up" without putting effort in, that means _someone_ (one of your friends) is putting the effort in, you're in college, or you're just super hot and famous
Just depends on the set. 10 people can just be five friends and their partners around one table. 20 people who don’t all know each other feels more than twice the size.
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 :)
"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.
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!
> 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.
I made myself a "food and drinks amount" calculator for weekends/week-long party events a few years back and it was eerily accurate once you take in unexpected plus ones, flake rates, hangovers and other computable-at-scale events into the formula!
I've had a few "Cinderella parties" in my house over the last few years - there is dancing, and the party ends at midnight
It works well for us. I have the music timed so that a tolling bell comes over the soundsystem at midnight and I just kick everyone out. The curfew means people will arrive and get up and dance early, and nobody gets too messy
Excellent tips, I've naturally followed most of these, it's crazy to see them reflected here explicitly, they felt "such a natural thing" to do. Given the quality of most of them, I'll try to follow better the couple I don't yet.
> 2) Advertise your start time as a quarter-to the hour. If you start an event at 2:00, people won't arrive till 2:30; if you make it 1:45, people will arrive at 2:00.
Needless to say this is highly culture-dependent. I recently threw a dinner at my place in Tokyo, and I had to add the warning:
- Official dinner time was 7pm.
- Told my Southern European friends at 7pm, expecting them to arrive at 8pm.
- Told my Japanese and American friends at 7:30-8, expecting them to arrive at 8pm.
It went much better than expected, everyone arrived within 8pm~8:10pm (okay, except that one friend who is chronically late, but that's a lost cause).
I recently arrived at an Indian birthday party at 11 am (the scheduled time) and the host immediately responded, oops I forgot to tell you the real time... everyone else will arrive after noon.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I attended "The Whisper Club" once in NYC, where the music performance was female performers whispering to soft muted horns and piano, and anyone who spoke in a normal or louder tones was asked to leave. Instead of clapping to the music, people snapped their fingers. It was kind of subversively wonderful.
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.
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.
That could be a party killer, though. I understand the neighbors issue, especially if you are throwing the party in a flat, but getting reminded "you are making too much noise" while you are having a great time with that noise, IME will totally kill the party.
Ideally this is something we could solve with data, with letting people see the trend over time, with some call to action moments to quiet the fuck down for a minute, reset the otherwise only up-moving gauge.
Every now and then I'll resort to just turning the volume up so that people give up. No, sorry, conversation is already basically impossible except via shouting, so I'm going to up the volume to prevent conversations for a little bit, interrupt the flow, then go back down.
I'd love some volume meters that have very visible displays. It's in the red! Everyone chill out! Or ideally presenting some view over time. Little tablet screens placed about or above that show some logarithmic time scale of volume, so people can calibrate, see the bad trend line. There need to be enough different volume-over-time systems about so people know where the problem really is coming from too. Most people at the party are just trying to talk, so the real art of debugging this nonsense is finding who is being extra loud, and introducing some observability to let the specific worst offenders fix their specific loudness issues, then the rest of the party can de-escalate too.
At our apartment in the South End in Boston (2023-2024), we had a nice backyard where me and my roommate would host a lot of parties. Some were more successful than others. In particular, one event (dubbed 727 for being on 7-27) was particularly unsuccessful. My good friend and DJ came to visit and we did a B2B backyard sesh. The music was amazing, vibes immaculate but we lacked the crowd. Looking back, our biggest mistakes were:
1. asking people to come at 2 PM on a weekend and saying party will go till 7 PM. There is a limit to expectations, as I have learned
2. not using Partiful or Luma (Apple Invites wasn't a thing back then) so we could never really remind people or confirm people. Plus, many flaked (~40%) or arrived very late (~70%)
3. not making the party interesting enough for 22-24 year olds - many flaked :(
4. not following rules 8 and 9 as mentioned here (whom to or not to invite given a group)
Some tips that worked for us in other parties:
1) Be very generous with drinks, make good ones and buy good beer/wine, avoid temptation to venmo request afterwards (please don't). atithi devo bhava
2) Have something to do. For us it was Dartmouth pong in our backyard lol
3) Have a good vibe
One major pro tip not mentioned: if inviting a girl you want to impress, learn to mix drinks and songs ;)
A good shake goes a long way...
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!
My family used to host yearly neighborhood dinners people brought food, sang, danced. Those things faded over time, but reading this made me realize: that was the heartbeat of a community. Without those rituals, we quietly turn into islands.
All good advice, but I’d recommend against removing chairs etc. I have family members with mobility issues and the biggest reason they’re upset and feel left out at parties is because everyone is standing and they don’t feel like they’re included because of it. Have seated areas, and have a couple of chairs in locations that let standing people chat with the people who need to sit too. Make it such that people who usually stand will naturally sit and hang out with the sitters as a part of the rotation.
shameless pluck:
In my friend circle im the only one throwing real parties. The most annoying thing always was the logistics of keeping track how many people come and what they might bring (cuz usually it's a, bring your favorite food/booze party).
group chats are super messy and get taken away by chit chat, so I build a simple, clean product that helps me with all that.
it's basically a virtual invitation card with extra features, like comments when people rsvp, image upload for after the party etc.
never shared it outside my circles but it's pretty polished.
hope this could be of some use for you:
https://create.party
(These don't really apply to parties, but they do apply to non-party events)
1. Do intro circles: If it's a 5-25 person event with a handful of people that don't know each other, do an intro circle about 15-20 mins after the start time. Turns it from something where people show up and might meet 1-3 random people that they happen to walk up to, vs something where everyone gets 1 point of contact with anyone else. Works well up to about 25 people, haven't tested it beyond that. Go round say name, and then pick a few questions depending on the audience (eg could be something you'd like help with, something you're reading about, etc). For non-parties (eg meetups, work mixers, things that don't have alcohol or aren't late), the easiest way to improve any event is for the host to do a brief intro circle.
2. The best events to host are the ones you wish you could attend but that don't exist
3. Minimize uncertainty for attendees: Clear parking info/photos and a photo of the space is always helpful too.
4. Host more events: Very positive sum. Even can be simple discussion groups. Anything that you enjoy doing where it'd be more fun with a few other people. Playing video games together, reading papers together, discussing how you're using AI coding tools, whatever. Workshops, mixers, talks, parties, peer groups, etc. If you enjoy reading about it on HN or twitter, you'd probably also enjoy discussing it with people directly. The world is undersupplied for events.
I think a middle ground is possible. Have people not talk about themselves, but rather how they'd react in some bizzare hypothetical situation (for example), and have a few limited options for them to pick and justify. Kinda like cards against humanity in some ways. Ofc ask people first in private what kind of questions etc they're comfortable with and what they'd like to talk about.
Almost everyone has something interesting to say or contribute, the hosts' ideal job is to bring that out.
I'm an extrovert, and my assumption has always been, maybe introverts appreciate this kind of thing because otherwise they won't meet anyone?
But, I've never, in my life, met someone that enjoys this kind of thing, other than the person subjecting everyone to it. So, unless I'm way off base here, why has nobody learned that everyone hates these and that they're useless?
Americans tend to have larger, more casual social circles, probably. Having hosted parties in both the U.S. and Europe, the "flake rate" in Europe is much smaller, but the parties are also smaller, less frequent, and planned further ahead of time.
"Europe"? I can assure you, the party cultures in Spain, Scandinavia, France and Greece are all pairwise so dramatically different that the U.S. are not the counterpole, but just another flavor in the sea of possibilities. The same applies to different cultures within these countries. Across areas, ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, political leanings, hobby groups.
It's astonishing to me how many comments around here are lumping everything together under specific nationalities.
I’m always amused by this. The US has a hugely diverse set of attitudes to things and yet a surprising number of people there then look at a more populated combination of more than 25 countries with varied languages and histories who have fought many wars over history against each other have some singular approach to parties or cycling or anything else.
Statistical stuff is just what’s more natural to the author of something we’d all do, you wouldn’t assume everybody you invited would come would you? You’d think about how many people would probably come, and that is often based on other things you’d know. Inviting lots of parents to an adults only thing will result in fewer coming if they all need to sort childcare for example.
> and uses a dedicated app to invite guests.
At a larger scale you need to track somehow, unless it’s all in your head or it just doesn’t matter. Even for small friends gatherings we’ll often use WhatsApp polls or whatever for sorting dates out. If you’re inviting people you’re less close to or know more tangentially you’re probably not phoning each one, and the idea of seeing a guest list for deciding if you want to go can be nice. Not for everyone I guess but I don’t see it’s an issue.
It depends on the kind of party and scale really. Other here are talking about getting absolutely trashed and ending up with people in jail. That’s not the only kind of party and just doesn’t appeal to me at the moment. If I wake up shitfaced at 5am I’m going to be a terrible dad, and that’s not who I want to be.
At times I’d have been able to invite a few people and have them invite a few people with little notice or planning and maybe I can again some day but I have young kids and so do most of the people I’d want to invite, so it just takes more organising.
For real, just invite peers and go from there. If its not a 30 people+ party you can spontaneously order pizza pretty easily... Too much planning ruins parties for me.
You can network without an app or a permanent digital record.
We threw epic parties for ~80 to 100 people every month for five years back in the student days, in a massive cheap rental house scheduled (along with a 120 others) for demolition for road widening for a major North-South throughway.
It was high on a hill (now a cutting), colonial gilded age "beach house" with a view to the ocean ... and I suspect a great many of the people that passed through can happily live without a record of their debauchery now some decades have passed.
Networking-wise, it was a trove, numerous marriages and business partnerships launched, a few dashed on the rocks, still remembered fondly as a point of reference by a crowd now scattered across the globe.
A successful escort who is into statistical data analysis and market research talks about the details of organizing an orgy.[1]
Aella's thing is to ask questions that lead to "what do women really want", and go from there to design events.
She has about 800,000 raw survey responses, so there's enough data to look for patterns. The answers will upset some people. The conventional wisdom appears to be way out from where the data leads.
I think this talk was interesting. You may be getting downvoted since people don’t want to watch the whole video to get the “answer” you alluded to, so I’ll summarize briefly:
Aella notes that orgies have recently been very focused on maximizing consent and safety, and as a result people have very little actual sex at the parties and are dissatisfied. She notes that the kind of women who attend orgies are disproportionately into submissive power dynamics and somewhat rough sex, so she tried creating a type of orgy where blanket consent is given up-front, men outnumber women, and everyone is vetted for attractiveness (and presumably other traits, which she does not specify). This apparently leads to parties where the men aggressively initiate sex with many women, and everyone is very satisfied with the outcome. The parties have strict rules, such as absolutely and immediately respecting the safe word.
I don’t like #2 because I hate the game of tricking people to be on time and then people start compensating further and eventually I’m trying to host a Cosmic Comet Party and you’re showing up after the punch has been distributed.
I just like being honest and stripping away the layers of manipulation. “Starts at 2:00. Please be on time. If you don’t want to be the first, show up at 2:10. If you want to come early, we’d love a bit of help with last minute preparation but we won’t be in hosting mode just yet!”
Do I overthink things? Absolutely. Do people comment about how much they love how I strip all the uncertainty and mind games from it all? Yes.
This will not work with south american guests. It's a cultural thing, being a little late (but not too late) is cool; being on time seems desperate or too strict.
I would say personally I don't care if people show up late, but I'm also not going to play scheduling mind games to try to trick them into being there on time. The event starts at whatever time the invitation says. If someone shows up late, I have no sympathy if they are upset that they missed the beginning. But I'm not going to be mad they didn't show up right on time, either. It's ultimately their problem, not mine.
Sounds like the perfect filter then. I'd rather have people showing up to my party that are interested in having a good time moreso than how "cool" they appear.
What do you do if you only have like two friend (who don't know each other) these days, and you want to get them to invite their friends... I'm planning a thing for the 8th and super worried it's going to be like 4 of us and we're going to hate it.
You’ve either gotta pivot the event from a party (where attendance is considered optional) to a specific gathering/dinner event or something, where people will feel like attendance is more expected. Or, have a frank conversation with your guests about your worries and expectations and see what comes with it.
One time I swiped a shitload of girls on Tinder and just invited a bunch of them to a party I was throwing where I had the same issue. I told them what I was doing and said bring whoever.
In 15 years of throwing banger parties it was by far and away the most absurdly over the top, yet somehow also the most wholesome, party I've ever thrown. Actually I'm not sure why I haven't done it again now that I think about it. And the ratio of girls to boys + enbies was like, 5:1, absolutely ridiculous.
Anyway you could try it?
Another time I threw a party on Meetup.com and had a bunch of old people show up, who ended up getting turnt the fuck up. I made a lot of good software industries connections that night and it was early in my career so that was very useful as well.
If you're hosting a party in a place where there's lots of shy or quiet people, you should recruit some people who are skilled at getting others to open up, and keep them in active rotation. Call them firestarters: tasked with making sure that none of the fires go out while making sure that the party doesn't burn down.
1. Use multiple speakers in different locations.
Single speakers tend to be turned louder, people then talk louder...
2. Breaks for toasts / games.
If everyone has to listen, the talking noise level resets a bit.
3. No Alcohol.
Yeah, this is a game changer.
Some people even won't come if they know there is no alcohol and some will go early.
The other ones have a better sense for noise.
> Once an event crosses a threshold (maybe 70%?) of male-or-female dominance, most people of the other gender are likely to decline (or just not-come to your next party) as a result.
I don't know. Probably depends on your demographic. I already have a partner, so if I feel like I won't connect with the crowd I'm probably gonna decline.
> try to encourage standing for those who can e.g. by having high-top tables, or taking away chairs from around tables
Why do people feel it's their role to take away choice if someone wants (or need) to sit down?
I don't buy the attempt at inclusive language either because it's nobody's business to determine "for those who can".
Have chairs available for those who need them rather then forcing them make themselves known by asking the host for a chair or trying to drag one in from another room.
As a bonus you won't have to lug chairs out of the room only to put them back later.
Honestly, depending on the party I just don't even go. The loud drunk type of parties that a lot of people are talking about here are absolute misery for me. I just wind up standing off to the side, too shy to strike up a conversation with any of the various strangers around, and eventually just leave. Eventually I stopped going to such parties because I just wind up feeling awful about myself afterwards. On the other hand, I love having dinner parties with friends or family, because then I actually can talk to people and have a nice time. Both of those things are parties, but they are both very different experiences for me.
This is why I've never thrown a party. I don't hate socialising, but I want to go home. I'll often leave without any fanfare when I've had enough. If I throw the party, I can't just go home or, worse, it's in my home, which is the only place I can go.
This list is for little dinner parties held by women.
I could tell a woman write this at 11 "gender balance." No, just no. If you are a man thowring a party the one and only concern you have is throwing every bit of effort at making sure women will show up and not be outnumbered 2:1 or worse by guys. They will all leave and the reputation will forever ruin your chances of having women show up in the future. They talk.
If you are a man throwing a party you have to actively turn away other men. There is no other way. You have to rotate bouncing duty.
The best and cheapest is open-air, where voices fly into the sky and never return, it would take like a thousand of people before it stops being enough.
Second best are large open windows, missing walls (porch/balcony) or multiple rooms.
Beyond that I don't think there can be a solution without some sort of room soundproofing, which is usually no-go for rented spaces and private houses. The closest one can get is to maximize soft surfaces (rugs, curtains esp. along walls).
Speaking of which, I wish bars, restaurants and other venues were required to place echo reducers on the ceiling, such simple and cheap measure would dramatically improve ability to talk there when they're full.
> Speaking of which, I wish bars, restaurants and other venues were required to place echo reducers on the ceiling, such simple and cheap measure would dramatically improve ability to talk there when they're full.
It's possible they aren't aware, but I have to wonder if it's sometimes intentional. As someone who doesn't drink, I find most bars close to if not entirely intolerable as places to hang out in, not because I mind being around other people drinking, but because they're always so loud. I've always assumed that drinking is what makes this tolerable to people, so now that you bring this up, the idea that this could be a way to sell more alcohol occurs to me. Probably a silly conspiracy theory, but who knows!
Also probably to do with cost. Acoustic panels are pretty expensive. I can imagine selling this to a manager/owner won't be easy since it's not clearly bound to return on investment.
> 1) Prioritize your ease of being over any other consideration: parties are like babies, if you’re stressed while holding them they’ll get stressed too. Every other decision is downstream of your serenity: e.g. it's better to have mediocre pizza from a happy host than fabulous hors d'oeuvres from a frazzled one.
I fully agree that most people won't be comfortable if they're the "only" man or woman at the party.
How do you suggest evening genders out? Inviting couples is fine by definition; but I only really know single men. It seems odd for me to randomly invite single women I don't really know.
I've (co-)organized parties of varying sizes (N=2..50+) and I would say volume hasn't been the top problem, ever.
- As hosts, the main problems are finding a suitable date to hold the party, chasing attendance confirmations and getting people to dance (esp. once they're over 30).
- As attendees, the main problem besides whether on should go or not (which is often made dependent on who else is going) is figuring out what kind of "party" exactly it is (formal/informal, dance party/potluck, enough food?). The definition of "party" is very broad, even leaving aside cross-cultural norms, ranging from "let's sit around the table and play board games" to "let's outdo Hangover I/II/III [except for the giraffe]".
It was difficult to read through due to the number of people using it as an opportunity to try and come across as experienced and worldly, which just ends up having the opposite effect, especially when you consider the target demographic of this forum.
Over the years I've thrown many parties, from house parties, surprise parties, keggers, to corporate events, concerts and DJ events that are ticketed, underground, invite-only in cities like Hong Kong, Paris, Toronto and Miami and can 100% stand behind every one of these rules. There is an art and a science to hosting good events and this post breaks it down really well.
Surprised no mention of space per person.
The sweet spot is not yet fully known to me. But maybe about 8-10 square feet per person.
You want that intoxicating social energy, but people need the space to bop from circle to circle
> The biggest problem at many parties is an endless escalation of volume. If you know how to fix this, let me know.
If there’s a band: if you’re the host or the person paying, just ask them politely to turn the volume down every ten minutes or however long it takes for the volume to drift up. And it will drift back up, because very few bands are able to keep their hands off the mixer.
For conversational volume, either go outside or use serious acoustic treatment. The latter may be challenging.
> Most people will only go to a party where they expect to know 3+ others already.
Is that true?
I've been to two weddings where the only person I knew was the bride and I was just like, well I guess I'll make friends there. Had a blast both times.
This is great advice, parties are a lost technology in some parts of society, like the pyramids. We should throw more parties
For a dinner party specifically I like to force everyone to go for a walk before dessert. By that point they’re all hot and drunk, sending them outside for a quick lap cools everybody off, gets them talking, and is good for the digestion. Then you can come home and crack into that bottle of wine someone brought
The tell tale sign you are throwing good parties is when the random name you make up for the party manifests in the real from a guest who did not see the invite.
Yes, was about to say this. Also, once I started having friends, I also entered the period of life when people have wives and children, which means they don't have free time at all.
> Once an event crosses a threshold (maybe 70%?) of male-or-female dominance, most people of the other gender are likely to decline (or just not-come to your next party) as a result.
I’m not sure that this one is true. Once, as a single guy, I got invited to a party that turned out to be 80% women, and I would definitely have gone to that guy’s parties again.
ask people that stayed late to help cleanup a bit. It will only take them 5minutes and will save you hours. Also cleanup everything before you go to sleep. It will save your next day
If you host 15+ ppl, make sure you get "help". Pay one or two young ppl a day's salary to act as a waiters. This way you _can_ focus on ppl and have some fun instead of you and your SO, close friends or family acting as a waiter all night.
A little bit of overthinking in there, no? I mean this is kind of stressing me out that I’ve not been doing this properly.
It feels like the person writing this is constently rating the quality of his/her parties, like she’s being judged. Perhaps it’s a NY thing. The ‘flake rate’ also feels very New York-y
My experience is that some parties will be good others won’t, and you can’t really know why. General mood can’t be steered. It’s ok.
As someone who was throwing the most popular parties in my hometown¹ during my youth probably the number 1 thing is finding the right mixture of people.
Nearly the most boring thing you can do is only inviting people who know each other, ideally it is an explosive mix of different ages, backgrounds, interests, styles to avoid people sticking together in their known constellations.
¹: one if the proudest moments was when some random stranger in an European capital spoke to me on the street and told me: "Hey I know you, I have been to your party!" and I had no idea who they were
I'll probably get uninvited from the party for pointing this out, but Partiful is free for users because they are datamining the shit out of us. If Palantir gives any here the creeps, just fyi, Partiful was founded by several former Palantir employees, including CEO Shreya Murthy and CTO Joy Tao.
Also from their (presumably more binding) privacy policy:
> We don’t sell your personal data as a source of revenue, unlike most apps -- we make money by selling drinks & snacks for your event via our Group Order feature
> We don’t sell your personal data as a source of revenue
A well compensated lawyer could drive a truck through that statement, we'll start with the classic "sharing with our (allegedly) trusted 1000 partners" that you always see on cookie popups.
> We don’t sell your personal data as a source of revenue
What a curiously specific phrase. So if they traded your data to Palantir in exchange for hosting or services, this would still be allowed. The fact that they have another revenue stream says nothing about your data privacy. Or if Thiel has a backdoor to snoop on Silicon Valley's most intimate social networking data.
If the ex-Palantir CEO (who has subsequently left Partiful) gets Palantir stock, and that stock goes up in valuation, and that CEO sells the Palantir stock (which has gone up due to Partiful giving them the social graph and Palantir being able to data mine it) and uses the money from that sale to fund Partiful, is that considered selling user data?
Besides the founders being ex-Palantir (left in 2018), is there much evidence for this? Their platform doesn't feel particularly data hungry to me at all.
Absolutely none! This is all based on FUD. But! Does knowing that an organization that's building out a social graph for as much of the developed world as they can has ties to Palantir, which has ties to governments, leave you with a warm fuzzy "I wanna give them my data!" feeling, or something else?
As far as it not feeling particularly data-mine-y: You give them your name and your phone number. Unless you're doing a lot of extra work to hide it, with data brokers and public data breaches, that's enough to get the rest of your info these days, your address, your job, you bank accounts, your family. You're giving them a list of friends, that's what they're building the site in order to ask for!
If you're findable via http://FastPeopleSearch.com, why would Partiful need to ask you for that information?
> " Parties are a public service, you’re doing people a favor by throwing them..Throwing parties is stressful for most people, but a great kindness to the community, so genuinely pat yourself on the back for doing this."
I sort of agree, but I also think they're intrinsically a lot of fun, and if you're not enjoying yourself and only doing it to provide the service then you probably shouldn't be throwing them.
Also, in my experience the best parties were the ones that, at a certain point, would carry themselves forward from their own momentum. Everyone participates in their own way, so if the music needed changing or there needed to be more alcohol, it would sort of work itself out automatically. Basically, it's less about the host providing everything and more providing the environment for the party to run itself.
For me the main thing is to get people pumped from the first invite.
Like don’t write: ‘hey I am doing this thing for my bday on Friday, wanna come?’
But come up with something like: ´Ok people, I just read in a recent Nasa report that the planets are going to be lined up on Friday evening. Coincidentally, this is the day I am turning X. So, I was thinking it would be the perfect opprtunity for us to show the entire solar system how it is we do it on Earth.’ then some fun lines about how we’ll make Marsians green, and have more love than Venus, and what not. stupid puns like ‘don’t sit on Uranus and come party like you’re the sun’ tend to work nicely.
You get the idea. Be totally over the top in your invites.
I used to really believe this too, but I stumbled across the "Five Geek Social Fallacies" and it really helped me understand why I was so apprehensive to exclude others.
Some people just don't mesh well, and trying to force it will just ruin the entire vibe. You don't have to throw all your volatile or otherwise abrasive friends to the side, but it's important to understand that some friends are better one-on-one as opposed to group gatherings (especially with people who aren't familiar with their quirks). Trying to force it just makes everyone miserable.
Love all of these tips. I've hosted dozens of events since moving to NYC and figured I'd add 5 more:
1. If this is a dinner party (or people are all seated), force people to get up and move in a way that they'll meet new people. Do this when you're about 2/3 of the way through the party. Some will complain - do it anyway.
2. Plan 1 (ideally 2) interludes. It can be a small speech, moving people around, changing locations, having people vote on something, etc. For whatever reason, they make the night more memorable.
3. Do your best to make introductions natural and low-pressure. Saying things like "you two would really get along" can put pressure on people - especially shy ones. Bring up something they have in common and let them chat while you back away.
4. Go easy on folks who cancel last minute. They often don't feel good about doing it and you don't want to add more stress to them or yourself.
5. More music != more fun. Some music is good, but if people can't hear each other, turn it down.
If you're interested reading more about this stuff, read The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker.
#4 has been tough for me - I take it semi-personally, as a sign of disrespect. I get that everyone has things going on. That said committing to an event where the host spends time + money to prepare forand then not going just seems so rude to me.
I try not to give folks a hard time, but after a couple strikes I just won't invite them anymore. It's not worth accomodating people who regularly flake, they can hang out with other flakes.
Don't take it personally; not inviting them after a few times is enough.
I feel like hosting in NYC is even more of a public service given that space is limited and not everyone has a living situation suited for it. Props to you for making it happen. Been doing what I can here as well. Cheers!
>1. If this is a dinner party (or people are all seated), force people to get up and move in a way that they'll meet new people. Do this when you're about 2/3 of the way through the party.
Better, I've found, for compelling people to interact with others they may not know, is to assign seats. This enables separating couples or others with a preexisting connection. The act of eating offers the benefits of a subject to discuss (if needed) and makes it so it's acceptable to periodically look away from the conversation partner. Just note that depending on the size/shape of the dinner table, it may be necessary to think about who people will be seated adjacent to and seated across from.
It used to be custom (in high society, not anywhere I have dimmed) to sit boy girl boy girl, and for ladies to talk to the man in their left during the first course, right during second... to keep a balanced conversation going
I've been at posh events (e.g. silking dinners) where there was a fixed seating plan but then the ladies moved around before dessert.
NB Such things are really not my natural habitat.
1. Maybe it's a cultural thing but it sounds like hell on earth to me. I'd be the one complaining and probably will not show up to the next party ...
That makes two of us. I've never heard of (or thank god, been to) a party where a host is forcing people to move around, especially in an unnatural way. Nothing feels like a forced party more than, well, forcing.
> I've never heard of (or thank god, been to) a party where a host is forcing people to move around, especially in an unnatural way.
You've never been to a party where you had dispersed throughout the location, and then the host gathered you to eat a meal or a cake (possibly singing a song prior to distributing the cake)?
> You've never been to a party where you had dispersed throughout the location, and then the host gathered you to eat a meal or a cake (possibly singing a song prior to distributing the cake)?
This isn't "an unnatural way". I don't know what the point of mischaracterising the previous comments is.
Calling for dinner is one thing. Forcing seating or forcing rearrangement sounds lunatic but I'm happy I can choose friends well enough that nobody ever tried. Most points in the original article sound crazy to me as well though.
I think a lot of stuff is cultural. For me, I detest music at social gatherings. I'm there to chat with people, not to listen to music. Music, for me, can only be neutral at best (and more often it detracts fun), not a value add. My wife, on the other hand, considers an event "like a funeral" if there isn't music playing. Just different cultures. Sadly, it means stuff hosted at my house doesn't ever align with my preferences, because happy wife and all that.
She's right though, when's the last time you've been to a public gathering place that hasn't had background music? It doesn't need to be loud, but without music if there's a natuural lull in the conversation it can just be a little awkward haha
I like to dance, I often invite DJs to my parties. But when no one ones to dance I turn to music down. Can't force them.
But I think it's a personal preference, not culture. Is there a culture where they don't listen to music at all?
> Is there a culture where they don't listen to music at all?
I don't know if there's one that dislikes music but Brazilians definitely like it more than other cultures, music is everywhere here, sometimes a bit too loud
Get up and move is the best thing to do, there was an article on HN with the correct algorithm for this but cant find it.
Having a follow up email with everyones contact helps a ton.
I've also given people a prompt of what the question is to ask to get the convo started when people move around. Let people focus with 2-3 people listening mostly to the story of one person.
Many friendships/teams started from these tips!
I don't understand the idea of the host forcing interactions like this. I think the best party is when the host is just another attendee.
Sure, in an ideal situation people would naturally mingle, but a lot of people are shy or will just stick to people they know, which makes it less valuable as a social event.
I'd push back on aggressively "managing" where people sit and with whom they interact.
I feel like this is really an American culture thing where parties or dinner parties are mostly the responsibility of the host. In movies or TV there’s even a common theme of guests judging the host’s hosting abilities.
In Brazil you throw a party to people you like and they all have a hand in helping you, sharing the load. Everyone will be responsible for some part of it, all of it is organized informally, there are no real formalities to the event. No one cares about making a science out of it.
I’ve never heard of a person complaining about party quality or comparing hosting abilities.
House parties are more common in America, so that may be a big reason. A party in that context isn't just about gathering people, it's bringing people into your own living space to be judged upon.
And of course, many US gatherings are also means to move up the social ladder. Meeting new connections, finding mates, or getting intel on an area. Very capitalistic oriented.
America is a huge place with a lot of different cultures. Even within a big city you’ll find social circles with different ideas of what partying is like. I have friend groups that have completely different ideas of what gatherings are and I adapt depending on the group. There is not a singular American party style.
> In movies or TV there’s even a common theme of guests judging the host’s hosting abilities.
That’s a movie trope. You can find parties and social groups like this if you search around long enough, but most people are decidedly not like this.
Don’t take American movies too seriously as an indicator of American culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil
Right. Which makes it even more absurd that a Brazilian would make a singular classification to the whole lot.
Nah, Brazilian culture is pretty homogenous in that regard. A lot of our culture is dedicated to not looking posh or seeming too rich, more value is placed on being perceived as down to earth (some exceptions notwithstanding).
Parties are communal and informal partly because of income: everyone realizes bankrolling a large party by themselves is pretty expensive so everyone pitches in. Even if you can afford it you don't want your guests to think you're too rich as that's not as cool.
We're only exposed to formal dinner parties and large orchestrated events through fiction. Even the Brazilian fiction that features it carries a more aristocratic view of parties like that, reserved for the ultra rich who want to feel European.
So that single classification is pretty correct.
So I live in Amsterdam and my friends are from about 6 European countries and we do the same as the Brazilian guy.
Imagine being in the playground as a kid. You just are there. And if its fun, its not fun because of you, its fun because of the group which is there. So are parties, they just "are".
All these rules you guys have appear to me like watching a movie about a psychopath lining up pens in the living room.
You are just being judgy.
Dong think of it as rules, think of it as someone explaining etiquette. That is hard to write down without sounding weird.
I bet you are oversimplifying how good parties are created in your own culture. If you tried to write down the actual etiquette it would come out sounding weird to us all.
Humans create odd rituals and expectations about everything social. You only really notice it when polling at other cultures - ie is hard to see in your own culture because you implicitly understand the "rules".
#1 is amazingly insightful:
Well written. Unobvious to many. I'm sure we all recognise when a hostess or host is trying far too hard and failing badly. It is tricky to learn the skill of being a relaxed hostess/host (some people do it naturally, or have learnt from others).I'd also strongly support the notion - the article is very US centric, It feels overly concerned about being a host, providing close to a formal experience and expectations for/from the guests, too.
You're being downvoted probably because hn is too sensitive to you calling me judgy but you have a good point. It's hard to write about this without sounding weird, and I guess if I wanted to write about what makes a good party I'd also sound weird. I guess my point was more about the mindset of how you even think about the thing. For me it just "is", and that's a good part of why it works. I wouldn't want to think everyone at the party is focused on maximizing the fun instead of, you know, just naturally having fun.
Like imagine if during sex you think your partner is just meta-thinking about giving you a good experience - they should just be enjoying and so should you. To me this example makes it more visceral but upon reflection I'm just making a basic "live in the moment" cliche.
It's the same with dating. The American rules about first dates, second dates, the exclusivity talk etc. is just not how it works in Europe. Maybe with online dating it moves towards it, but the regular way is much more informal and low pressure.
Americans tend to think about themselves as informal/loose, but they evolved to be very formal and structural, in reality. Tend to like a lot of formal rules about everything.
If you look at Latin American movies, they themselves are different then American movies and show different culture. They are not the exact copy of their cultures of original, but they certainly show quite different social behavior and values.
It's similar to how they schedule all the free time of their kids too. Or their own free time for that matter. Must spend every minute being productive, every minute counted towards some labeled activity. Everything that isn't classified as one of these things has to be cut out, minimized, made more efficient etc.
> Tend to like a lot of formal rules about everything.
I would amend to: what Americans don't like to accept are what they see as preventable mistakes. The least American sentiment of all is "shit happens". Americans sometimes say that, but they don't mean it. What they really mean: "this shit shouldn't be allowed to happen". Hence the rules, and (in the extreme) the litigiousness.
> what Americans don't like to accept are what they see as preventable mistakes
Most high-achieving societies are this way.
Except for red Solo cups. That's absolutely a real American party thing.
Source: Went to college in the US, also have been to stores in America where these cups are sold.
I think some cultures are definitely more social/cooperative and some less, and Brazil and the US may be on opposite ends. I also think the US may be having a social crisis at the moment.
But my guess is that in Brazil many of the things in this list are things that party host(s) (and their circles) are doing, intuitively and without thinking about it. Or different things with similar effects.
I didn't see anything in the OP about anyone comparing party quality or hosting abilities.
But when you go to a party and it's a great party, often it's because someone put effort into it. The better they are at it, the fewer people might notice. and it might come naturally to them, maybe they never had to make a list like this (a very particular kind of brain, sure). But a succesful party (where people enjoy themselves and it feels good) has people putting energy into making it vibe. Again, perhaps inuitivley and naturally and because it's something everyone learns how to do organically in a society. But I'm gonna guess this is true in Brazil too.
Even potluck parties tend to be better on average when someone or a few people are "in charge". In my experience, even when people are just getting together for dinner out, there are people who step up more to organize.
Are you sure there aren't certain people driving these "informal" parties?
> In Brazil you throw a party to people you like and they all have a hand in helping you, sharing the load. Everyone will be responsible for some part of it, all of it is organized informally, there are no real formalities to the event. No one cares about making a science out of it.
> I’ve never heard of a person complaining about party quality or comparing hosting abilities.
This is all true in my experience as well, and I live in the US. Maybe I don't go to enough parties, though.
there is some nuance
1. Sometimes an "inner circle" will co-host a party but the other attendees are not expected to do anything except show up and have a good time, and maybe bring booze. This is common with roommates and in college.
2. What you're describing verbatim is a potluck. Potlucks in the US are popular among immigrant groups, family friend groups, or parties for clubs or associations. But ultimately they're considered a bit uncool/laidback and don't fit the definition of an American party. They're better described as "get-togethers".
> What you're describing verbatim is a potluck. Potlucks in the US are popular among immigrant groups, family friend groups, or parties for clubs or associations. But ultimately they're considered a bit uncool/laidback and don't fit the definition of an American party. They're better described as "get-togethers".
As a foodie in the Pacific Northwest I disagree with this statement.
Potlucks are a chance for people to show off their skills. Some of the best potlucks I've been to have a competition aspect to them, complete with prizes.
As a host of a potluck I'll handle drinks, entertainment, and renting a venue, but the guest list is around 80% people who I can rely on to cook a damn good dish.
I would not consider this to be a potluck. I've been to many parties in both LATAM and the US. LATAM parties are indeed just like US parties very often but in many cases they are much more "communal" without being a potluck per-se. A potluck is still too formal a name for what I've experienced at least. Someone's uncle will bring a piñata, someone's aunt will cook pozole, a cousin will bring a speaker, and so on. And these types of parties are not "uncool" or even "laidback" they can be wild.
For me in the US, potluck describes the style of food and culinary expectation of guests. The actual gathering could be fun and wild if it’s a fun and wild family potluck or uncool and lame if it’s an elementary school fundraiser potluck.
Til you find out that Lucy added LSD to her chicken casserole, that is!
There's two modes that I know of in American dinner/meal party culture. 1) Host provides main dish, and guests bring miscellaneous supporting items (ideal for a casual party where the menu need not be coordinated carefully, and people spread throughout the house). 2) Host provides everything or almost everything (more formal occasions, typically sitting at one table; guests might bring wine or dessert). The latter is a holdover from peak 1950s culture/expectations. Many of the expectations and protocols have relaxed tremendously. But it's still a thing. And it's a ton of fun to pull off, if you're into it. A well-executed dinner party leaves me with a warm glow that lasts well into the next day.
1 can definitely be split into 1a) host provides main dish and assigns specific dishes to specific guests, and 1b) full-blown potluck with no official dish assignments at all, hopefully no load-bearing grandma has died since the last potluck.
I like that idea as it means yiu are more likely to host a party. It is also less expensive to do so.
The UK has a show dedicated to a competition to see who is the best host of a dinner party. (come dine with me). Its a great show but shows the culture. The poor host has to pay for everything, prep, cook while entertaining the guest and usually put on some show or activity for extra points.
> I like that idea as it means yiu are more likely to host a party. It is also less expensive to do so.
Yeah, you're expected to help in some way. The idea being that a party at someone's house is likely an inconvenience to that person so if you want more of that to happen you should make sure the host feels barely any pain. Even if you don't bring anything to the party you should be helping place the table, carrying furniture, doing dishes...something.
People who don't help at all aren't well perceived and will probably not be invited again.
I think parties in the Netherlands consist mostly of “have house, bring booze” and things get taken from there. At least, when I was in high school/university (we got to buy alcohol from 16 at the time).
High school/University house parties in capitalist America have a "have house, bring money" theme, because drinking age is 21, so the oldest person buys the alcohol for everybody else, and things get taken from there.
> I feel like this is really an American culture thing where parties or dinner parties are mostly the responsibility of the host. In movies or TV there’s even a common theme of guests judging the host’s hosting abilities.
This is really a function of the type of party and of the type of people one is inviting to a party rather than a universal among Americans. I was brought up that you don't come to a party empty-handed. If you're going to a party where you know everybody else was brought up that way, you call ahead to see what will be lacking (mostly so everybody doesn't bring alcohol.)
I've brought chairs to parties; if you haven't ever done that you probably don't know what I'm talking about.
There's also a "dinner party" culture, though, where you're going to cook for a bunch of people. They should bring alcohol, but they don't always because people don't always drink, and their bringing alcohol doesn't get you out of providing alcohol. The expectation is that you have a reciprocal party rather than everyone contribute at this party i.e. you're inviting people who also might have dinner parties. They're bringing a guest or two to yours, you'll also bring a guest or two to theirs.
The second type of party is more conversation-oriented, and sometimes the contribution you're making is how interesting your guest is. I'm still bringing wine or something, though. Can't show up empty-handed.
You've not had instructional videos on how to throw a party[1]? Odd!
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXRkgtnBmzs&pp
sounds way better that way
They are called potlucks or cookouts in the U.S. and they happen all the time.
In fact, they are probably a lot more common than having a huge party (so large that you have to invite people in batches of half a dozen at a time) completely planned and executed by a single person.
This article is good, don’t get me wrong, but this type of event planning is not really representative of how folk in the U.S. get together
Some summers I plan on BBQing every weekend and I throw invites out on Thursday. People typically bring something and we all have a good time.
For the parties as described in the article, I maybe go to one or two a year tops. Before I had a kid I used to host large parties like the kind described (~15 people tops though), now I just attend and contribute.
I live in the US, and the type of party in the article is way more familiar to me than potlucks or cookouts – but that's just me
Yes but it probably has a bigger overlap with the kind of people that would use Google to find an article that says how to throw a good party.
> you throw a party to people you like
How many is that? It's comfortable being with people I like, but I just consider that "hanging out".
The appeal of parties to me is it's a social expectation to mingle with new people I otherwise would never have had the opportunity to speak to.
Could be a handful or a couple dozen, depends on the person really. Birthdays are more packed.
There’s no real expectation in a party here. Usually you’ll call up people you know from different parts of your life. People bring plus ones so someone from work will be chatting to your family member, a high school friend to someone’s plus one, etc.
That’s usually how people strike new relationships after a certain age.
Yeah as a naturalized immigrant, Americans are judgy. Everything will be judged relative to something similar. In Asia a party is a party. Food and drink are usually accounted for and the rest just happens. No one really thinks of “rating” it the next day. The whole thing is low pressure and parties are frequent and plentiful because of it.
> The biggest problem at many parties is an endless escalation of volume. If you know how to fix this, let me know.
Ideally, a guest breaks a cheap glass. The sound is heard across the house. The helpers immediately spring into action, leaving their conversations behind, looking for towels and a dustpan. The people nearby go mute with sympathetic embarrassment. Much ado is made of finding every shard. Meanwhile you are laboring over a replacement drink for the guest, which you graciously present in protest to their apologies. The party resumes at 70% volume.
Also happened with a lamp on one occasion.
This is ingenious. If I ever host a house party, I might consider stocking on some cheap glassware just in case (and figure out which friend I can trust to do the dirty work)...
I have been at a party where (as I later found out) the host had hired an actor to be one of the waiters, and she paid him to trip and fall and spill a tray of food.
It made the night memorable and got everyone talking and working together to help clean up!
Haha, my first thought too; I'm sure you can also just find some spots where someone is bound to bump one over. It might just get suspicious the fourth time around, though then again, that might make the party memorable.
Here I think that’s more likely to result in shouts of
“Weeeeey!”
And
“Sack the juggler!”
Or just do not serve alcohol. When people are sober, they tend to keep their voices in check. But then again is it fun?
Even though I drink some alcohol as well, it think kind of sad that it has such a reverse association with not having fun. I am sure almost all people would have an awesome time regardless. It's very deeply ingrained in our culture and just the default behaviour when meeting in the evening.
22) Turn the AC wayyyyyyy down when the party starts
23) Buy frozen finger food and put into oven in staggered batches. When a batch is ready, immediately transfer to serving tray and walk through party offering people food. Great task to delegate to that one attendee who doesn't know anyone!
24) Polaroids/Disposable cameras are cheap and seem to be universally adored. Get a few and scatter them throughout the party.
25) Sharpies/labels for marking solo cups, drastically cuts down on clutter as the night goes on.
26) If someone brings a bottle of wine or a bottle of liquor as a gift, just crack it open and ask them to share it with other attendees. Same with food. Makes for a good conversation starter.
If you give people glasses instead of solo cups, I find that partygoers will tend to treat your house with a lot more care and respect. We have a set of glasses that have little black stickers on them that are a material that works well with chalk, so people can label them.
Yes, there's a risk of breakage & having to clean up, but overall I think it sets a better tone.
Dixie cup / glassware divide will tell you a lot about the type of party, but not always along the lines you might think.
I'm intrigued. Elaborate?
> Polaroids/Disposable cameras are cheap and seem to be universally adored.
I do this on my parties! Also sometimes people ask me to bring my gear to their parties.
The guests can either keep the photo and take home some memories or gift it to the host.
My more advanced version is that I take photos with my "good" mirrorless camera, transfer the photos to my phone, and then send them to the polaroid (Instax mini) for print. Too much work as a host, but as a gift when I'm a guest I might do it :)
The polaroids is a good idea; some more expensive / corporate parties I've been at had photo booths with random silly accessories as well. I mean it's not for me because I have no whimsy but other people appreciate it.
Not being a USian: what does turning the AC down mean? Set the thermostat to a lower temperature or make it less active (i.e. set it to a higher temperature)?
As someone who's been in a room with many people: I'm confident it means that the temperature should be low, because the room will quickly heat up otherwise.
(This is also the reason I'm hesitant about the oven tip, given that the kitchen is where the true party is.)
Call me bad at parties, but a dedicated app for inviting people to the party is too much fanfare for my taste. If everyone waits around to see if their friends are going, nobody will RSVP because they're all waiting on each other to RSVP. We're all friends here. A good party fosters serendipity.
Granted, I'm the same person who accepts any invitation to any concert, and intentionally doesn't listen to the band ahead of time because the experience of hearing an artist in a live setting for the first time is so fun. I may have a bias towards serendipity.
That the thing I miss the most from Facebook. I mean, it still exists, but back then, almost everybody used Facebook, and for actual two-way communication, not for following "influencers" or trying to be one. And that was the true value, the features are nothing special, but the networking effect was unmatched.
It means you could make your invitation on Facebook and everyone was on it, with maybe a few exceptions that could be dealt with separately.
Serendipity is nice, but if you are the host, you need to at least get an idea of how many people will be there. And while we may all be friends, things can get tricky when you start inviting friends of friends.
I'm glad im not the only one who found that bizarre. I'm not exactly a social butterfly, so i was wondering if im just out of touch with the more sophisticated social scene, but the idea of having an app for a private party just seems nuts to me. Maybe if its a wedding or something.
Then again the entire thing seems predicated on having large (> 10 people) house parties, which, at least in my social circle, is something teenagers do, not adults
> nobody will RSVP because they're all waiting on each other to RSVP
The article discusses this. “Start by inviting your closest friends, get some yesses, then expand from there.”
The trick is that you already discussed the party with a core group. They are basically co-hosting the party with you. You already cleared the idea with them, heck throwing the party might even be their idea. So they won’t be waiting for others to RSVP. And then their yes-es provide the social proof to others that it will be a cool party and they too join saying yes. Thus the party grows like a snowball.
> a dedicated app for inviting people to the party is too much fanfare for my taste
It is not for you. It is for the party organiser so they don’t have to copy paste the same information to everyone (date, location, short description). It also sends reminders to people who want to be reminded.
> A good party fosters serendipity.
Yes. I agree. Serendipity at what happens at the party, who do you meet, what do you folks do or chat about. Not quite sure how a party invite ruins any of that.
> Call me bad at parties, but a dedicated app for inviting people to the party is too much fanfare for my taste.
I agree. We threw a halloween party. We just discussed who we wanted to invite and threw everybody together in a whatsapp groupchat to announce the thing.
Where I'm from it's quite common to use Facebook events, and people can see who else is coming. People who don't use facebook I invite "normally" via message.
The good thing about partiful (the most popular and imo best party app) is that you can set the invite up such that they cant see the guest list unless they RSVP yes
That just sounds like it creates a perverse incentive for people to say yes despite having no intention of coming?
In which case they wouldn't be invited again, right?
> nobody will RSVP because they're all waiting on each other to RSVP
Partiful, specifically, has a setting where you're not allowed to see who's RSVP'd until you've RSVPd, precisely for this reason, I imagine.
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.
I had a halloween party once. It had everything: Substance abuse, debauchery, a proper PA system shaking the floor, good lighting, costumes, good people we knew, random other people we'd never met before, a keg of beer, epic bean dip... everything but the police, somehow.
Anyway, my boss showed up. I don't know if I invited him or if he just decided to be there on his own. He was having a great time with everything, and then he went into the back where some folks were enjoying the not-booze.
It was at this point that I lost track of him.
His jacket was still there. His motorcycle was still parked on the front sidewalk. But he was nowhere to be found, and his phone went straight to voicemail. It was like he'd simply vanished.
"Fuck," I thought to myself. "I've only had this job for a few months."
It turns out that he'd walked home, a couple of miles away. He woke up the next morning sitting at the picnic table in his back yard, shirtless, in the rain.
After that, I always made sure that I invited him to my other parties -- and he always made sure to decline, and tell me that he was never doing anything like that ever again. I consider this to be a win.
Fuck. You lot have lives!
Grass is always greener.
> Substance abuse
See what you did there!
> everything but the police, somehow.
I learned you gotta have a “that guy” around and you get police showing up at some point almost 100%.
Once upon a time, during my time in sales, some of the permanent sale guys would throw parties at their shared place (near a University campus) that attracted lots of people no one knew and got pretty rowdy.
It would be mostly fine, sometimes a pair of cops showed up & left without incident -- until later in the night/morning after this one shady sales guy 20+ years our senior, who could sell sand in the Sahara but failed at life, became “that guy”.
Not usually violent (unless his buddys were trying to stop him running into traffic etc), typically property damage related; he would mix a lot of alcohol with a lot if other substances by late in the party basically becoming the guaranteed way to clear people out. Also pretty sure the holding cells were his second address.
Anyway, when you went into talking about the boss I thought he might be “that guy” but he declined.
If you ever played a game called Party House, which is a deck builder that "teaches" you how to organize parties. It's one of many absolutely fantastic games in the UFO50 collection:
https://ufo50.miraheze.org/wiki/Party_House
It teaches you that if you have too many of "that guys" in the mix, the police will come. The fix is to invite a few hippies and the problem is solved by itself.
Were the parties every the same, or did he bring the wild?
I'd like to write about the party where my friend showed up with no clothes at all (neither on him, nor with him) aside from t set of Playboy Bunny ears on top of his head, but I'm out of time for storytelling right now.
Perhaps another day.
"neither on him, nor with him"
This is definitely jointly directed by Rogen and Tarantino and I will be watching all 3 hours of it.
That's a fine working title, but I really thing it's going to wind up being called "Jacob's Ladder".
Awesome story. Thanks for sharing.
When I worked at LSI Logic in the 2000's, there were a lot of young Europeans (mostly Italian) on the staff. They had rented a house in Palo Alto which was affectionately called "The Pleasure Lounge".
It was just one of those houses that had the awesome party vibe. The only rule was that if you had to puke, you had to go in the back yard and do it in front of the Mother of Mary statue.
The best part was if you made it to 4 am, the Italians would break out the spaghetti, cook a big pot of it and serve it with just olive oil (no tomato sauce). Sitting around the kitchen table wicked hammered eating plain spaghetti is the correct way to end a party.
Even when plain sober, I consider aglio e olio the best spaghetti there is.
At least no https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speibecken ?
Spaghetti without tomato sauce? That's like pissing in the morning without farting. Sure, it'll get the main job done but it's not the same pure pleasure.
Cacio e Pepe, carbonara, spaghetti aglio e olio, spaghetti al vongole, white ragù
There's a whole world out there!
Tomato sauces can be acidic, so not great when drunk. Also tomatoes stain (if it were to come back up) !
Fwiw, you can neutralize tomato sauce with a little bit of baking soda. Start with a pinch, stir, wait thirty seconds, and taste to see if you need more.
Agreed that spaghetti sauce doesn't have to be tomato based. Just olive oil doesn't cut it, though - you need more than that.
My guess is that the pasta mentioned above is spaghetti "aglio olio e peperoncino" (garlic, olive oil, red pepper), so not just olive oil.
Could be the recipe with the highest ratio taste/effort you can find, something that even a drunk student can pull off a 4 in the morning, so they probably just continued their tradition from the university years
It was most likely garlic and olive oil (and salt and pasta water).
Buttered noodles are good, I have no a priori reason that simple oil wouldn't be also.
Butter emulsifies into a sauce just from the residual heat of the spaghetti (and some mechanical action - stirring, pan flip, etc)
Oil needs a bit more help, otherwise it's just grease on noodles. The starchy water the pasta was cooked in can do most of the heavy lifting there, but the addition of garlic helps too.
I eat spaghetti completely plain. Pot to plate, directly.
Why do I immediately think you must be American? Theres plenty of recipes without tomatosauce.
> 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.
I threw a party (illegal, on the beach, with great music) so successful the police just provided security at the parking lot entrance 1km away because they didn’t want > 400 wasted people roaming the affluent neighbourhood if shut down. Oh there were also nudists at the beach when we were ferrying in our gear at sunset who stayed for the whole thing and ended up on the dancefloor in their birthday suits at 2am.
My Finnish gf told me that the police in Finland is so reasonable and human, that often they will stop by just to check in if everyone are safe and well and if anyone needs assistance. She mentioned countless of times she was with her international friends partying, or doing sauna or skinny dipping in the lake, often all the three things in the same night of course, when her friends got nervous when the police stopped by, and she was like "ahh no, don't worry, they just want to check if we are all okay".
Police asked if they are all safe, nodded and wished them a nice party.
Having a lot of partying people at a place, combined with sensible policemen, is the best recipe for not getting busted. Had that at least twice in my life. Once at a house party with a lot of young, just around the driving age, people. Police showed up, and decided to not bust it, because sending people on the road would be more dangerous then letting things just go on. A few years later, I was at an illegal outdoor tekno party, which also got a visit at 8AM by two policemen. They basically just went up to the DJ and sayed: "We will return at 3PM, and you will be gone."
Yep, but it depends. We once organized a party in a soon to be demolished factory building. And exactly that happened, the police decided to let us be because it would've been trouble to have a few hundred ravers in the middle of the city.
The second time we were not that lucky, it was a warehouse, and they came with flashlights and kicked us out.
Once you really get organized, you pay the police off by hiring off-duty cops to be your security and paying them overly well.
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.
I'd say a different era rather than a different reality.
The Dave Barry quote is obviously humor. But back from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, I was genuinely at numerous house parties, basement concerts, and un-permitted raves which where broken up by authorities, including some where the power was cut, (or worse, where the music was cut and lights flipped on full bright) and the cops forced everyone to pile into their cars and drive home, with whatever head full of chemicals they might be taking on the road with them. Poor saucer-eyed kids.
Ah, memories, memories. Where is that brain damage they promised us? I'm still involved in a local music scene somewhat. And yeah, there will always be an underground. And yes, some of the underground gets old and had to get up at 7am to pay the mortgage so some of this may be looking back with rozy glasses. But it just seems to get smaller every year. I don't hear bumping bass from the neighborhoods on Saturday night like I used to.
> I don't hear bumping bass from the neighborhoods on Saturday night like I used to.
You obviously just moved neighborhoods :)
https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-death-of-partying-in-the...
Roughly the same is true for sexual interactions. Was posted on HN a while ago. And I think it makes perfect sense, if you look at Japan they have all that development and are like 10+ years ahead.
> Where is that brain damage they promised us?
How would you know? Sure you would know if you were walking but otherwise braindead, but if you are "5 iq points dumber" (whatever that means) or something like that you wouldn't know since there is no way to know what "might have been"
Still worth it.
I say this a bit tongue in cheek, but a bit of rowdiness once in a while does good to the soul. Sure. You still need to be careful, but a world without these experices feels a bit bland.
There are a lot of ways to have fun that don't risk brain damage. If you can't imagine them that proves your lack.
I do think some people will notice mental decline to a point - I'm nearing 40 and am nowhere near as sharp as I think I once was, for example. But would you be aware if you never had a period in your life where you did feel sharp?
What of that is normal aging?
True, but in that case you aren’t really missing anything either right?
You're equally fine with how you are now or having 20 to 50 less IQ points? Of course you're missing something, probably the most important thing in the world after rich parents is being smart.
> Of course you're missing something, probably the most important thing in the world after rich parents is being smart.
I cry a small tear for that limited world view, if it even was meant seriously or just as sarcasm.
If you aren't born smart or with rich parents, the next best thing is to have a big wide network of diverse sorts of people. Sacrificing a couple IQ points is worth it to get it.
I'm a nobody from nowhere with an unremarkable brain, but I've made it far in life just chumming it up with way smarter and luckier people than me at the Burn or poly parties or other random shit I get up to.
At no point in the thread it was said 20-50 fewer IQ points though, that comes out of your own fabrication.
In your list of important things, you missed sleep.
Taking IQ seriously is the most "low IQ" thing
IQ as a precise, cross-comparable measure? Sure.
As a conceptual shorthand to describe the concept of intelligence? No.
The previous comments were talking of IQ in a quantitative way ("x points less"), so they fit in the first definition.
Even the second definition is not really a thing. Intelligence as a concept doesn't mean much and needs to be defined properly. Using it this way is just another way to divide people superficially.
The previous comment were talking about IQ in a quantitative way.
Even your second definition is not really a thing. Intelligence as a concept doesn't mean much and needs to be defined before comparing. It's just another artificial way to divide people by imaginary values.
Dave Barry is a humor writer. I've followed him for 20 years and this is absolutely his style of writing, perhaps even paraphrased from one of his pieces.
Hats off to OP if this is their original writing, it nails his style.
Dave Barry caused me to write the original Exploding Whale article on Wikipedia. I got the first oddball barnstar, which was made just for me.
I’m now banned.
My introduction to Dave Barry was Slackware Linux and the fortune cookie program, which greeted me with random quotes, often some humorous remark by Dave Barry.
Because of this, I both like him and associate him with my early nerdiness.
It's written comedically but you mostly live a different life.
Generational divide too. I grew up watching stuff like Project X, and then meanwhile it just seems like Gen Z can barely gather together for anything anymore. Let alone a rager.
In the 90s I was stationed at Anacostia Naval Air Station and would drive in to the base every morning through the warehouse district (it's now the stadium the Nationals play in). At 04:30 most of the raves would be letting out and bleary saucer-eyed teenagers would stagger into the streets of Southwest DC to start walking to their suburban homes.
Some comedy, for some this is the view of a party. I know people for whom a night out isn’t a night out unless they struggle to remember anything and the quality is measured by how awful they feel the following day. It’s not for me, but they can enjoy it how they like.
If I want to feel bad, not remember anything but have a good story, I’ll read a book then run face first into a wall.
Both honestly. For the guy who wrote it, it was comedy. But people do live like this. It just doesn't usually end all that well for them.
I’d say is not different to having a hobby. If you spend so much time on any hobby such that you neglect your work or your family then yeah it’ll lead to trouble.
I think that's the deliniation between a hobby and an addiction.
"Kids don't follow" by the Replacements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGxINyXiVgQ
Describes many a Minneapolis party in the early 80s.
It's one of my greatest fears to see the Gonzo going out from the world. Whether or not it's the truth, this post captures a value-system that used to be strongly coded into the world, a domain of part truth part bullshit, but all yes forward excitement that the in the know smart exciting people were in for in abundance, accepting the tongue in cheek along side the sheer raw ambition to outdo the meager reality about us.
Its from an author who mainly wrote newspaper columns in the 90s. It's his style of tongue-in-cheek humor, and it's aged about 3 decades. I won't say "hasn't aged well", but just "aged".
Great assessment of Dave Barry
It has definitely aged, but I'd say it has aged a lot better than, say, Scott Adams' humor.
I think that making people doubt about it like you just did it's intentionally a bit of the comedic value.
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.
[1] https://davebarry.com/misccol/christmas.htm
"Dave Barry: The Greatest (Party) Generation" https://archive.ph/Uyrys
Haha this seems to be a great success of a party then!
https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/bengaluru-news/police-...
Yeah, there's one neat hack about the police.
Turns out a lot of them like a good party too.
I was at a rooftop party in Dublin once, and when the cops showed up to shut it down the band started playing "I fought the law" and one of the cops jumped in behind the drumkit and played along
If it turns out cops won't come, you can always call them yourself to make sure your party is a success.
We threw a few big parties at my apartment in Clemson around 2001. Never had the cops called, but it’s mainly because we let all of our neighbors know in advance and asked them to let us know if there was a problem.
I will never forget the nice 70 year old lady who lived in the apartment above us. She said, “If it gets too loud, I’ll just turn my hearing aid off.”
Are you this guy?
https://youtu.be/7WPZyzeK7IE?si=QUXm5Fg48Wuq-wtr
Can confirm about police lol
Once we had police knock on our door for playing music too loud at 10 PM on a weekend - f'ck Boston NIMBYs
guess you should be adding some elements of this book [0] when it goes on how to throw parties!
[0] Letitia Baldrige's Complete Guide to Executive Manners
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.
Love the sentiment.
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.
> 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.
People are able to be themselves and relax when they feel safe. Safe from judgement, rejection, reprisal, etc. When you're with a group of people you don't know, you don't know how safe they are.
Getting drunk helps people feel uninhibited from all of that. There are a million other ways to feel safer with new people, but drinking happens to be extremely easy and quick.
> People are able to be themselves and relax when they feel safe. Safe from judgement, rejection, reprisal, etc. When you're with a group of people you don't know, you don't know how safe they are.
And how is any of that related to alcohol? My friend can open up to me when we are in a safe environment without the need for first ingesting a drug. It's not the alcohol that causes the safety.
Maybe it's a ritual, that could explain things partially. But maybe a ritual worth abandoning. Just like we did with smoking, and everybody gained (well except the tobacco industry).
I'm sure the boozemakers won't let go without a fight though. But so far they have plenty of help.
> My friend can open up to me when we are in a safe environment without the need for first ingesting a drug. It's not the alcohol that causes the safety.
But that's not a party. I mean, there are people that open up when drunk, but they do it with strangers. But if you are opening up to a friend, a real friend, I would say the norm is to do it without any substance involved. Because the barriers are already not there.
> And how is any of that related to alcohol?
Alcohol relaxes and you often get judged less when you are silly while you are drunk.
Think of it as lubrication, the gears spin fine without it, but it's easier with some grease.
Because people have psychological barriers (naturally or "imposed" via education) that alcohol or other psychotropic substances help tearing down. Not having those barriers is a great help in having a great party.
But obviously not everyone is the same in that regard and also the very definition of "party" and "great party" can change.
Indeed. In my experience, once the alcohol level has crossed a certain threshold, you need to be taking part to think it's great. If you are a non-drinker, for whatever reason (pregnant, medication, morals, ...) what you get to observe beyond that threshold is a huge turnoff and the opposite of a great event.
Well it's a fact that you do get more open and relaxed with alcohol. The barriers go down.
And over the lifetime people almost all the time had alcohol when they where at parties. You start to associate alcohol with fun and parties.
Of course this is generalized and depends on cultures and groups.
That's what I like about them young Gen Z, they drink less alcohol. Sadly they also socialise less.
I once heard a story that Inuits in Greenland did not have access to alcohol so everyone could drink. Instead only half drank, and the other half had water but where allowed to act as if they where drunk. I'm not sure this is real, but I can see it happend.
> You start to associate alcohol with fun and parties.
That's probably it. It's a ritual. A costly one though, in terms of money as well as health. Direct cost (liver, brain cells, ...), as well as indirect (accidents, fights, ...).
> That's what I like about them young Gen Z, they drink less alcohol.
I wouldn't celebrate to soon. Every movement eventually spawns a countermovement. Next gen might be the most booze consuming ever.
> - 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!"
> 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!
> - 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.
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.
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 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.
In my social circles Partiful feels like it's becoming a good replacement for the golden era of Facebook Events. At first you had to invite people manually by sending them a Partiful link, but now they have their own internal invite system where you can invite your "mutuals" (people you've partied with) directly on the platform. It's become the clear standard for house parties in my sphere. Not quite as good as Facebook events used to be though.
Is this truly a thing that now nobody is on Facebook? I thought it was only me!
Oh man this definitely makes me wax nostalgic for that golden era ... it was 2013-2016 for me. I would throw an annual holiday party w/ my roommate in SF every year and I recall being able to just go down the list of my FB friends and click "invite, invite, invite" and everyone I cared about would show up and we all had a wonderful time. Sigh.
Partiful works well?
Very high flake rate like 2/3
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.
indeed. It's a flaky culture where half the people you do invite may not make it last minute. Let alone any friends they'd invite. Turns out hyperindividualism doesn't work well when you want to engage in social gatherings.
There are certain kinds of styles of gatherings that do much better when there are 40-50 people present, rather than 10-20. If you are going for a low pressure hang and want 10-20, it's easy enough to just tell friends and tell them to tell others, you'll hit those numbers easy. If you are trying to do something a bit more memorable and you want to guarantee a higher turnout, you have to invest more effort into ensuring attendance. If you can get 50+ people to "just show up" without putting effort in, that means _someone_ (one of your friends) is putting the effort in, you're in college, or you're just super hot and famous
Low pressure hang of 10-20 people.
Reminds me of an acquaintance who told me he was an introvert; he said after 20 hours of being around people he'd need a couple hours to recharge.
Just depends on the set. 10 people can just be five friends and their partners around one table. 20 people who don’t all know each other feels more than twice the size.
Or you live in a society where people are naturally inclined to go to parties because it’s normal to do so frequently.
This dismissive tone does not encourage pleasant conversation. Mind the website’s guidelines.
If that’s the case then you’re competing with other parties for those 50 so you’re back to it being hard
I am not American. Adults with obligations are harder to get into the same room. When you do it regularly, you have to get better at it.
Sometimes you also need to know who will be there because if half the group flakes out, the logistics fall apart. Not every party is a house party.
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 :)
"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.
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!
> 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.
I made myself a "food and drinks amount" calculator for weekends/week-long party events a few years back and it was eerily accurate once you take in unexpected plus ones, flake rates, hangovers and other computable-at-scale events into the formula!
I've had a few "Cinderella parties" in my house over the last few years - there is dancing, and the party ends at midnight
It works well for us. I have the music timed so that a tolling bell comes over the soundsystem at midnight and I just kick everyone out. The curfew means people will arrive and get up and dance early, and nobody gets too messy
Excellent tips, I've naturally followed most of these, it's crazy to see them reflected here explicitly, they felt "such a natural thing" to do. Given the quality of most of them, I'll try to follow better the couple I don't yet.
> 2) Advertise your start time as a quarter-to the hour. If you start an event at 2:00, people won't arrive till 2:30; if you make it 1:45, people will arrive at 2:00.
Needless to say this is highly culture-dependent. I recently threw a dinner at my place in Tokyo, and I had to add the warning:
- Official dinner time was 7pm.
- Told my Southern European friends at 7pm, expecting them to arrive at 8pm.
- Told my Japanese and American friends at 7:30-8, expecting them to arrive at 8pm.
It went much better than expected, everyone arrived within 8pm~8:10pm (okay, except that one friend who is chronically late, but that's a lost cause).
I recently arrived at an Indian birthday party at 11 am (the scheduled time) and the host immediately responded, oops I forgot to tell you the real time... everyone else will arrive after noon.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
On the flip side, is there such a thing as a good, quiet party? Only if it's very small.
I attended "The Whisper Club" once in NYC, where the music performance was female performers whispering to soft muted horns and piano, and anyone who spoke in a normal or louder tones was asked to leave. Instead of clapping to the music, people snapped their fingers. It was kind of subversively wonderful.
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.
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.
That could be a party killer, though. I understand the neighbors issue, especially if you are throwing the party in a flat, but getting reminded "you are making too much noise" while you are having a great time with that noise, IME will totally kill the party.
Apple watches have them as well.
an apple watch is not a shared, observable thing for everyone to glance at, vs a db meter mounted on a wall somewhere.
Ideally this is something we could solve with data, with letting people see the trend over time, with some call to action moments to quiet the fuck down for a minute, reset the otherwise only up-moving gauge.
Every now and then I'll resort to just turning the volume up so that people give up. No, sorry, conversation is already basically impossible except via shouting, so I'm going to up the volume to prevent conversations for a little bit, interrupt the flow, then go back down.
I'd love some volume meters that have very visible displays. It's in the red! Everyone chill out! Or ideally presenting some view over time. Little tablet screens placed about or above that show some logarithmic time scale of volume, so people can calibrate, see the bad trend line. There need to be enough different volume-over-time systems about so people know where the problem really is coming from too. Most people at the party are just trying to talk, so the real art of debugging this nonsense is finding who is being extra loud, and introducing some observability to let the specific worst offenders fix their specific loudness issues, then the rest of the party can de-escalate too.
At our apartment in the South End in Boston (2023-2024), we had a nice backyard where me and my roommate would host a lot of parties. Some were more successful than others. In particular, one event (dubbed 727 for being on 7-27) was particularly unsuccessful. My good friend and DJ came to visit and we did a B2B backyard sesh. The music was amazing, vibes immaculate but we lacked the crowd. Looking back, our biggest mistakes were:
1. asking people to come at 2 PM on a weekend and saying party will go till 7 PM. There is a limit to expectations, as I have learned
2. not using Partiful or Luma (Apple Invites wasn't a thing back then) so we could never really remind people or confirm people. Plus, many flaked (~40%) or arrived very late (~70%)
3. not making the party interesting enough for 22-24 year olds - many flaked :(
4. not following rules 8 and 9 as mentioned here (whom to or not to invite given a group)
Some tips that worked for us in other parties:
1) Be very generous with drinks, make good ones and buy good beer/wine, avoid temptation to venmo request afterwards (please don't). atithi devo bhava
2) Have something to do. For us it was Dartmouth pong in our backyard lol
3) Have a good vibe
One major pro tip not mentioned: if inviting a girl you want to impress, learn to mix drinks and songs ;) A good shake goes a long way...
People send Venmo requests to people they invite to their own party?!
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!
My family used to host yearly neighborhood dinners people brought food, sang, danced. Those things faded over time, but reading this made me realize: that was the heartbeat of a community. Without those rituals, we quietly turn into islands.
All good advice, but I’d recommend against removing chairs etc. I have family members with mobility issues and the biggest reason they’re upset and feel left out at parties is because everyone is standing and they don’t feel like they’re included because of it. Have seated areas, and have a couple of chairs in locations that let standing people chat with the people who need to sit too. Make it such that people who usually stand will naturally sit and hang out with the sitters as a part of the rotation.
shameless pluck: In my friend circle im the only one throwing real parties. The most annoying thing always was the logistics of keeping track how many people come and what they might bring (cuz usually it's a, bring your favorite food/booze party). group chats are super messy and get taken away by chit chat, so I build a simple, clean product that helps me with all that. it's basically a virtual invitation card with extra features, like comments when people rsvp, image upload for after the party etc. never shared it outside my circles but it's pretty polished. hope this could be of some use for you: https://create.party
Well done. There are some fun features here! Very polished as well.
Found via: https://auren.substack.com/p/top-5-things-to-read-in-novembe...
See also: https://x.com/wangzjeff/status/1983914310738047291
And also Nick Gray's 2 hour cocktail party book
My personal thoughts on events:
(These don't really apply to parties, but they do apply to non-party events)
1. Do intro circles: If it's a 5-25 person event with a handful of people that don't know each other, do an intro circle about 15-20 mins after the start time. Turns it from something where people show up and might meet 1-3 random people that they happen to walk up to, vs something where everyone gets 1 point of contact with anyone else. Works well up to about 25 people, haven't tested it beyond that. Go round say name, and then pick a few questions depending on the audience (eg could be something you'd like help with, something you're reading about, etc). For non-parties (eg meetups, work mixers, things that don't have alcohol or aren't late), the easiest way to improve any event is for the host to do a brief intro circle.
2. The best events to host are the ones you wish you could attend but that don't exist
3. Minimize uncertainty for attendees: Clear parking info/photos and a photo of the space is always helpful too.
4. Host more events: Very positive sum. Even can be simple discussion groups. Anything that you enjoy doing where it'd be more fun with a few other people. Playing video games together, reading papers together, discussing how you're using AI coding tools, whatever. Workshops, mixers, talks, parties, peer groups, etc. If you enjoy reading about it on HN or twitter, you'd probably also enjoy discussing it with people directly. The world is undersupplied for events.
>1. Do intro circles
So, turn your party into hell on earth?
I think a middle ground is possible. Have people not talk about themselves, but rather how they'd react in some bizzare hypothetical situation (for example), and have a few limited options for them to pick and justify. Kinda like cards against humanity in some ways. Ofc ask people first in private what kind of questions etc they're comfortable with and what they'd like to talk about.
Almost everyone has something interesting to say or contribute, the hosts' ideal job is to bring that out.
> 1. Do intro circles:
I'm an extrovert, and my assumption has always been, maybe introverts appreciate this kind of thing because otherwise they won't meet anyone?
But, I've never, in my life, met someone that enjoys this kind of thing, other than the person subjecting everyone to it. So, unless I'm way off base here, why has nobody learned that everyone hates these and that they're useless?
I like them depending on contexts.
At a party they'd probably feel weird, but in any sort of meeting/get together/tour where time allows, I find them useful.
As an introvert, I always assumed it was something the extroverts enjoyed (while being pure torture for the rest of us).
Maybe it's because I'm French and the author is American (I guess?), but this post made me anxious.
Putting so many rules and so much science on something that should be fun and spontaneous feels so wrong to me.
Maybe a cultural thing. But I would never go to a party hosted by someone who thinks in statistical terms and uses a dedicated app to invite guests.
I admit there are a few interesting tips though. Especially the one about splitting food and drinks across the room.
Maybe it's because I'm British, but this post made me scratch my head: no mention of drugs?
Americans tend to have larger, more casual social circles, probably. Having hosted parties in both the U.S. and Europe, the "flake rate" in Europe is much smaller, but the parties are also smaller, less frequent, and planned further ahead of time.
"Europe"? I can assure you, the party cultures in Spain, Scandinavia, France and Greece are all pairwise so dramatically different that the U.S. are not the counterpole, but just another flavor in the sea of possibilities. The same applies to different cultures within these countries. Across areas, ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, political leanings, hobby groups.
It's astonishing to me how many comments around here are lumping everything together under specific nationalities.
I’m always amused by this. The US has a hugely diverse set of attitudes to things and yet a surprising number of people there then look at a more populated combination of more than 25 countries with varied languages and histories who have fought many wars over history against each other have some singular approach to parties or cycling or anything else.
These are just some guidelines. Adjust to your local customs.
Statistical stuff is just what’s more natural to the author of something we’d all do, you wouldn’t assume everybody you invited would come would you? You’d think about how many people would probably come, and that is often based on other things you’d know. Inviting lots of parents to an adults only thing will result in fewer coming if they all need to sort childcare for example.
> and uses a dedicated app to invite guests.
At a larger scale you need to track somehow, unless it’s all in your head or it just doesn’t matter. Even for small friends gatherings we’ll often use WhatsApp polls or whatever for sorting dates out. If you’re inviting people you’re less close to or know more tangentially you’re probably not phoning each one, and the idea of seeing a guest list for deciding if you want to go can be nice. Not for everyone I guess but I don’t see it’s an issue.
It depends on the kind of party and scale really. Other here are talking about getting absolutely trashed and ending up with people in jail. That’s not the only kind of party and just doesn’t appeal to me at the moment. If I wake up shitfaced at 5am I’m going to be a terrible dad, and that’s not who I want to be.
At times I’d have been able to invite a few people and have them invite a few people with little notice or planning and maybe I can again some day but I have young kids and so do most of the people I’d want to invite, so it just takes more organising.
For real, just invite peers and go from there. If its not a 30 people+ party you can spontaneously order pizza pretty easily... Too much planning ruins parties for me.
> uses a dedicated app to invite guests
What the f... just no.
If you need to use an app to manage your parties, it's a networking event. Which isn't unheard of in higher layers of society I suppose.
Huh, are all social gatherings not networking events by definition?
Where I'm from it's quite normal to create a facebook event.
You can network without an app or a permanent digital record.
We threw epic parties for ~80 to 100 people every month for five years back in the student days, in a massive cheap rental house scheduled (along with a 120 others) for demolition for road widening for a major North-South throughway.
It was high on a hill (now a cutting), colonial gilded age "beach house" with a view to the ocean ... and I suspect a great many of the people that passed through can happily live without a record of their debauchery now some decades have passed.
Networking-wise, it was a trove, numerous marriages and business partnerships launched, a few dashed on the rocks, still remembered fondly as a point of reference by a crowd now scattered across the globe.
(This is going to upset some people.)
A successful escort who is into statistical data analysis and market research talks about the details of organizing an orgy.[1]
Aella's thing is to ask questions that lead to "what do women really want", and go from there to design events. She has about 800,000 raw survey responses, so there's enough data to look for patterns. The answers will upset some people. The conventional wisdom appears to be way out from where the data leads.
[1] https://aella.substack.com/p/a-girls-guide-to-a-data-driven-...
I think this talk was interesting. You may be getting downvoted since people don’t want to watch the whole video to get the “answer” you alluded to, so I’ll summarize briefly:
Aella notes that orgies have recently been very focused on maximizing consent and safety, and as a result people have very little actual sex at the parties and are dissatisfied. She notes that the kind of women who attend orgies are disproportionately into submissive power dynamics and somewhat rough sex, so she tried creating a type of orgy where blanket consent is given up-front, men outnumber women, and everyone is vetted for attractiveness (and presumably other traits, which she does not specify). This apparently leads to parties where the men aggressively initiate sex with many women, and everyone is very satisfied with the outcome. The parties have strict rules, such as absolutely and immediately respecting the safe word.
“ This post is for paid subscribers “
I think the intent is you watch the 20 minute conference talk at the top, not read the paywalled post.
Right. You can watch the video, which is better than most YouTube videos, for free.
I don’t like #2 because I hate the game of tricking people to be on time and then people start compensating further and eventually I’m trying to host a Cosmic Comet Party and you’re showing up after the punch has been distributed.
I just like being honest and stripping away the layers of manipulation. “Starts at 2:00. Please be on time. If you don’t want to be the first, show up at 2:10. If you want to come early, we’d love a bit of help with last minute preparation but we won’t be in hosting mode just yet!”
Do I overthink things? Absolutely. Do people comment about how much they love how I strip all the uncertainty and mind games from it all? Yes.
> Starts at 2:00. Please be on time.
This will not work with south american guests. It's a cultural thing, being a little late (but not too late) is cool; being on time seems desperate or too strict.
I would say personally I don't care if people show up late, but I'm also not going to play scheduling mind games to try to trick them into being there on time. The event starts at whatever time the invitation says. If someone shows up late, I have no sympathy if they are upset that they missed the beginning. But I'm not going to be mad they didn't show up right on time, either. It's ultimately their problem, not mine.
Sounds like the perfect filter then. I'd rather have people showing up to my party that are interested in having a good time moreso than how "cool" they appear.
"Be there at 2:00 or the good food will be gone."
"Once an event crosses a threshold (maybe 70%?) of male-or-female dominance, most people of the other gender are likely to decline"
Most guys I know would be eager to go to a party that had more women.
What do you do if you only have like two friend (who don't know each other) these days, and you want to get them to invite their friends... I'm planning a thing for the 8th and super worried it's going to be like 4 of us and we're going to hate it.
You've gotta change it from "you're throwing a party" to "we're throwing party".
Or just ask them to invite some people man, don't stress.
Yea I have. Still waiting to hear confirmation that anyone they know is coming... but that still only puts us at like 6 people :/
You’ve either gotta pivot the event from a party (where attendance is considered optional) to a specific gathering/dinner event or something, where people will feel like attendance is more expected. Or, have a frank conversation with your guests about your worries and expectations and see what comes with it.
One time I swiped a shitload of girls on Tinder and just invited a bunch of them to a party I was throwing where I had the same issue. I told them what I was doing and said bring whoever.
In 15 years of throwing banger parties it was by far and away the most absurdly over the top, yet somehow also the most wholesome, party I've ever thrown. Actually I'm not sure why I haven't done it again now that I think about it. And the ratio of girls to boys + enbies was like, 5:1, absolutely ridiculous.
Anyway you could try it?
Another time I threw a party on Meetup.com and had a bunch of old people show up, who ended up getting turnt the fuck up. I made a lot of good software industries connections that night and it was early in my career so that was very useful as well.
Go make some friends.
I invite people to events almost every time I go out and talk to people.
If you're hosting a party in a place where there's lots of shy or quiet people, you should recruit some people who are skilled at getting others to open up, and keep them in active rotation. Call them firestarters: tasked with making sure that none of the fires go out while making sure that the party doesn't burn down.
Tip for #21 (increasing noise)
1. Use multiple speakers in different locations. Single speakers tend to be turned louder, people then talk louder...
2. Breaks for toasts / games. If everyone has to listen, the talking noise level resets a bit.
3. No Alcohol. Yeah, this is a game changer. Some people even won't come if they know there is no alcohol and some will go early. The other ones have a better sense for noise.
> Once an event crosses a threshold (maybe 70%?) of male-or-female dominance, most people of the other gender are likely to decline (or just not-come to your next party) as a result.
This is not true for men.
It really is.
Men actually don't feel comfortable when they are at majority women party. They start to feel insecure.
I suspect what OP meant is that if the party is majority men, then they are still happy to hang out.
I don't know. Probably depends on your demographic. I already have a partner, so if I feel like I won't connect with the crowd I'm probably gonna decline.
> try to encourage standing for those who can e.g. by having high-top tables, or taking away chairs from around tables
Why do people feel it's their role to take away choice if someone wants (or need) to sit down?
I don't buy the attempt at inclusive language either because it's nobody's business to determine "for those who can".
Have chairs available for those who need them rather then forcing them make themselves known by asking the host for a chair or trying to drag one in from another room.
As a bonus you won't have to lug chairs out of the room only to put them back later.
I'm already out after Rule 1 (prioritize your ease of being). If I prioritized my ease of being I wouldn't throw a party in the first place.
Honestly, depending on the party I just don't even go. The loud drunk type of parties that a lot of people are talking about here are absolute misery for me. I just wind up standing off to the side, too shy to strike up a conversation with any of the various strangers around, and eventually just leave. Eventually I stopped going to such parties because I just wind up feeling awful about myself afterwards. On the other hand, I love having dinner parties with friends or family, because then I actually can talk to people and have a nice time. Both of those things are parties, but they are both very different experiences for me.
This is why I've never thrown a party. I don't hate socialising, but I want to go home. I'll often leave without any fanfare when I've had enough. If I throw the party, I can't just go home or, worse, it's in my home, which is the only place I can go.
This list is for little dinner parties held by women.
I could tell a woman write this at 11 "gender balance." No, just no. If you are a man thowring a party the one and only concern you have is throwing every bit of effort at making sure women will show up and not be outnumbered 2:1 or worse by guys. They will all leave and the reputation will forever ruin your chances of having women show up in the future. They talk.
If you are a man throwing a party you have to actively turn away other men. There is no other way. You have to rotate bouncing duty.
Endless volume escalation is known as Lombard Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_effect
At parties it is mainly due to room's echo.
The best and cheapest is open-air, where voices fly into the sky and never return, it would take like a thousand of people before it stops being enough.
Second best are large open windows, missing walls (porch/balcony) or multiple rooms.
Beyond that I don't think there can be a solution without some sort of room soundproofing, which is usually no-go for rented spaces and private houses. The closest one can get is to maximize soft surfaces (rugs, curtains esp. along walls).
Speaking of which, I wish bars, restaurants and other venues were required to place echo reducers on the ceiling, such simple and cheap measure would dramatically improve ability to talk there when they're full.
> Speaking of which, I wish bars, restaurants and other venues were required to place echo reducers on the ceiling, such simple and cheap measure would dramatically improve ability to talk there when they're full.
It's possible they aren't aware, but I have to wonder if it's sometimes intentional. As someone who doesn't drink, I find most bars close to if not entirely intolerable as places to hang out in, not because I mind being around other people drinking, but because they're always so loud. I've always assumed that drinking is what makes this tolerable to people, so now that you bring this up, the idea that this could be a way to sell more alcohol occurs to me. Probably a silly conspiracy theory, but who knows!
Also probably to do with cost. Acoustic panels are pretty expensive. I can imagine selling this to a manager/owner won't be easy since it's not clearly bound to return on investment.
> 1) Prioritize your ease of being over any other consideration: parties are like babies, if you’re stressed while holding them they’ll get stressed too. Every other decision is downstream of your serenity: e.g. it's better to have mediocre pizza from a happy host than fabulous hors d'oeuvres from a frazzled one.
This is great, and applies broadly to parenting.
I fully agree that most people won't be comfortable if they're the "only" man or woman at the party.
How do you suggest evening genders out? Inviting couples is fine by definition; but I only really know single men. It seems odd for me to randomly invite single women I don't really know.
"Prioritize your ease of being over any other consideration: parties are like babies, if you’re stressed while holding them they’ll get stressed too"
Depends. I stopped throwing big parties, after people enjoyed them too much and I too little, especially the cleanup part.
I've (co-)organized parties of varying sizes (N=2..50+) and I would say volume hasn't been the top problem, ever.
- As hosts, the main problems are finding a suitable date to hold the party, chasing attendance confirmations and getting people to dance (esp. once they're over 30).
- As attendees, the main problem besides whether on should go or not (which is often made dependent on who else is going) is figuring out what kind of "party" exactly it is (formal/informal, dance party/potluck, enough food?). The definition of "party" is very broad, even leaving aside cross-cultural norms, ranging from "let's sit around the table and play board games" to "let's outdo Hangover I/II/III [except for the giraffe]".
my rules of throwing a good (house) party:
1. good music with a beat. play records if you can, it's fun.
2. no food. people already ate.
3. hit the liquor store pre-party and get a few cases of booze.
4. if there's something a girl wants to listen to, let her. she'll dance with her friends.
5. be super high energy.
6. whip-its
My first instinct here is that "New York Socialite" != "Hacker News Reader" shall we say almost always.
It was difficult to read through due to the number of people using it as an opportunity to try and come across as experienced and worldly, which just ends up having the opposite effect, especially when you consider the target demographic of this forum.
Over the years I've thrown many parties, from house parties, surprise parties, keggers, to corporate events, concerts and DJ events that are ticketed, underground, invite-only in cities like Hong Kong, Paris, Toronto and Miami and can 100% stand behind every one of these rules. There is an art and a science to hosting good events and this post breaks it down really well.
Surprised no mention of space per person. The sweet spot is not yet fully known to me. But maybe about 8-10 square feet per person. You want that intoxicating social energy, but people need the space to bop from circle to circle
> The biggest problem at many parties is an endless escalation of volume. If you know how to fix this, let me know.
If there’s a band: if you’re the host or the person paying, just ask them politely to turn the volume down every ten minutes or however long it takes for the volume to drift up. And it will drift back up, because very few bands are able to keep their hands off the mixer.
For conversational volume, either go outside or use serious acoustic treatment. The latter may be challenging.
> Most people will only go to a party where they expect to know 3+ others already.
Is that true?
I've been to two weddings where the only person I knew was the bride and I was just like, well I guess I'll make friends there. Had a blast both times.
This is great advice, parties are a lost technology in some parts of society, like the pyramids. We should throw more parties
For a dinner party specifically I like to force everyone to go for a walk before dessert. By that point they’re all hot and drunk, sending them outside for a quick lap cools everybody off, gets them talking, and is good for the digestion. Then you can come home and crack into that bottle of wine someone brought
The tell tale sign you are throwing good parties is when the random name you make up for the party manifests in the real from a guest who did not see the invite.
Step 1: have friends
Yes, was about to say this. Also, once I started having friends, I also entered the period of life when people have wives and children, which means they don't have free time at all.
> Once an event crosses a threshold (maybe 70%?) of male-or-female dominance, most people of the other gender are likely to decline (or just not-come to your next party) as a result.
I’m not sure that this one is true. Once, as a single guy, I got invited to a party that turned out to be 80% women, and I would definitely have gone to that guy’s parties again.
Sounds like the knee-jerk rules of some socialite circle in a top floor Manhatten apartment.
Please let me have some of your cocaine.
I get mild anxiety just from reading this.
The most important party hack in my opinion is to ban alcohol and provide something else
A secret, second, thing.
Condoms? Drugs? Food? Coffee? What other thing do you have in mind
Board games are common in my experience.
Without vodka?
Without.
Fentanyl parties are the best /s
ask people that stayed late to help cleanup a bit. It will only take them 5minutes and will save you hours. Also cleanup everything before you go to sleep. It will save your next day
Here's another one (assuming you can afford it):
If you host 15+ ppl, make sure you get "help". Pay one or two young ppl a day's salary to act as a waiters. This way you _can_ focus on ppl and have some fun instead of you and your SO, close friends or family acting as a waiter all night.
If not, try to make it self-service.
Parties are really just about good vibes and kind people, everything else is just extra sparkle.
A little bit of overthinking in there, no? I mean this is kind of stressing me out that I’ve not been doing this properly.
It feels like the person writing this is constently rating the quality of his/her parties, like she’s being judged. Perhaps it’s a NY thing. The ‘flake rate’ also feels very New York-y
My experience is that some parties will be good others won’t, and you can’t really know why. General mood can’t be steered. It’s ok.
As someone who was throwing the most popular parties in my hometown¹ during my youth probably the number 1 thing is finding the right mixture of people.
Nearly the most boring thing you can do is only inviting people who know each other, ideally it is an explosive mix of different ages, backgrounds, interests, styles to avoid people sticking together in their known constellations.
¹: one if the proudest moments was when some random stranger in an European capital spoke to me on the street and told me: "Hey I know you, I have been to your party!" and I had no idea who they were
The bible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXRkgtnBmzs&pp=ygUubWljcm9zb...
I throw a 200+ persons party every year at halloween, and I concur with every points on this list.
I'll add: if you need money but don't want to ask for it upfront, you will need to have someone to ask for it individually to each person mid party.
Just having a box to collect it somewhere, or a sign with a qr code, doesn't work nearly as well.
It's annoying to do, but if your party is good people react surprisingly well to this.
> if you need money but don't want to ask for it upfront, you will need to have someone to ask for it individually to each person mid party.
If someone invited me to a party and asked for money after I arrived I would in all likelihood never speak with that person ever again.
I'll probably get uninvited from the party for pointing this out, but Partiful is free for users because they are datamining the shit out of us. If Palantir gives any here the creeps, just fyi, Partiful was founded by several former Palantir employees, including CEO Shreya Murthy and CTO Joy Tao.
They have a page that claims they don't sell user data. Not that this makes me trust them.
https://help.partiful.com/hc/en-us/articles/26526557943067-H...
Also from their (presumably more binding) privacy policy:
> We don’t sell your personal data as a source of revenue, unlike most apps -- we make money by selling drinks & snacks for your event via our Group Order feature
> We don’t sell your personal data as a source of revenue
A well compensated lawyer could drive a truck through that statement, we'll start with the classic "sharing with our (allegedly) trusted 1000 partners" that you always see on cookie popups.
> We don’t sell your personal data as a source of revenue
What a curiously specific phrase. So if they traded your data to Palantir in exchange for hosting or services, this would still be allowed. The fact that they have another revenue stream says nothing about your data privacy. Or if Thiel has a backdoor to snoop on Silicon Valley's most intimate social networking data.
If the ex-Palantir CEO (who has subsequently left Partiful) gets Palantir stock, and that stock goes up in valuation, and that CEO sells the Palantir stock (which has gone up due to Partiful giving them the social graph and Palantir being able to data mine it) and uses the money from that sale to fund Partiful, is that considered selling user data?
Besides the founders being ex-Palantir (left in 2018), is there much evidence for this? Their platform doesn't feel particularly data hungry to me at all.
Absolutely none! This is all based on FUD. But! Does knowing that an organization that's building out a social graph for as much of the developed world as they can has ties to Palantir, which has ties to governments, leave you with a warm fuzzy "I wanna give them my data!" feeling, or something else?
As far as it not feeling particularly data-mine-y: You give them your name and your phone number. Unless you're doing a lot of extra work to hide it, with data brokers and public data breaches, that's enough to get the rest of your info these days, your address, your job, you bank accounts, your family. You're giving them a list of friends, that's what they're building the site in order to ask for!
If you're findable via http://FastPeopleSearch.com, why would Partiful need to ask you for that information?
This guy is a genius
> " Parties are a public service, you’re doing people a favor by throwing them..Throwing parties is stressful for most people, but a great kindness to the community, so genuinely pat yourself on the back for doing this."
I sort of agree, but I also think they're intrinsically a lot of fun, and if you're not enjoying yourself and only doing it to provide the service then you probably shouldn't be throwing them.
Also, in my experience the best parties were the ones that, at a certain point, would carry themselves forward from their own momentum. Everyone participates in their own way, so if the music needed changing or there needed to be more alcohol, it would sort of work itself out automatically. Basically, it's less about the host providing everything and more providing the environment for the party to run itself.
For me the main thing is to get people pumped from the first invite.
Like don’t write: ‘hey I am doing this thing for my bday on Friday, wanna come?’
But come up with something like: ´Ok people, I just read in a recent Nasa report that the planets are going to be lined up on Friday evening. Coincidentally, this is the day I am turning X. So, I was thinking it would be the perfect opprtunity for us to show the entire solar system how it is we do it on Earth.’ then some fun lines about how we’ll make Marsians green, and have more love than Venus, and what not. stupid puns like ‘don’t sit on Uranus and come party like you’re the sun’ tend to work nicely.
You get the idea. Be totally over the top in your invites.
> The biggest problem at many parties is an endless escalation of volume. If you know how to fix this, let me know
As an engineer, I have to say, the answer is obvious: simply install a siren that goes off when average volume over a period of time is too high.
I have a few to add
You need games. Smalltalking gets old quick.
You need snacks, drinks, music and drugs.
Regulate that lighting. Not too bright.
Exclusion is terrible practice.
I used to really believe this too, but I stumbled across the "Five Geek Social Fallacies" and it really helped me understand why I was so apprehensive to exclude others.
Some people just don't mesh well, and trying to force it will just ruin the entire vibe. You don't have to throw all your volatile or otherwise abrasive friends to the side, but it's important to understand that some friends are better one-on-one as opposed to group gatherings (especially with people who aren't familiar with their quirks). Trying to force it just makes everyone miserable.
[1] https://plausiblydeniable.com/five-geek-social-fallacies/
facts - go listen to the dinner party download!