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.
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.
#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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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'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.
> 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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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).
The first party I attended in Denmark started at 6pm. I knew arriving promply was important, then I found about half the guests chatting in the park opposite the host's house at 5.55pm ready for an on-the-dot arrival.
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.
(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.
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.
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 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.
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
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.
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.
[+] [-] kashnote|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] xhrpost|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] NaOH|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] phito|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Kiro|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] BowBun|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] frankdenbow|4 months ago|reply
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!
[+] [-] ubermonkey|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] rsanek|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] dlisboa|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] cvoss|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sbuccini|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] ryukoposting|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] buildsjets|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] baby|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] barbs|4 months ago|reply
My Nan used to always say to me:
"You know what happens to girls that sit down at parties?"
"What Nan?"
"Nothing!"
[+] [-] fragmede|4 months ago|reply
> 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!
[+] [-] teiferer|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] komali2|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] nicbou|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sebastiennight|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] kelseydh|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dyauspitr|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] knuppar|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] jkaptur|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] ramses0|4 months ago|reply
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!
[+] [-] rossdavidh|4 months ago|reply
Only way I know is to have a porch, garage, or other connected-but-not-the-same-space open for people to spill into.
[+] [-] hamdingers|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] bsenftner|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Projectiboga|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] nkrisc|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] adriand|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] fragmede|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] OisinMoran|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] franciscop|4 months ago|reply
> 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).
[+] [-] Symbiote|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Cerium|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] cjbarber|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Animats|4 months ago|reply
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-...
[+] [-] titanomachy|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] johnnyanmac|4 months ago|reply
Yeah I'm pretty upset. I just want to read the data but the "freemium" method is listening to a portion of a 20 minute talk? America in a nutshell.
[+] [-] unknown|4 months ago|reply
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[+] [-] z3ugma|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] niteshpant|4 months ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] Waterluvian|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] samuba|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Multiplayer|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] jama211|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] atbvu|4 months ago|reply