Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facts about throwing good parties

atvbt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 431 posts

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#121

Post by nlh »

kelseydh wrote: post #47
nicbou wrote: post #15

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 als…

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.

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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#122

Post by cvoss »

dlisboa wrote: post #14

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…

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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#123

Post by jama211 »

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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#124

Post by jama211 »

nixpulvis wrote: post #91
GrifMD wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#125

Post by dyauspitr »

semitones wrote: post #119
dyauspitr wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 ensur…

Or you live in a society where people are naturally inclined to go to parties because it’s normal to do so frequently.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#126

Post by brational »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #71
Aurornis wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

America is a huge place with a lot of different cultures Sorry to be persnickety, but... so is Brazil! 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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#127

Post by 1659447091 »

ssl-3 wrote: post #10
buildsjets wrote: post #7

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…

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,…

> 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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#128

Post by ryanmentor »

nixpulvis wrote: post #91
GrifMD wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :/

Go make some friends.

I invite people to events almost every time I go out and talk to people.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#129

Post by niteshpant »

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...

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#130

Post by petesergeant »

> 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.

Post reply on HN