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Facts about throwing good parties

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Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#281

Post by krisoft »

ryukoposting wrote: post #132

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…

> 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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#282

Post by IanCal »

Einenlum wrote: post #247

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…

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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#283

Post by IanCal »

teiferer wrote: post #271
thenoblesunfish wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#284

Post by IanCal »

symbogra wrote: post #182
semitones wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#285

Post by ei23 »

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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#286

Post by IanCal »

cvoss wrote: post #114

> 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 a…

Here I think that’s more likely to result in shouts of

“Weeeeey!”

And

“Sack the juggler!”

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#287

Post by IanCal »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #11
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…

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.

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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#288

Post by lan321 »

saghm wrote: post #145
hamstergene wrote: post #142

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…

> 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…

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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#289

Post by Mashimo »

teiferer wrote: post #275
dominostars wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

> 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.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#290

Post by zigman1 »

possibleworlds wrote: post #115
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…

> 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…

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.

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