This year is lost, but...

November 30, 2006 8:52 AM

Help make my company's holiday party not suck next year!

So every year my company has the same themed holiday party: Casino Night. Practically everyone is sick of it (and therefore most are not attending) so I'm trying to come up with ideas for next year's theme.

Note that this is not for activities or parlor games to participate in but for themes (Pirates, Masquerade, etc), but by all means feel free to suggest themes and games to go along with them.

I already have a short list, but seeing as how this needs to be company approved, I'd like a lot of suggestions so they don't end up having to throw out all of my ideas and stick us with another Casino Night. So far I've got: Masquerade Ball, Black-Tie Pirate Dinner, and Murder Mystery. It needs to work on a large scale (think 250+) and be acceptable within a work environment (meaning no body shots or strippers ::pout:: ). Venue location and size is not a problem.

posted by sephira to work & money (11 comments total)

Holiday? Is it a day off or an evening on the weekend, is it connected with a legal holiday or is it an annual company event, what time of the year...
posted by scheptech at 9:07 AM on November 30, 2006

Pirates of the "Your City Here," So You Think You Can Dance with DDR (Dance, Dance Revolution) for extra fun. Castaways, with a Tiki bar motif and great tropical drinks, Disco Inferno, Eurotrash, Celebrity Lookalikes. Instead of Casino Night, if you end up with something similar, try calling it Viva Las Vegas, and get Elvis impersonators. If you do that, I expect an invite.

My office is considering an Office Space theme, but we have no idea how to implement it.
posted by theora55 at 9:08 AM on November 30, 2006

Is cost an issue? Apparently, before I started, my company did a carnival night. They got carnival type games for people to play and you'd win prizes. Or tickets that would turn into raffle entries for prizes. Not sure how much that would cost though.
posted by bDiddy at 9:32 AM on November 30, 2006

Holiday as in "we're doing something around Christmahannukwanzakah time" but not directly related to any of those holidays. It's always in mid-December, it is an annual event, and it's always on a Saturday evening.

I'm not sure about cost, but I'm willing to pretty much throw any idea at them and let them worry about cost restrictions. I want to give them as many ideas as possible so as to avoid another Casino Night.
posted by sephira at 10:22 AM on November 30, 2006

I love the Pirate idea, but I think a Murder Mystery would probably be the most widely enjoyed by everyone. Especially if you tap random employees to participate as suspects.
posted by tastybrains at 10:35 AM on November 30, 2006

So You Think You Can Dance with DDR (Dance, Dance Revolution) for extra fun

Don't do this, unless you know your whole office is actually into that sort of stuff.

I say just ditch the theme. More money for booze.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 11:09 AM on November 30, 2006

Christmahannukwanzakah

Maybe you guys are trying too hard with the 'theme' thing trying to make it non-Christmas and everyone knows it's a lame corporate-think solution so they're totally meh about it.

Why not go all retro edgy crazy use an 'Xmas' theme. You know, the secular, nothing to do with Christ version. Lottsa green and red, big evergreen tree with blinking LEDs all over it, lavish meal, liquor, Santa handing out gifts to everyone, hire a comic or magician with relevant material.
posted by scheptech at 2:20 PM on November 30, 2006

"I say just ditch the theme. More money for booze."

Ah, sometimes it's not that easy, especially when Medusa the HR Directory puts the ixnay on hard alcohol at any company events.

Been there, done that. The holiday party ended up fizzling out and not happening because of all the PC concerns about how to have fun without offending anyone at all.

sephira: y'know, a lot of times, people are just burnt out on theme stuff. Has anyone just considered having a normal catered party without any actual theme?
posted by drstein at 6:09 PM on November 30, 2006

One of the best theme events I ever went to was based on the game Clue. The Decorations were pretty awesome, the room was separated into areas and each area was made to look like one of the rooms (Library, Billiard Room, Conservatory, etc.) and people really got into dressing up for it. It's easy to work with, and you can be as creative as you want in terms of how far to take the theme and how involved your decorations can get.
posted by nerdcore at 9:08 PM on November 30, 2006

Most of the office prefers the non-Christmas event. It's not that they're overly PC, we're just underly Christmassy (if that made any sense).

A theme would actually be a new thing for us - when I say "Casino Night" I don't mean that it feels like you've just walked into a Vegas casino. It really is a "normal catered party without any actual theme". Basically it's "put on something nice, show up, have a drink, teach the temps they hired as dealers how to play blackjack, then play blackjack, have some food, all while listening to cheesy music, and then go home". If you don't gamble and you don't drink, then you're pretty much wasting an evening watching other people drink and frustrate themselves teaching the dealers. Which is why the Murder Mystery idea sounded not too bad, everyone can be involved, nothing terribly special is required, like costumes, props, and scenery, and everyone can still do the usual meet-greet-drink-dance routine.
posted by sephira at 5:50 AM on December 1, 2006

I went to one company holiday party held in a large (and very nice) library. It was very pleasant. This year the party is in the local museum of science and industry. The nice thing about these sorts of events is the venue itself can be intrinsically interesting, even if the party itself is not. It helps if the food catered in is extraordinary, too. The company usually provides live music as well. Some go for the food; some go for the music; some go for the sights (or, if you like, sites).
posted by cairnish at 10:50 AM on December 6, 2006