Best. New Year's. Party. Ever.

December 15, 2007 2:49 PM

I'm planning a New Year's Eve party, and I'm looking for inspiration. Have you attended a great New Year's Eve party in the past? What elements made it so successful?
posted by sotalia to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (17 answers total)

I was fifteen and had never gotten drunk before.
posted by waraw at 2:55 PM on December 15, 2007

Low key. Huge farmhouse, bonfire, hordes of good friends and plenty of space for everyone to do their own thing, good food spaced around the house. Music in the background.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:57 PM on December 15, 2007

I got Ultra Smashed with two friends at a house party, and we sort of all merged in to an entity that became known as The Three Headed Nightmare Beast. We were shambling around the party bellowing and drinking and smoking and kissing everyone and basically making a horrible drunken spectacle of ourselves. The crowd would part like the red sea as we drew near. It was like being the monster in an H.P. Lovecraft story, or the title character in John Carpenter's The Thing. Everyone was pissed at us the next day at the unfairness of our having had ten times as much fun as everyone else, while not suffering the awful hangovers they were. It was one of my few experiences with perfect drunkenness; blitzed out of my mind, the edge of nausea and spinning dimly visible on the horizon, but never reached.

I still cackle at this nearly 20 years later. I'm cackling right now, in fact.
posted by Scoo at 3:10 PM on December 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

Good friends, good food, good booze but not too much of it, fireworks, designated drivers and/or couches on which to crash, omelets at 1 AM, and good music played low enough to allow for conversation.

Oh, and silly hats.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 3:15 PM on December 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

Crashed a party, made out with their girlfriends, a homophobe tried starting a knife fight, the wrong guy got knocked out, we escaped through the window, piled into a van with people that we didn't even come with, then jumped into Lake Michigan. I knew it would never be topped as it was happening.
posted by mike_bling at 4:10 PM on December 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

Jamaica, Queens 1989/90. I don't remember much but apparently at some point a young lady wanted to remove her bra. I'm told I volunteered and advised the entire room 'Don't try this at home, I am a professional.' So, there was a lot of good booze and a lot of friendly people.
posted by jonmc at 4:44 PM on December 15, 2007

Duncans, Jamaica. Thumping reggae rolling down, distantly, from the town, up on the bluff. 1983 becoming 1984, on a private beach, with nary a cloud in the starry, but nearly full mooned sky, the moon setting, paddling around naked in 3 feet of warm seawater, with an alabaster skinned red headed girl, who was as drunk as I was, and just as delighted by the whole thing.
posted by paulsc at 5:01 PM on December 15, 2007

The very best New Year's Eve party I went to, I attended along with a million of my closest friends, on Copacabana Beach, in Rio. Our entertainment was thoughtfully provided for us (free of charge) by one Jorge Ben Jor. At midnight we all drank champagne, watched fireworks and jumped seven waves.
posted by msali at 5:12 PM on December 15, 2007

Reykjavik, a while back.

Dead exhausted after a 28 hour flight. Passed out on the floor of the Rosenberg while midget Vikings throatsang Wittgenstein's Tractatus in Danish.

Banged out 'Welcome to the Working Week' on a battered baby grand someone dragged to the Hallgrimskirkja while trying to simultaneously figure out what order polynomial the curves of the church really are while a lovely faux Irish banshee stomped around me (with her brown paper bag hula skirt on fire {which she fashioned right in front of me [while clad in a plastic bin liner (aren't nested parentheses fun? {whee! [ok stop ( rilly ) ] } ) ] } ) with Catherine wheels and Roman candles aglow above that fantastic Island that the Free Republic de la Luna shall look like when get around to that pesky space elevator business.
posted by sushiwiththejury at 5:23 PM on December 15, 2007

I was candyflipping with my then-girlfriend and we fucked in a spare room at my friend's place. That was a pretty sweet party.
posted by klangklangston at 8:08 PM on December 15, 2007

Same girl, year later: Singing karaoke "House of the Rising Sun" with a colonel from the Thai army in his backyard, while getting shitfaced on smooth Thai whiskey and eating fried plantains.
posted by klangklangston at 8:11 PM on December 15, 2007

my favorite new year's eve was spent in brooklyn, at a bar that featured a slavic party band, of all things. it was so weird and awesome. i have vague memories of kissing the flugelhorn player. or something. then as we left, the line for the bathroom was too long, so i went to a house a block down the road that was having a party and invited myself in to use the toilet. the guests were too stunned to object.

no, actually my favorite new year's was spent with someone i was totally enamored with. it was our second date, and we were at a terrible party at a club that we escaped almost before the clock struck 12, and went back to my apartment for our own private afterparty. the next morning it was pouring down freezing rain, but we braved the weather to have brunch. that was probably the best. difficult to replicate, however.

i like lobstermitten's suggestion: big party, lots of options, lots of guests, lots of places to crash.
posted by thinkingwoman at 9:10 PM on December 15, 2007

The best ones were all small mellow gatherings with good friends. But I have heard of an excellent theme I'd like to try, and that's just having all kinds of stuff around that's about luck, predicting the future, and fortune telling. So put around novena candles, fortunetelling fish, tarot cards, angel cards, fortune cookies, lucky cats, etc - make it possible for people to write and post snarky (or heartfelt) predictions somewhere, have them write postcards to themselves which you'll mail later about something they're predicting for themselves, etc. Take it from there: a Future party.
posted by Miko at 9:33 PM on December 15, 2007 [2 favorites]

A night on bald mountain, and then morning in the hall of my friend, M. King.
posted by oxford blue at 11:48 PM on December 15, 2007

I am an expert at throwing kick ass New Year's parties. This has been the winning recipe for five years now:

Ingredients:
Large room with the furniture moved out
Sound system
Laptop plus all of your friends' ipods loaded with the fonkiest shit they can find
Costume pieces: silly hats, boas, funny sunglasses, etc.
Christmas lights, strobes, glitter balls, fog machine, black lights, whatever is left over from your pal's Halloween party

Mix together with 30 of your closest friends and have them invite whomever they like. Add liberal booze and other party ingestibles. Hide cats and other breakable items.

Sadly, we won't be able to host one this year due to travel but I have to say that my most memorable New Year'ses whether at my party or somewhere else have all involved dancing my ass off and having no idea when the clock struck midnight.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:53 AM on December 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Friend of ours threw a rocking New Year's Eve party. In his house.

Live band. Smoke machine and bubble machine. Silly string at midnight. Balloon drop. Mistletoe left over from Christmas everywhere (which led to a lot of kissing). Costumes. A slide set up in the living room. And lots of alcohol. And an awesome breakfast the next morning.
posted by jeanmari at 7:45 PM on December 16, 2007

Table full of tequila, lime, salt and shot glasses. Live band AND a great DJ (all friends of the host). Keg on the porch. One room (with the band/DJ) for dancing, one for sitting and talking/making out. Awesome people. Also: me = 19.
posted by lunasol at 5:25 AM on December 17, 2007