Drumlines...Personalized Gift Bags...Tigers!

August 23, 2016 11:53 AM

Help me throw the best bash ever!

My 30th birthday is in a couple of months and I want to go out of my 20s in style! I don't care so much for making it "all about me", I just really want to throw a great party and show all my friends a good time. My chums are one of the best parts of my life and I wouldn't be where I am without them, so if they're having fun then I'll be happy. To that end, what are some things that make a party really great? Is it a cool venue? A fun theme? Free drinks? Fun games? What was the best party you've even been to and what made it so?


Here are the details, just in case. Specific party ideas also welcome!::
I probably won't have any crazy birthdays after this so I'm willing to spend a bit more, upper limit 1.5-2k. Around 30 - 60 people, and I wouldn't want anyone to pay any expensive covers or anything of the sort. Nothing fussy and stressful. Also nothing illegal. In the past I've mainly just done large group gatherings at a bar.

posted by sprezzy to Grab Bag (6 answers total)

Party ideas:

1. Make a paper keepsake invite - obviously, you can invite people on social media primarily and just use the paper invite for fun/a reminder. I usually just make mine in InDesign/Photoshop, but you could use any software that lets you collage images. Then make color, two-sided copies on light cardstock and you're good to go. Or you could make a collage by hand and copy it, that might look neat. Or you could imitate a favorite book cover, album cover, etc.

2. Themes! The best party I ever gave had a Cold War theme and people were told in no uncertain terms to dress up. Also I made decorations and served various Russian and 1950s-y American snacks. The best party I attended had a "helmet" theme - as in, one should wear some kind of helmet. Most people did and decorated them. Mine was very boring since I just got a random surplus helmet and glued flowers to it. A key aspect to dress-up theme parties is to have some kind of item that people who do not dress up must wear - we rather tastelessly had Stalin mustaches (would not do again; would substitute something more innocuous, maybe Young Pioneer scarves and US flag pins).

Party experience (and I've been part of giving some pretty large sorta-public dance parties) suggests that the most important thing about venue is that it provides a variety of ways to interact. My favorite party space was this warehouse that was big enough for a large dance floor, a corner full of sofas, some seats around the makeshift bar and some random milling around space; also there was a parking lot for standing/smoking/etc. This meant that people could chat in some spaces, hide out by themselves if shy in others, flirt, dance and move around a lot - it was easy to leave one conversation and join another if things got awk, etc.

Even when I give smaller parties at home, I usually rearrange the furniture into conversational groupings so that you don't get the dreaded small party phenomenon of one group that is too large to have everybody participating in the conversation but too small for people to readily form smaller conversational clusters and so everyone sits awkwardly and has one "conversation".

I also usually try to front-load the party with friends I ask to arrive early - that gets around the awkward "I am the first guest, I am a friend of the host but not a close friend and now it's weird" thing.

Basically themes with some element of costume are the best as long as you have a few creative people in your social circle - it should be a flexible idea, so that people can dress up as much or as little as they want, but it creates a ready-made conversational opener and gets people in a party mood. So when people dressed up for our Cold War party, it was pretty random - a couple of people went all out, a couple of people did things like "I have a red balloon! I am 99 Luftballons!!"

I note that our social circle is left wing and tends to be interested in history - I basically picked a theme that people were already familiar with.
posted by Frowner at 12:14 PM on August 23, 2016

Also, do you have a friend with a house? House parties are way funner than bar parties, IMO.
posted by Frowner at 12:15 PM on August 23, 2016

A friend of mine is having a puppy party (a local shelter brings around puppies for an hour or so) for her upcoming birthday and I AM SO EXCITED.

Puppies! Get some puppies!
posted by Sara C. at 1:14 PM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

Fun parties usually have three components:
1. Good food, easy to hold and eat, and plenty of it. Make sure it's also easy to get to and around the table. Doesn't have to be expensive.
2. Good bar/maybe a signature drink? Make sure your beer is cold and also easily accessible. Maybe do a signature drink, doesn't have to be fancy or expensive, but it could be and that would be fun.
3. Comfortable and casual atmosphere. Just make sure the music isn't too loud so people can talk and mingle.

There are other things that work, like live music if your friends play, or some kind of on-going game that people can move in to and out of casually and quickly.

Figure out what you want and how it fits in to these components and you will have a great party.
posted by raisingsand at 4:16 PM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah animals are a good one! A friend's 40th birthday surprise party involved a mobile petting zoo and everyone had the best time ever.
posted by masquesoporfavor at 5:36 PM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

we got married and threw a great, great party. some elements included:
a pinata
8 bands
a huge pig roast
a parade
bubbles
a photo booth but with actual good costumes
we rented out an amazing summer camp, so think swimming and relaxing and old creaky cabins
those huge lanterns that you light up and let into the sky
rollerskating
fireworks
a sundae bar
i could go on.

BASICALLY it was a shock-and-awe of fun stuff. we just kept rolling out different elements of surprise, things were changing up all the time over a generally relaxed atmosphere. people loved it.
posted by andreapandrea at 9:43 PM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]