planning a party | eventjuice

Halloween Party Planning – Make It a Graveyard Smash Part 1: The Theme’s a Scream

Halloween parties are one of the most fun to throw. You get free license to get a little cheesy, a little loud, and have a lot of fun. To make sure your October 31 shindig is a ghoulish good time, here’s some food for thought on choosing and implementing the perfect theme. Take stock Determining the right theme for your party is easy if you take the basic factors into account: party elements, age of guests, and budget. Does your ...

A Crash-Course on How to Lighten Up the Party

Lighting creates atmosphere. Use it to create effect, to illuminate, mask, highlight, create shadows and to set a certain mood or tone. This post is a crash-course in lighting party solutions and a handful of alternative, exciting ideas: LED/Plasma screens: Play favourite clips from a relevant movie in the background to help “set the scene” and get everyone into the theme of the party. Colour alternating lights: Get into the groove with rock ‘n’ roll themed party lights. More economical ...

Would You Like Some Cheese With That Wine?

During my 20s, I discovered with great delight that cocktail guests were far more interested in my ability to build a cheese and charcuterie spread than they were in my cooking skills. This was a joy because I definitely excel at the former over the latter, while the specialty section of the market seemed to baffle my friends. Follow along here to pick up my tricks, and you’ll be spending more time opening wine bottles than slaving over delicate hors ...

Permission To Plan A Party

When you are running and arranging events, your ass is quite liable to be on the line for a number of reasons and not just regarding the success of the event. Such success however, is dependent on the assurance that your event is actually legal. It is not ok just to commander a field or garden area (even if rent is being paid to the proprietor), set up base camp and invite along the public or even host a private ...

Cue Sheets: Tip 2 – Behind the Scene of Event Planning

Running orders are one thing but cue sheets for your entertainment personnel are essential. They don’t need to know what time the bar staff is arriving. A cue sheet provides exactly as it name suggests, a cue. This can be a word, action or particular section of music that acts as a prompt for a sound and/or lighting change and even as stage entrance and exit indicators for performers. This is particularly important for live performances involving dancers, musicians, aerial ...

The Role You Will Regret If You Forget

Pop quiz: What is the job you can assign for your event that will have you breathing sighs of relief (and admiring a little extra shred of intact sanity) that you have probably forgotten? You have someone to make the key tradeoff with the cranky venue attendant, you’ve hired the limo driver, you know exactly whose hands will be on that expensive champagne, and there is a greeter for each VIP guest at the airport, so you could not have ...

Invitations That Guarantee An RSVP

The first impression that guests see of your event isn’t when the doors open to the decorated venue; it’s when they open the invitation months before the party. Depending on the time of year, guests can receive numerous invitations to parties and weddings. Here are some tips to make sure your invitation not only grabs the attention of the viewer, but it will have them sending in the RSVP as quickly as possible. 1. Theme it Your party invitation acts ...

The Party Planner’s Cheat Sheet

We all want to organise awesome parties, but pulling everything together can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t have a process in place. I’ve created a simple checklist that will walk you through the stages of planning a party. This will work for most evening events – in many cases you will need to customise the checklist a bit as some aspects won’t be relevant or possible, and will depend on the size of the party. If there is ...