Things You'll Need:
- Small Budget For Party
- Venue
- Some creativity!
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Step 1
As a high end theme party planner / audio visual specialist I'm asked one question alot ... I mean alot.... Like a whole lot! How do I plan a theme party without hiring and spending thousands of dollars... At first I'm usually insulted simply because its like taking money out of my pocket asking me for my secret recipe to the beans formula... But I let back and explain anyways just for the fun of it because who doesn't love a great theme party!
So for my example were going to use a Mardi Gras theme party. Now you can use any theme you like I just use this one because its a very popular event that occurs that everyone knows about and its easy to find the stuff you need for the event!
First thing you need to know is that ALL PARTIES ARE THE SAME! The only differences between this party and that party is the theme, colors, and objects used... All parties have 4 primary resources that are used to be successful 1. Decorations, 2. Food / Drinks 3. Entertainment 4. The Venue... So pretty much think of this as a how to plan a party scenario :) So Lets begin! -
Step 2
Decide that your going to throw a party whether it be for a Birthday, Wedding, Corporate function, or even just to show off... Once you have decided on the fact that you wanted to throw a party, You have to pick a theme! We chose Mardi Gras! Do a little bit of research on the theme for your party. This is as easy as going to google and typing in Mardi Gras or Mardi Gras Theme Party... You'll see over 9,690,000 hits for just Mardi Gras alone... I think you will see that you'll have plenty of information to choose from :)... The first thing I saw when I looked up Mardi Gras was the dates when it starts which is February so generally all Mardi Gras theme parties will be around February much like Christmas Theme Parties are in December but thats not to say that you couldn't do it during December however...
So another exciting tidbit is the color scheme Mardi Gras colors are officially, Purple, Yellow, Green so remember that all themes have colors whether its one color or 10,000! Now that we know our colors, and timing of the party the next question is what makes this or any other theme well a theme?
Every theme has objects or fashion items that make it special because its a celebration for something like Easter, has the Easter Bunny, or Christmas has Santa Clause... Than there are some regular theme parties like a white party where you wear all white, etc... So Mardi Gras has tons and tons of beads, masks, feathers, wild hats... I also see that its a New Orleans celebration so it might help to do some research on how the event started.
So now that You know what exactly your celebrating ;) You have all the information about your event you know that your going to need the following for this or any other event theme in particular
M.) Colors of everything to be Purple, Green, Yellow
A.) Lots and lots of beads... Tons of them the more you got the better!
R.) Decorations, Invitations, Hats, Masks, Boas, Feathers.
D.) Food / Drinks that match the new orleans theme!
I.) Entertainment / Music to match -
Step 3
So now that we see all the stuff we need to get for the party... You have to figure out your budget. So lets ask ourselves How much can you afford to spend on this party? Often times parties tend to be a lot more expensive than you originally thought so expect to save up an extra 10-20% of what you spend on your initial budget! Trust me it will save you a lot of time and frustration down the road! So lets say my budget for this party is no more than $1200.00 with the extra 15% being $180.00... I have to figure out how to stay within or below my budget without going overboard!
An Average party runs around 4 hours in length and will take an entire day to setup and a few hours to strike so with that in mind lets focus on the planning process! Most parties are broken down into several categories when in the planning process the same process can go for weddings, fundraisers, etc with give or take a few things you would need... Right now we will focus on the 4 primary necessities of our party!
A.) Decorations - without decorations you can't have a theme this can be anything from invitation, hats, boas, feathers, table wraps, wall decorations, lighting, etc. I love decorations because they can make the atmosphere of the party so I like the audio visual aspect of it from lighting the room in purple yellow and green to throwing confetti patterns across the wall with a light pattern... It helps set the mood people like to be taken away from they're every day stresses of work and problems its fun to get away into a world that doesn't exist where your inner child can come out and play for about 4 hours... Theres something magical about this number 4! -
Step 4
B.) Food / Drinks - No party is any fun without some matching food or drinks from the place of origin! Plus its important to make sure your guests are well fed and hydrated for the tons of fun your going to have after throwing a smashing party! You can have people bring they're own meals in as an idea make it into a potluck situation, have a catering company design and cater all the food, or you can make it yourself. Food can be anything from small chips and dips, to full blown meals, typically full blown meals are better left to catering companies because you shouldn't have to worry about making award winning dishes you have too much else to plan lol... This is also an option if you have enough room for your guests to sit down and eat the dinner which usually involves a lot more money! In our case we don't have the funds to produce a full blown dinner scenario...
Drinks if this is an adult party Alcohol is a factor to a lot of parties typically people love to drink after hours at night at parties it helps loosen people up takes away all they're worries and makes for a great time but its something that has to be done carefully... Over doing it will cause problems and issues... You can typically find a cheap bartender online like craigs list or hire one through using phonebooks or typing
bartender hire {insert city and state} on google or any other search engine
Most bartenders usually can help you in the process of hiring and finding out what you need for your event! They will pretty much already know what your after if you explain your theme to them. They can help arrange bars, mixing tools, and everything else related to the drinks... Not all parties require alcohol to be fun though! -
Step 5
C.)Entertainment - Your guests need to be entertained which is the ultimate point of a party right? This can be handled in many ways. You as the party planner have the option of choosing to spend more on this section than others or less depending on your needs like for example maybe you need a DJ / host to spin some hot music that will have your guests dancing all night long... Or maybe you just need to buy some Mardi Gras style music for the background because there will be no dancing.
Its pretty much up to you how you want to handle entertainment... 95% of all parties that are successful when other areas fail because of entertainment... A dj is specialized in getting your guests to the dance floor and making them have fun... just a tip... -
Step 6
D.) Venue - You have to have somewhere to throw your party this can be anything from your house, corporate office, banquet hall, convention center, to a full blown air craft hanger. Choosing a venue is one of the most expensive aspects of planning any kind of party no matter what it is and it must be done carefully not to blow your entire budget on!
Typically your house, corporate office if possible is free to use minus the cleanup, banquet halls run anywhere from $100.00 to over $100,000 dollars and up a night as well as convention centers... When trying to find a venue to place your event check your local phone books or go to a venue search site like:
www.uniquevenues.com or
www.eventective.com
You can always go to google and type in Party Venues and it will give you a list of over 17,800,000 websites to find venues for your party or event!
Another rule of thumb to remember is that not all convention centers, banquet halls allow you to bring in outside food, drinks, especially when they do it themselves how else are they supposed to make money make sense ;)
When hiring a venue always ask about they bringing in outside vendors, explain to them every little detail of your party they might be able to help you out... Also tell them if you want catering or a cake they might have those rules in place but might make exceptions if your just honest with them!
Okay so we have our 4 resources that we need to split up our budget of $1,200.00 -
Step 7
Decorations Budget $400.00: I tend to spend a lot of money on decorations because like I said it really makes our Mardi Gras event stand out from ordinary to extraordinary! I will probably spend about $400.00 on decorations and invitations! When I was in high-school we used this company called StumpsSpirit.com to buy our decorations from I would usually buy some stuff from them. I found a great collection of Mardi Gras stuff they put out on they're site:
http://www.stumpsspirit.com/catalog.cfm?cat=12356
I would buy props, beads, feathers, masks, boas, wall decorations, whatever I need for my party. They're also great place to find larger props and stuff to cover an entire room in decorations! Another great place to check out is EBAY.com for stuff online. I was able to buy in bulk over 576 strands of beads for just 45.00 and it came with free shipping... Another place to look at is your local party store depending on what state you live in there is usually a few like PartyCity... The best thing to do is always look on ebay for your stuff to be cheaper If you have time or go to stumps!
We custom printed our invitations from our laser printer in the office because we didn't need anything hi-tech or flashy but nice invites can be found anywhere at stumps, your local party store, or even custom made off a website like ebay or a website like
http://www.mygatsby.com/
Total Budget: $400.00 -
Step 8
Food / Drinks Budget $350.00: Drinks are very important in an adult situation it usually helps us be more calm and have more fun when were usually scared to dance plus it makes us alot more entertaining after you had a few drinks in your system... My suggestion is to go on CraigsList.com and search for a bartender in your area do your homework and find the best one but at a price you can afford I found one for just $80.00 for the entire night and she brought her own tools, she designed my menu and even referred us to a rental company to get a bar for just $35.00.
We spent about 175.00 on alcohol, drinks, and accessories. Some of our themed drinks for mardi gras were Keg Beer 85.00 for a 15 1/2 gallons, the Bacardi Hurricane, Mardi Gras Flasher, New Orleans Hand Grenade, Pearl Necklace, etc... We didn't need to spend a lot on food because it was more of a drinking party than an eating dinner party we spent the remaining $60.00 on chips, dips, small finger foods... You don't always have to spend your entire amount you planned for you can always save it and allocate it elsewhere... Typically when your throwing a party if you visit your local Liquor company and explain to them what you need you can get a good discount on your supplies and drinks! They also can supply you with a list of places to purchase a keg from or you can search online for yourself! Generally a keg will need to stay cold from the time it is filled or it will "skunk". The cure for that is to either rent a Kegarator or get a bucket of ice and put the keg in and fill the sides with ice. You cannot use DRY ICE... Dry ice will make the keg produce a very loud screaming sound because of the ice touching metal!
Total Budget: $350.00 -
Step 9
Entertainment Budget $300.00: We chose to have more fun with our entertainment and spent about $300.00... We went on craigslist and found a dj who brought out some dj club intelligent lighting, speakers, and pumped up the volume with our theme of choice and top 40 music and had our guests dancing all night long. He had a huge music selection of over 30,000 songs to choose from so if one of my guests wanted to hear a song it was no problem at all! He also gave our prizes and threw out the beads he helps host the party if your too shy or busy to do so! Our dj only cost us $200.00 but can vary anywhere from 80.00 or over $1,600 its very important to do your research on who to hire...
Another place you can visit is a party directory like gigmasters.com, or partydirectory.com there youll find a lot more than just dj's if you want to spend more on your party like for fire breathers, or contortionists, comedians, jugglers, stilt walkers, etc whatever you need you can find on these kind of sites. They're great when you want to add more than just a dj to your event or need to find a dj! All you do is sign in and post what you need and all of they're vendors will bid for your party you'll see they're pictures, hear they're music, or read they're previous clients testimonials choose whichever one works best for you whether it be cheaper or more experience!
I used the remaining budget plus went over a hundred or so on a mardi gras couple models that was very well built and sexy looking to walk around with no shirt on and bikini to model and talk to guests! We spent $250.00 on them going over our budget a little bit...
Total Budget: $450.00 -
Step 10
Venue Budget $150.00: We threw our corporate party in our office space to save on venue costs and for our budget! We didn't actually pay for the venue at all just opened our doors lol... What we did do though was hire local police enforcements to help make sure everyone was safe and nothing bad happened as alcohol was involved in the party which is usually a good idea... They will usually do 1 cop for every 40 people at a party but might be different with each region we hired our cop for 30.00 dollars an hour...
The way you hire a local law enforcement officer is to go down to the police station where your venue is being held at and tell them about your party and discuss with them what type of enforcement is right for your party they will be more than happy to assist you :)... for 4 hours we spent $120.00 for one law enforcement officer for our mardi gras theme party...
Total Budget: $120.00 -
Step 11
So our Grand Total that we spent on our Party Was: $1,320.00 with our extra money that was spent was only $120.00
So now that you know how much to spend lets get down to preparations!
3.) Preparation for your event! Its usually best to work with several people on making this event happen but can be pulled together by just one person this is usually called the party planner, event coordinator! If your running your event and plan to enjoy it intend on hiring or using a coordinator they're sole job is to make sure that everything is setup, running smoothly, and struck at the end of the-night for the entire run of the event from beginning to end! They're job is to please you the producer of the event! Coordinators make things so so much easier because they tend to notice things you don't because your scrambling around getting ready... They're not required but are greatly appreciated when you have one!
To prepare for a party you have to invite your guests either by mouth, myspace, facebook, printed invite, or something creative usually a phone call, or an invite works but I have sent out invites via myspace.com its cheap and effective plus you can build graphics to send out invites online for FREE! So the general guidelines for sending out invites to your Mardi Gras Party or any party in general is about a month to two months before the actual party this gives your guests time to prepare and post it on they're calendar and it doesn't interrupt they're daily work life or make the misses mad when its sprung up out of no where plus youll get more guests at your event this way! Its always important to R.S.V.P with your guests so you know whos coming and how much stuff to get because if you run out of something in the middle of your Mardi Gras Event it will fall apart quick and people will be disappointed! -
Step 12
So with that note on average about 65-80% of people will attend your event so assuming that you invited 90 people and that 70% will come you have about ... 63 people attend... Always make sure if your inviting people whether or not they're bringing a date or not that will always increase your number count! typically 75% of your guests have a wife or friend they will bring with them because nobody likes to party alone!
With your venue locked in place, invitations sent out (MUST BE IN THAT ORDER!!!!) take your funds and purchase your supplies and hire your entertainment / food etc crew needed to make your mardi gras event go right ... Its hard to tell your crew where the party will be if the venue hasn't been locked in place!
Make a list of all the stuff you have spent money on, crew hired, and create a flow schedule that will breakdown a list of events as they happen as well as a contact list for you and your coordinator to hold on to incase you or that coordinator needs to call someone incase god forbids something goes wrong or someone is late also pass this out to your crew so they have it....
Its best to have a pre-meeting or run through with your crew prior the event or a day or week before the event so everyone is on the same page and everyone knows whos who and what to do where to be and how to do it... imagine a wedding where everyone just shows up no rehearsal and everyone is just standing somewhere not knowing where to be at... seems stupid but trust me itll keep you from looking stupid :) -
Step 13
Day of event arrive several hours early plan to spend more time setting up than actually running the event typical parties last 4 hours... Plan to spend about 6-8 hours putting stuff together making everything perfect sometimes when we do parties it takes us over 15 hours to setup... Seems daunting but will keep you from scrambling last minute as your guests walk through the doors... Plan to have an hour time after setup between doors opening to go through last minute stuff and relax before your guests arrive...
If over the age of 21 Drink some alcohol and remain calm you did a good job planning / strategizing / implementing / this party so enjoy yourself ... if your working it would be best not to drink more than a a glass of wine or champagne...
When your doors open always greet and welcome your guests with a smile start conversations and point out to your guests where food and drinks are also mention the amazing celebrity dj you have hired for the event and you hope to see that person dancing and having a good time tonight or day... Always remember to stay calm if something goes wrong however people don't see the problem they only see you freaking out if something goes bad just fix it and move on! You planned an entire event don't sweat small things that go wrong throughout the night your bound to have some hiccups! -
Step 14
When the night is over thank all your guests for coming and start striking after they leave not while they're leaving! When all your vendors are done striking don't forget to pay them if you have not paid in full yet and thank them for they're services oh get they're business cards too because after throwing an amazing party your boss or friends and family are going to ask you to do it again I promise you! This time you'll have all the resources to run it faster, better, stronger, cheaper!
Once everything is done and clean make sure its spotless when you leave and everyone is good to go sit down for 20 minutes and just think back to the beginning how daunting it was and have a nice adult beverage and think about how much fun everyone had and how much of an awesome job you did! -
Step 15
Always Remember A Party is only limited to your imagination! the creativity that we all have within us is planted in our dna not in our ability or skill set! So go and plan a party and remember stress and freaking out won't be fun and that having fun can't be done unless your having fun doing what you love!... get it ;)
Comments
ceholmes said
on 8/22/2009 sounds fun!! you have excellent, well thought out ideas! 5* and recom!!