Party Essentials: Time

By Lev Novak

When do you throw a party?

Maybe it’s a birthday party. Maybe it’s a birthday or a campus event or a job promotion. Or, simply put, it’s the weekend and you want to party- in other words, it’s simply time.

You don’t need an occasion to party, but, as you decide to host, you do need something.

You need a time.

1. Know There are Multiple Starts

When does your party start?

If you have only one answer, you’ve already lost.

The party starts at a few different points. It starts when you’ve finished cleaning up and your friends come over to start early. It starts again when the official time hits. And, lastly, it “starts” when the party hits a critical mass where strangers feel comfortable to make friends, and friends don’t feel awkward. That’s when the gravitational party center starts going to turbo and the party becomes the vortex you hope it is.

2. Pick A Time, Any Time

So, how do you pick the times?

You’re going to have to analyze your situation for your environment. Is it a Friday after work? 8:30 might be the proper starting time if you expect people to go home tired, or if you have one in the morning as a mental red line not to cross. Are you in college where you stay up all night? 10:30 might be a better time to start your party, considering that it’ll be more like 11:15 when people actually get there.

There are other questions you have to figure out. Are you planning around an event, like a different party or someone’s birthday? Have your neighbors complained? Is this a rager or a small party? All those questions are going to make you mentally adjust your time-frame.

3. As a General Rule, The Party Starts 45 Minutes After You Late

You’re going to worry that nobodies coming. They might or they might not, but you won’t know for sure until almost an hour after you tell people to come.

On Facebook, if you say 10:00, wait till 10:50. If you say 10:30, in my experience, it goes off at 11:17 exactly (three for three on this Boston-specific call.) If you say 11:00, it might start around then or it might not start at all: likely, people will keep your party as their secondary party since it starts so late to them (mentally, around 11:40 or so as an opener.)

No one likes to come early or even on time, and that’s fine. But use that knowledge. If you throw a party at 10:00, don’t start drinking as a pregame at 9:00- you’ll be fatigued and over-drunk and you’ll be waiting for something which is no fun way to be drunk. Instead, start your pregame at 10:00. You’ll be the first one at your own party, and you won’t be too shot for it when it arrives.

4. Stagger Your Times

Get your closest most fun friends to come early- tell them 9:30 for a 10:00 party so they can pregame with you, and when they do show up at 10:15, they’ll still be early. That when when the real guests arrive those guests will already see people there and stay longer, giving a domino effect.

Also, tell anyone you want to impress that the party starts a full hour later than it does. That way they’ll come and see a party in full swing, and you won’t have to make awkward small talk. Also, if the party really falls apart you can just tell them so and you’ll spare yourself the indignity.

Lastly, if you really need quantity of bodies, tell a Freshman the party starts when it does. Think of Freshman like extras in a movie: they don’t do anything, but they help make the scene believable.

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