I never leave my birthday up to chance. I am on the lookout for any and every excuse to party, so when my birthday time starts to roll around, well, Carpe Natalis. (Seize the birthday? Ha. That might be right. Who knows. Or cares.) Anyway. This year was no exception to that rule. I was turning 25, and I was not about to take it sitting down. If I have to transfer to a new age box, I'm going to throw one hell of a party to ring it all in.
I would hate for this to sound at all selfish. I don't think that because it's my birthday, everyone I know has the duty and obligation to celebrate the fact I was born. For me, I just want to spend my birthday with all the people I love in one room. I don't necessarily want it to be all about me, but about everyone, having a good time and being together. Sometimes people just need an excuse to party, so I use my birthday as that excuse. This year, I cleverly schemed up what sounded like a potentially kick ass party. My past 2 years of birthdays have been exponentially awesome, and I was looking to top myself. I implored the use of the Banquet Room at the restaurant I work at, and proposed them a business deal. I pick a day the room has nothing going on, I book a bunch of bands, advertise the crap out of it, and the restaurant cashes in on my drunk friends on a night where it would have made $0 anyway. They agreed, and since my manager is the man I even got the room for free, and all door proceeds were allowed to go to the bands. I now had a place and an idea, it just all needed to come to fruition.
Thankfully, as mentioned in previous posts, all of our friends are in at least one band, so getting people to play was not difficult. I asked around, and soon I had 4 of the best bands in town all on one line up. But, something was missing. The show was going to be good, but what would make it GREAT? I began to think of that one band that could bring it all together. The one band I truly wanted to see play, but don't often get to. Then, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Many years ago, I had friends in a band called the American Business Machines. They were, in ever aspect of the definition, Punk Rock. They played it, and even more importantly, they lived it. Their past includes starting a full scale riot in a club (where the singer punched a bouncer, was thrown through a window, and from that night on music at that club was banned), they have thrown fried chicken at the audience, thrown their equipment at the audience, they have beaten each other up on stage, and that's just the tip of the iceberg for their career. Their fan base was out of control. These were guys that knew how to party, and I wanted them at mine. They were no longer a band, haven't been for years, but after asking them all in my sweetest voice to play a reunion show at my party, because it was just simply all I wanted for my birthday, and spending weeks egging them on, they agreed to play.
From then on it was easy. Make some awesome fliers, such as:
(Note the use of Life Magazines cut outs from the 1960's. A Stoned Soup Favorite)
Hang them around town. Talk up the show to friends, neighbors, anyone who will listen. Facebook event invites (because who isn't on that contraption now a days?).
In the end, the party was a GIANT success. All the bands played amazingly, the American Business Machines lived up their reputation (the bassist had drank so much cough syrup before the show he could barely stand up, but not ONCE did he actually stop playing because of it), tons of people showed up, nobody broke anything or got drunk enough to be thrown out, the bands got paid, the bar raked it in, and the after party was just big enough to still be a party, but small enough to not attract any unwanted attention. I couldn't have asked for better.
The topic of this blog occurred to me towards the end of the evening. Throughout the night I had many people coming up to me, congratulating me on the success of the event, asking what my secret was to throwing such great parties. As per usual, I just blushed and said something about being lucky. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it has nothing to do with luck. There are many tactics I've enacted over the years to throw a successful party (birthday or any other occasion), and I am going to share these with you today. So, without further ado:
"Throwing A Party to Remember..Well, For the Most Part."
1. "Be the kind of person people would want to celebrate with and for." This may sound weird, like I'm telling you how to live your life, but in essence this rule is very simple: Just don't be an asshole. If you're the kind of person people like, they will want to celebrate with you.The Stoned Soup Club is a strong advocate of the "treat others how they would like to be treated" way of life. Be a good person, do things to let your friends know how much they mean to you, these are the things that will later ensure that your birthday is happy and fun. Also, be a fun person to party with. Know how to handle your alcohol so that you don't get sloppy and annoying, but have the stamina to drink slowly all night and be awake as long as everyone else, if not longer. This is a finely tuned skill I minored in during college, and if you can pull it off, you'll be a hit.
2. "Think big." Always reach for the stars. Maybe your house only holds a small number of people? Then do it somewhere else! Sure, you could spend a nice quiet evening alone with a handful of your nearest and dearest, but you can do that any day of this week. This is a party! Make it one. Look to friends with bigger houses than you (in this case you MUST show up early to set up, keep an eye out during the evening for potential looters/drunk destroyers, and clean up the next day). Or look to venues you can rent out, so the cleaning and destruction is someone else's problem. Just make sure wherever you're planning has the capacity for a bigger than average get together, with extra room for people you never expected to show up, because people will certainly do that.
3. "Keep it local." Unfortunately, Northampton is a very inward-focused town. No one ever wants to leave, no matter the reason. Leaving town means driving, driving means less drinking, and overall that will not win many people over. So keep your event as local as possible to your largest base of friends, and the people will follow.
4. "Have something 'happening' at your party." It's not like people need an excuse to party, but they'd like one, and maybe it being YOUR birthday isn't quite enough. Give them a real solid reason to show up. Book bands. Organize a beer pong tournament. Play drunken laser tag. Make it a costume party and give it a theme (some personal favorites of mine from college are "Rockstars and Groupies" and "White Trash or Lotsa Cash". People can drink anywhere, at any time, but only at YOUR party will they have en excuse to dress like Zombie John Lennon while taking those tequila shots.
5. "Give people time to get excited." If you want a hype to build up around your festivities, you need to give it time for that to happen. You can't send the Facebook invite out 2 days before and expect people to show up. Start thinking about your strategy a month in advance. Once you've got a solid plan, send out invites and such 3 weeks before. 2 weeks before, you can start casually mentioning it in social situations (but don't be annoying, there is a fine line here). The week of, if the party is on a Saturday for example, start reminding people on Wednesday. The day before, talk the shit out of it. Same goes for the day of.
6. "Prepare for the worst and hope for the best." In the back of my mind, I was completely ready for the Business Machines to not show up and play. Maybe one of them gets arrested, gets lost, passes out, who knows, but all 4 of them not showing up was ALWAYS a possibility in my mind. Which is why I had my friend who was a DJ set his things up. If all the bands show up and play and he only spins for 30 minutes, so be it and we dance for 30 minutes. Should a band not make it, he can spin for an hour, and at least something will be happening. We all want our party to turn out successful. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But at least you're prepared for every outcome.
That's about it. Stick with me, and people will be talking for days afterward about how great YOUR event was. Well, what they can remember of it anyway.
-Nikki
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