How to plan a (holiday) party

Holiday season is upon us and many of you might be wondering how you're going to celebrate, particularly when costs are being cut left, right, and center. If you're in the mood for a party but your office has decided not to throw one, or you'd like to plan one but don't want all the effort, think again. myJambi has put together a step-by-step guide on how to throw a great party...for cheap. We haven't perfected the art but we think we do a pretty good job.

Step 1. What do you want to achieve?

Write down your goals. Is this a get together and you just want people to have fun? Are you trying to market a product? If so, how will throwing a party help you? Do you want to find a great place where your friends can dance, or you want some karaoke and mingling? Deciding what you want to achieve will help you to plan the rest of your event.

Step 2. Establish a budget

Attempting to budget is money, particularly for larger parties. It's a good idea to set yourself targets. You should sub-categorize food & drink, entertainment, transport (if applicable) and any other relevant categories or costs you might incur. You're likely to find that things pop up out of nowhere, so if you're concerned about keeping the budget on truck, make sure to project your expenses conservatively.

Step 3. Choose a date

It's hard to plan anything unless you have a date. Think about the kind of event you want vis-a-vis a night of the week. If you're doing a work networking event, you might not want to drag your co-workers out on a Saturday or Sunday night. They probably have better things to do (even if you don't). Likewise, you probably don't want to have a boozefest or a late night gig in the middle of the week or on an uncool night like Monday or Wednesday (Thursday is great, Tuesday is second best). It never hurts to reach out to one or two of the people you would like to invite and get their feedback.

Step 4. Choose a venue

Price and availability will likely be the two main factors in determining your venue (tell me some more and we might send some kind of award). Book early to ensure you get the right choice. If you're serving drinks somewhere other than a bar, make sure that's ok with the owner. You also need to check that you can have enough set-up and clean up time before and after the event. Try and visit at least three venues so you can get some perspective about the costs involved. Once you have settled on one place, why not see if you can move the price in your favor? It's always worth asking. Any money knockedd off can either be saved or re-allocated towards other costs.

Step 5. The details

As you have probably figured out by now, there are many details that need to be arranged for any party, and these will vary widely depending on what type of event you organize. You can hire a planner, like one of those listed on myJambi or do everything yourself. If you can, visit the venue and mentally map out where everything will be. Thank about how much help you'll need before, during, and after the event. Write a list of everything and work backwards from the event date in order to establish deadlines of what needs to be done when. Some elements of planning need longer lead-time than others. The more planning done in advance, the less stressful everything will be on the day of the event. You might decide to order food. We used a great chef named Paul Chisholm. Then there's the music - you can use itunes and make your own list, try Pandora if you have a laptop around, or even try hiring a music expert to make the mixtape for you. Do you need waiters?

Step 6. The guests

Try and get invites out early. One month is a necessary timeline for many busy people. If you can, send out both email and mail invitations. An experienced organizer from the conference industry once told me that the average no-show rate is 10% on the day, so you should invite at least 10% more people than you have capacity for. If you know your guests (and the weather isn't terrible on the day) you can follow that rule, but if you don't know them, expect the "attending" rate to be a lot lower and you should consider inviting up to 30% more people than capacity allows. Follow up as often as is necessary and make sure to set the RSVP date to give you enough time to plan.

Step 7. The day of the event

Try and have a plan of action for set-up, taking into account how much help you have. If you're having anything delivered to the venue, make sure someone is on-site to receive the deliveries. It's good to try and arrive at the venue as soon as you are allowed to in order to check out everything is as agreed. If you have people helping you, make sure you communicate clearly what you need them to achieve so that everyone is used efficiently.

Step 8. The party

Have fun. Assign someone to keep an eye on everything (or do it yourself): are there enough drinks? Plentiful food? etc

Step 9. The cleanup

At the end of the night, when every one has gone home, the last thing you're going to want to do is clean up. If you've rented out a bar or some other venues, you probably can join your guests and slip away. If you're not that lucky, you're going to have to de-trash the venue. You can get assistance from hired help. You can minimize after the party by being strategic throughout the night with bin placement and keeping everything neat and tidy.

Step 10. Follow-up

If your event was in any way business related, it's always great to follow up afterwards. Thank everyone for coming via email.

4 ways to bring costs down:

1. Negotiate everything: the venue, any vendor costs. Do your research, compare costs, then fight for a great price
2. Get sponsors. Don't pay for alcohol/food/music when some companies will provide you with free materials in order to demo their product
3. Create a good budget - look at where your spending ahead of time and make sure your priorities are right
4. Do things ahead of time. The later you leave everything, the more expensive it gets.