Setting Up Your Party Space

Something I fuss about a lot as a host I how a room is set up before, and how it is maintained during, an event.

I’ve noticed that creating and maintaining a great room set gets the party going much earlier, with less people and drinking required to make it fun, and also has people stay at the party a lot longer – it can often be the difference between a great party and a flop!

Here are the main things I focus on:

Layout: I make sure that I think about how I set the room up and I look at all the furniture and decorations I have and try to maximise what I do with what I’ve got. A little thought goes a long way.

Lighting Profile: Indirect light and moving light get people feeling comfortable and make the room feel warm. Also making some areas bright so people can see each other really well and other more dim so people feel more comfortable to dance or pair off gives people more social options throughout the night. Finally having things brighter at the start of the party and dimmer at the end as people settle in can allow them to feel comfortable in meeting new people at the start but also have them stay longer and chill towards the end.

Temperature, Shade and Air Flow: People very often forget to think about this. Will people have to stand in the sun, or have the sun in their eyes? Will there be annoying draughts from open doors or air conditioning that will unsettle your guests? Are the key socializing areas going to be at a comfortable temperature? Remember that you want active areas like dance floors cooler than chill out areas.

Sound Profile: What music style and intensity will suit people throughout the night, and will it be louder in some area than others? Where you want people to dance make it upbeat and louder, where you want them to meet each other and connect then quieter and more moody.

With sound, temperature and lighting, consider all the resources at your disposal. A little thought and effort can make a huge difference for your guests. Think about how they will respond to all these factors and make it as comfortable as you can!

Seating Position: This is my pet thing – I am fascinated by how people settle seating in a room, and have been a keen observer and experimenter for years. Ask yourself: will people feel most comfortable sitting in a few large groups of more smaller ones – I usually find multiple settings of 4’s and 6’s work much better tan a few for 10-12. I also notice that seats against walls and in the middle of a room settle last, with settings close to walls but with chairs all around that are in corners of rooms settle first.

Seating Height: Sort your seating and tables into heights and put height appropriate furniture in different areas – high tables and hairs are great around dance floors, bars, entrances and kitchens, dining level seating is great for general meeting and socialising areas and rooms that connect chillout and party areas whilst couches and coffee table work best in you chill areas. If you make each area just one type of furniture its much easier for your guests to decide what areas they want to be in at different times throughout the night.

Shielding: Protect the shy and the party makers and make it as easy for them to feel comfy as you can. A few balloons at head height in a room make it much less intimidating for shy people. A few well placed plants, screens or drop sheets around a dance floor can have party people comfortable to dance far earlier at your event.

Thresholding: Spreading out furniture to make a room full with less people in it means that people will feel like your party is a sucess far earlier in the event. This makes a big difference to how likely people are to leave. The less people who leave, the longer your party is considered to be “happening”.

Getting the layout, mood and seating right and keeping it right throughout an event makes a massive difference to how successful and memorable you gests perceive it to be. Experiment, learn and have fun!

How to invite people you don’t know…

Well, first of all lets look at why anyone would you want to invite someone the don’t know to something in the first place – here are some reasons:

To meet new people and make new connections – if you want to meet new people then inviting someone you don’t know to something is a great skill to have.

To introduce people who are a good match – if you want to connect people to one another then often you will need to extend an invitation to something that will allow them to connect in a useful way.

To create a new community – if you want to be a social leader and get people together around an idea then inviting people who you might not be very familiar with to things that are new for them is often at the heart of what you do!

What makes it awkward?

So many people I work and socialise with find inviting a stranger or new acquaintance an awkward experience and I can see why – connecting with and getting a commitment from someone who you have only just met presents a significant communication challenge. What I have often found lies at the heart of this feeling of awkwardness is that none of us like to be told “No”.

We make “No” mean a lot of things that it probably doesn’t mean at all – that we are annoying, that the person is not nice, that we are not likeable; that what we are inviting them to is no good. Being told “No” can be confronting for many people so I would like to have a quick look at a different idea about what “No” means and then look at what reduces the chance of a “No” as well.

What does no mean?

I don’t know what know means – its such a general word anyway – but here’s a point of view that I like to place on “No” that has been very helpful for me in improving my ability to communicate. I make no mean:

“I am uncomfortable with deepening the connection I have with you, or I need more information.”

Now I’m not saying that this is what “No” means, but I have found that when someone says no and I then think about whether I have a deep enough connection with that person and whether I have given them all the information they need to make a decision it often gives me quite a few clues as to how to change my communication with them in a way that helps us both get more from our conversation.

With that out there as food for thought, lets cut to the chase and look at what works in communication. Here are a few things that work for me:

Transparent values – don’t be nice, don’t sit on the fence, don’t agree – just be yourself – express your opinions politely but with conviction. Then people can see who you are and can begin to relate to you on a deeper level. The more you share of yourself the more people will share with you.

Observing the rules of rapport - This diagram has really helped me think about how I build me relationships. It’s a great guide that helps me think about how I’m communicating with someone and where our relationship is at. Often when I’m struggling to connect with someone its because I’m trying to push the relationship beyond the level of rapport we have developed and I need to take a step back and just get to know the person some more. Other times I’m treating the person like a stranger when really our connection is deeper than that. The diagram gives me clues as to where I’ve gone wrong.

  

Inviting based on an established mutuality – If I’m going to invite someone to something then there needs to be some mutual reason to do so – if there is nothing that is shared between you that indicates an invitation is going to be good for both of you and help you deepen your relationship then don’t invite, get to know them a little better and you can see a clear connection between what they are about and the event you think they might like to come to.

Enthusiasm – is there any substitute for enthusiasm? If you really want someone to say yes, it shows, and it makes a big difference to their response. If you are mad keen for them to say yes, it happens more often.

Lets have a brief look at the big things that can get in the way of someone accepting your invitation?

Pressure – this is enthusiasm’s ugly twin. Tricking or coercing someone will make them say anything to get you to go away. It’s a silent killer as people won’t call you on it, so beware of your actions – if people are saying yes and then not responding to you later when you follow up with them, have a think about whether your enthusiasm is being perceived as pressure.

Lack of context – if there is no context for an invitation, no reason for you to make it from the other person’s point of view, then they have to make one up from what they know of you. This is confusing for them and can also lead to embarrassing misunderstandings.

Artificiality – the bottom line is if you aren’t really all about it, it shows. People can smell artificiality a mile off, so don’t go around stinking up the place!

So why is it worth getting good at inviting people you don’t know?

It’s a great way to become a social leader – world leaders don’t know every person they invite to elect them to office, but they ask them to vote for them anyway.

If you want to create communities that mater to you – whether it’s a sporting team, a business unit or a political party, to anything in between then being able to extend an invitation to someone you don’t know is going to get you there more quickly and more often.

If you want to attract likeminded people to you and create human energy and passion around the things that matter to you then knowing how to put yourself out there so these people can find you is imperative. How else will they know you exist?

How can a Host be Different? Breaking Business Bottlenecks in the Hospitality Industry.

So if you are awesome at something, good for you. 

But what about if 1000 other people are too? 

It’s not a great situation.

On the other hand, if you can be great at something that other people are crappy at and its something that really helps other people, your life is probably going to go pretty well!

Knowing this, I read a book last week that was recommended to me by a mentor. It’s a book called “Different” written by anerdy marketing professor called Youngme Moon.

I’m glad I took the time to read her book because it’s all about the benefits of being different in hyper mature industries, like hospitality!

So here is what I took from her book:

To win when providing a service to the people around you:

  Do the opposite of what everyone else is doing

  In an area that everyone is competing for a limited resource

            That makes a big difference for the people you serve

Her book really made me thing about how people in the nightclub industry all look around to see what the new marketing thing is that’s working and then they all just do the exact same thing and then do it more and more until it becomes ridiculous and the customer gets disillusioned: what used to be quite a cool new offer is now being thrust at them from by so many people as a hard sell.

Even fairy floss tastes pretty nasty when there’s an evil clown with a blow torch stuffing in your face and giggling quietly into the darkness.

In the past 15 years I’ve seen this happen with basically every good events communication approach. Think about mail outs – they were awesome in their day! Then SMS. Then we figured out to call people up and invite them in for drinks on their birthday. Then we added birthday drink cards to the offer. Oh, also, can anyone please sell me a ticket for the next music festival. I can’t seem to find out where to buy one. The “deal” is better than ever, but our client has become beyond disinterested and is sometimes even actively hostile to our “great news”.

Something’s missing. People don’t want more. They want something else. So what does a good host do?

What Youngeme Moon suggests is that we figure out a thoughtful and bold way to do the opposite, in a bottleneck area, that makes a real difference to the people we serve.

But what does that look like?

Well, I’ve been trying my little heart out for 16 years to create parties that people want to go to, that they find fun and memorable, and I’ve tried to invite people to these parties in literally hundreds of ways in that time. And what I can say is that you know it when you get it right because people who were yelling at you to shut up the day before respond immediately when you nail it.

So stop looking at the guy next to you in the shiny new car and get out there and experiment. You will know when you have a winner.

But remember: When you find something that works really well, start immediately to look for the next thing that will make you different: each stroke of party genius will only be different for about 12 months – that guy in the shiny car and everyone else is gonna try to copy what you do in a second!

DJ as Host

Here's a movie discussing how a DJ can be a great host - 

lots of practical ideas in the last 20 minutes - enjoy!

What Jobs can I do if I want to be a Host for a Living?

So many people ask me what jobs are good to do if you are a great host. But just making a list is so boring so what I will do is make a list and then look at what these jobs have in common to understand what makes these jobs, at their core, so similar.

Here is a list – its not exhaustive, just a quick pass to look at the range of roles that a host can excel at:

Door Person

Flight Attendant

Nurse

Speaker

Maitre De

Tour Guide

Celebrant

Concierge

Radio Anchor

Priest

Gigolo 

Master of Ceremonies

What do these roles have in common?

Well, a lot of things, but here are the 3 that really stand out for me.

Making something unfamiliar more comfortable for someone.

This is really a big one in my experience – is all of these roles the client is faced with something unfamiliar and the role of the host is to have the person feel comfortable with something which at first is uncomfortable. The willingness to understand that many things can be made more comfortable by easing people into them and encouraging and guiding them and the ability to lead people into an unfamiliar situation with gentle care is at the heart of being a good host.

Helping people through a specific occasion, rite or ordeal.

Whether it’s a wedding or open heart surgery, hosts help people move through a specific happening that must be passed through to reach a new place. No one likes flying to New York, but that flight must be passed through in order for you to be in the big apple. Hosts move people through a journey that leads to where they want to go, understands that it takes something for the person to get there and does everything they can to make their passage safe and successful. People place great trust in hosts to lead them in this way and hosts who do this well become the gatekeepers to many of societies most important rites of passage.

Creating the environment in which a new connection becomes possible.

Hosts allow people to safely move to a place where a connection is possible that was not possible before. Once a person realises a new connection is important for them the urge to make it becomes very strong but the risk of moving into an unfamiliar environment is quite intimidating for anyone the first time they must make the journey. Hosts make the environment in which this connection can occur more safe and guide people in their journey to keep them on track until they reach their new destination.

I hope this gives you some food for thought about how a good host enhances so many roles, and what qualities a host possesses that makes them so effective.