Party Entertainment Essentials
If you’re planning a party, you’ll want to include entertainment that will really make a lasting impression on your guests. Providing great entertainment requires knowing your audience.
There’s no “one size fits all” best investment when it comes to determining what kind of entertainment your guests would enjoy. The first step is to really think about who goes to your events, why they’re there, and what they would be delighted by. What have they seen a dozen times already vs what would be truly novel in your particular context? What do you think your guests are hoping to experience when they decide to attend?
A lot of running a good event comes down to being thoughtful and putting yourself in the attendee’s shoes. You can have the most technically proficient team, doing ambitiously high spectacle feats, in a photogenic setting that is memorable and unique, operating on a luxury budget, and still leave guests feeling unhappy if you aren’t considering and looking after their needs and what they actually value. I’ve seen it happen, a lot.
The basic physical needs of most attendees are fairly universal, but the better you know and can think about your specific community, the better you can cater to them. A late night casual dance party on a college campus will probably care somewhat less about comfortable seating than an audience of 35+ year olds attending a fancy dress event; as soon as you suggest to some of your guests that they should wear high heels, you need to care about the number of chairs you have. What will be interesting to an group of cinephile’s doesn’t mean much to foodies. The same can be said with all aspects of how you prioritize and budget for entertainment. It’s more important that you cater to the unique characteristics of your cohort than that you try to please everyone. There is no generic for good.
Prioritize your budget in line with the anticipated priorities and desires of the people you’re inviting. One group might be happiest with the addition of a concert pianist, a very different group would be happiest with a surprise pillow fight arena …and a there’s a particular niche that would be happiest bringing-their-own pillows to combine these experiences at midnight to the tunes of a pianist you know would unbothered by flying feathers and some risk of getting accidentally smacked by a flying cushion while they play Mozart.
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Another example: In San Francisco, when I’m planning an event that will undoubtedly be full of attendees who have been to a lot of high budget tech-company holiday parties resplendent with “ambient aerialists,” who’ve mostly been to Burning Man, done the festival thing and are exposed to a lot of acrobatic talent, if I want to include a circus element it’s more important to book one spectacular and unique acrobatic routine than three more standard-style acts, even if it seems like “less bang for buck” the ROI is better in terms of impressing my particular guests. If I was booking for an audience I expected to have less exposure to circus arts than a room full of artsy-burner Silicon Valley types, I’d be more likely to aim for a higher volume of proficient performers doing less unique feats.
The impact of a performance is very rarely measured in time occupied.
Part of the benefit of using Secret Party, which is a word-of-mouth event system for your invitations, is that it helps you have a much more clear idea of who your attendees are. This in turn makes them easier to cater to than if you’re promoting to a more general audience with fliers or a public Facebook page. To some extent, events self-select for their type of audience, but using a referral system to invite people really helps that alignment process and gives you more artistic freedom to think less about mass appeal and focus on making an event perfect for your specific community.
Catering to people more personally not only means they’re more likely to really enjoy the acts and entertainment they encounter at your event, but they’ll also feel more seen and valued; this kind of attentiveness helps cultivate a sense of belonging. Whether you’re throwing a music festival or a company holiday party, don’t be generic.
And remember, when you have a really special performance planned, be sure you prioritize stage-time for it when you will be at maximum capacity for your event. Putting a finale at the end of your show only works when you expect your entire audience to stay to the end — which is great for theater, but doesn’t work for parties. Unless you have an enforced and very limited arrival window, expect people to trickle in for a few hours after the festivities begin; don’t fire the confetti cannons too early, and don’t save your main event for too late.
