Everyone loves a good holiday party unless you’re the one hosting it. The last thing you want is to throw a dull office party that no-one wants to attend. That’s why we’re sharing tips and tricks on how to organize a holiday party that’ll be the highlight of the year.
You can keep it traditional and intimate or organize an elaborate ‘do for the ages. It all depends on the event’s theme, style, and budget. The following ideas are super realistic and easy to execute. Read on for more.
How to plan a successful holiday party
Event planning is many things. It can be challenging, fun, exciting, and even overwhelming, but it is never boring.
Now, when it comes to planning holiday office parties you can’t keep re-creating the same cookie-cutter event every year. You must think outside the box and take inspiration from the holiday spirit. Here are some pointers on how to do just that.
1. Choose a theme
This sounds like a no-brainer but you’d be surprised at how many people throw parties without considering a unique theme for each event. As a result, the party can feel stale and outdated. Choosing a unique theme will free you up to plan an exciting and meaningful experience for your team.
How do you choose the perfect theme for your event? The first thing would be to think about all the guests that are coming to your party. Take stock of what their preferences are and consider your company culture.
If your company has a hip and laid back culture, you can get away with trendy themes. A few examples would be a hot topic on Twitter or whatever TV show is the main conversation around the office (i.e. Game of Thrones).
If your company culture is a little more corporate and conservative, choose a theme that aligns with your company values.
If you're feeling a bit stuck, organize a brainstorming session and invite others into the room. Create an environment where all ideas are welcome and you can hear what others have to say.
It's incredible how many fresh ideas come to the surface when a group of people ideate together. You’ll definitely land on an idea far greater than one person could come up with alone. You might even come up with a group of themes that you can use in the future.
The most important thing is to involve your team in the initial planning process because people are most likely to support what they help to create.
2. Go through the production stage
Once you’ve figured out a theme, you should move onto the production stage where you plan out your schedule. Have a checklist in place with an estimate of how long each part of the process will take.
Ticketing and registration, operations, categories, VIP guests, health and safety, health insurance, risk assessment are all elements of the production stage. The more elaborate your party is, the longer your checklist will be.
For best results, select an event day team that’s responsible for all these tasks and create an operational plan for them to follow.
Be sure to pick a great team because your event plan will only work if you and the people around it are committed to making it work.
Note: Download our free, event planning timeline & checklist to activate your hidden event planning superpowers! Plan any and every event with so much ease, they'll wonder how you did it.
Whether adults like to admit it or not, games aren’t just for kids. Anytime you bring family-friendly competition to an event, people tend to let loose and have fun. That’s because we all love a bit of friendly competition and it’s a great way to enhance a holiday event.
Now, there are many types of competitions that you can create for an event. You could plan the competition so that it builds up to the event or you can incorporate it into the party itself.
For example, you could encourage people to collect items for a food pantry for three weeks leading up to the event and then announce the winner at the party. Something like this will create excitement and build up momentum for the event.
Or, you could host a competition at the actual event. Examples of fun and exciting competitions for a holiday event include:
- A gingerbread house building contest
- Eggnog chugging contest
- A themed scavenger hunt
You’d give away a prize at the end of each competition while adding humor, excitement, and fun to your party.
4. Prioritize crowd engagement
Regardless of the holiday, the theme and the number of guests in the room, crowd engagement is essential to creating a remarkable event. Unfortunately, it’s something that most event planners don’t even think about. If you’re planning an office party, you definitely want to include a few ways to engage your guests.
Extra Tips:
Get creative with place settings by creating little ornaments with your guests’ names as their place setting.
The holiday season is a fun time to celebrate. Place your swag bags under a beautifully decorated Christmas tree.
Hire a comedy act
Put together an epic collection of swag bags that’ll have your guests talking about your holiday office party well into the New Year! Make sure to include unconventional items like premium quality branded socks, Bluetooth speaker water bottle and an eco-inspired journal for those New Years’ resolutions.
Conclusion
When throwing a holiday party or any party for that matter, the list of tasks can seem overwhelming. The best thing to do is to get organized from the get-go. This means scheduling a timeline for the list of party tasks and assign roles as early as possible. But, make sure you’re flexible just in case things happen in a different order.
We hope this article will help you throw the best holiday party event of the season. In fact, you'll probably come back to this article a few times during the holidays. Starting from Thanksgiving all the way to your Christmas Feast and New Year’s Eve party, there's a lot to celebrate. One thing's for sure, these ideas will definitely make your parties more memorable than a simple cake and punch mingling hour.
Note: Download our free, event planning timeline & checklist to activate your hidden event planning superpowers! Plan any and every event with so much ease, they'll wonder how you did it.