Party

How to throw the perfect

college party

IInttro

n ro

So you’ve just moved into your downtown apartment or house and you can finally do

what you want to do: throw parties. But where do you start? How do you know it will be

fun? Follow this step-by-step guide and your friends will be begging you to throw

another party. In this manual, you’ll learn the best way of inviting guests, decking out

your living room, buying alcohol, setting up your party, and keeping it alive.



Note: the length of time for using this guide is about one week.



Disclaimer: This guide is in no way promoting binge drinking, underage

consumption/purchase of alcohol, public disturbance, or excessive spending of money.

The party should be registered with the landlord to reduce the chance of citations being

issued by the police. In addition, the author of this guide is not liable for any alcohol-

related injuries or deaths. In the music selection portion, the guide is also not intended

to promote illegal downloading of music.



Whatt you wiillll need::

Wha you w need

 Friends

 Apartment/House

 Sound System (Subwoofer is a must)

 Lights & Decorations

 Computer (with Internet Access & music)

 Cups

 Drinks

 Ice

 Cooler Jug

 Round Tub

 Vehicle, or a friend who is willing to drive you around



Sttep 1:: IInviittiing

S ep 1 nv ng

In this process, all you will need is your computer with Internet access and your friends.

These days, almost every single teenager and college student has a Facebook account.

Even moms and teachers have Facebook pages. With your computer, you will need to

create a Facebook event to spread the word. Create the event about a week before the

date of your party.

1) At your computer, first make sure you have an Internet connection. Then, open

your preferred web browser and log into Facebook. At the homepage, you will

find an “Events” shortcut on the sidebar. Click on it.

2) At the top of the next page, you will find a button off to the right that says. Click

on it.

3) From there, fill out the Title, Location, Date,

Description, and set picture/video/wall post settings. The best time range for a

party is from 10pm to 2am. It is important that you set the privacy setting to

“Secret,” which will not allow anybody except the invites to see your event. That

way, you will reduce the amount of random people showing up at your party. Also,

those who weren’t invited won’t feel left out if they don’t see it on Facebook.

4) After entering all the basic information, you will need to select the friends you

want to invite. Whether or not you are

a guy or girl, you must

invite three times as

many girls as guys. This formula was

developed over time to ensure a rough

estimate of half guys and half girls in

attendance.

5) Once all the invites have been

sent out, you don’t need to

communicate with your friends about

the party until the day of to remind



Figure 1: a proper way of inviting friends on Facebook them to come.



Sttep 2:: Convertt your lliiviing room

S ep 2 Conver your v ng room

What do you want your guests to see when they walk in the door? Will it make them

walk right out or will it make them stay longer? Decorations and other visual effects are

important for keeping a party fun. This step requires you to use your apartment/house

and your lights & decorations.



1) You can start by setting up disco lights, strobe lights, lasers, and any other party

lights you purchased. Placement is the key to this

step, because it needs to cover the majority of your

living room. You also need to place it in an area

close enough to reach a power outlet.









Figure 2: this party light shines a

great amount of open space

2) Set up funny college posters. When you are

placing these decorations, make sure they are evenly

spaced with its surroundings. Also, have a friend check

to see if it is crooked when you are placing it.

3) You can also come up with any other creative

decorations to place throughout your living space.









Sttep 3::

S ep 3

S ound

S ound

Figure 3: a funny college poster





Settup

S e up Figure 4: a creative decoration





You can’t have a party without music. However, it’s much more than just having music.

You need to have to right kind of music, in the right order, and have it played out of the

right system. For this step, the materials you will need are your sound system and

computer.



Step 3A: Hooking up the sound system



1) Depending on your sound system, hook the

speakers up according to the user manual. Find a

spot to place the speakers so that it takes up

minimal space. For example, you can mount the

speakers on your walls.

2) While making all of your speaker connections,

conceal your wires so that people do not trip over

them. If you are wall-mounting your speakers, use

masking tape to run the wires along the ceiling.

For other setups, just make sure the wires aren’t

in plain view or

obstructing the path of

incoming traffic.

3) Make sure you

have the subwoofer

hooked up. A resonant Figure 5: a wall-mounted speaker with

concealed wires

bass beat coming from









Figure 6: a 12" down-firing subwoofer

the music can be heard from any section of your house or apartment. A 12”

down-firing subwoofer similar to the one in the picture is highly recommended.

4) Once the speakers are hooked up, connect an auxiliary cord to hook your laptop

to the system. Run a song or two to test the speakers. Walk up to each speaker

and make sure there is sound coming out of each and every one of them.



Step 3B: Music selection



1) Download and install iTunes for free from www.apple.com/itunes/download if you

don’t already have it. Open the program, and go to the iTunes Store on the left

panel. Download the top 50 songs shown on the right.

2) You can also find popular songs by asking your friends, watching MTV music

videos, listening to the radio, or browsing YouTube. Remember that you are

typically looking for hip-hop, rap, dance, some techno, and a couple old school

songs here and there. Basically, you need songs that people can dance to. This

step highly impacts the environment of your party.

3) Now, create a playlist in iTunes by clicking on the + button on the bottom left

corner of the program. Give it a title and you’re ready to add songs. Find the

songs you’ve just downloaded and drag and drop them into the playlist on the

side panel. Continue to add songs

until the playlist is roughly five

hours long. The duration of the

playlist is shown at the center of

the bottom bar.

4) After all your songs are added,

you need to order them properly.

Start out with 1.5-2 hours of rap

that aren’t as popular or upbeat.

Once you hit the peak number of

your attendees, you will want the

hardcore dance music going. You Figure 7: an iTunes playlist

also don’t want to fluctuate back

and forth between dance songs and slower beat rap songs.

5) One last step to setting up your music is enabling the cross-fading in iTunes. This

will keep the music going and prevent gaps of silence at your party. You can

enable and adjust the cross-fading function in iTunes by going to Edit 

Preferences  Playback.



Sttep 4:: D-Day

S ep 4 D-Day

Now it’s the day of your party. There’s still of work to do. You still need to get out there

and buy all the rest of the supplies, drinks, and set everything up. Throughout this day,

keep one thing in mind: quantity, not quality. In this step, you will need all of the

remaining materials you haven’t used yet: cups, ice, drinks, vehicle, cooler jug, and the

round tub.



1) Use you or your friend’s vehicle to drive to Wal-mart. Be sure to head out early in

the afternoon, around 2pm. At the store, pick up four 50-packs of the clear cups.

These are the cheapest kind of cups for the most in quantity. Although 200

people probably won’t be showing up at your residence, people tend to forget

where they left their cup or they don’t reuse them. Also pick up the smallest

amount of Solo brand cups. These will be used for beer pong.

2) The only other item you need at Wal-mart is your mixer for the mixed drink you

are making. The easiest solution is to buy gallon jugs of cranberry juice or

tropical punch. In terms of quantity, buy about 20 liters (or 5 gallons) of the mixer.

If you don’t have a tub already, purchase one at Wal-mart.

3) Transport to the liquor store. Purchase 4 handles of cheap vodka.

4) Go to the beer distributor. Pick up a keg or two of cheap, domestic, light beer. To

determine whether you want one keg or two, recall the Facebook event you

made earlier to see the number of guests who RSVPed “attending.” If there are

more than 60, go with two kegs. Rent a keg tap if you do not already have one.

Finally, purchase two bags of ice at the distributor as well.

5) Haul everything back to your place.

Place the keg in the round tub, and

surround it with some ice to keep it

cold. Make half a batch of the mixed

drink by adding ice, pouring 2

handles of vodka, and pouring 2.5

gallons of mixer into the cooler jug.

Stir the concoction well and taste it.

6) Power up your speakers and lights

and start playing your iTunes playlist



at around 9pm. Figure 8: Placing a keg into a round tub





Sttep 5:: Moniittoriing

S ep 5 M on or n g

Once you have started the engine, you just need to drive

it. During your party, you need to adjust the music and









Figure 9: beer pong participants

activities of your party. You also want to make sure nothing goes wrong.



1) Your guests won’t show up exactly at the start time. It will be a gradual build up.

But in the meantime, organize some drinking games such as beer pong, quarters,

kings, or fu** the dealer. Beer pong can be in the living room, but relocate the

card games to a bedroom to open up more space in the living room.

2) It isn’t necessary to charge your guests for your party. Kindly ask for donations,

and take whatever they can offer.

3) Once there you have a crowded apartment or house, turn the music up so that it

is more audible over everyone’s voices. Be careful not to turn it up too loud, as it

may result in a noise violation.

4) Initiate the dance scene. Although your music selection will do half the work, walk

around and tell everyone to start dancing.

5) Refill the cooler with the second batch of the mixed drink. Also re-tap the keg if it

is necessary.



Fiinall Stteps

F na S eps

Once it comes to around 2am, most people will naturally leave. However, you will have

strangers who are still there hanging around. It’s important that you shut it down at 2am,

because after that you are more likely to get complaints that are referred to police.



1) Simply turn the music off, and make an announcement to tell everyone to leave.

2) Clean up your place a bit. Throw out used cups and other trash lying around.

This will make the cleaning process the following day a lot less stressful.



Key Terms

Key Terms

Handle – equivalent to a 1.75 Liter bottle of liquor



Keg – a metal container full of beer. In this guide, we refer to a keg as a ½ keg, which

basically means half a barrel. This is the largest size of keg you can buy.



Subwoofer – a large speaker in a sound system that outputs low frequencies