How to Plan a Festival Themed Party
With lockdown restrictions easing and the weather starting to brighten up, you’re probably thinking about inviting friends & family over. You can easily maximise the enjoyment of your gathering by introducing a theme. And with the festival season muted for a little while longer, why not make your party a festival? Here we’ll give you some ideas on how to plan a festival themed party at home, easily, with a little prep!
How to Plan a Festival Themed Party – Starting With the Guestlist
So the first thing you need to decide is who you’re going to invite. This will dictate how much food and drink you need, and how much seating you need to provide. Even the type of music you might want to play. Does it need to be child-friendly if you’re asking parents to come? Or do you expect them to leave the children with a babysitter? If you’re aiming for a family gathering maybe you want to start earlier and finish earlier. If it’s you and your festival-loving mates, a late-afternoon-into-later-evening party might be better! Remember to be courteous to your neighbours or invite them along!
Once your guest list, date and time are sorted you should create some invitations, either digitally via email or traditionally posted. Be a little creative with the design, perhaps in the style of a festival ticket, VIP pass or line-up poster! Be clear on the rules if you don’t want children there, or if they are welcome to come along. State you need an RSVP, especially if you have current restrictions on numbers attending and need to manage expectations. And make sure they know that your dress code is festival attire to go with the theme!
Music
The ultimate way to throw a festival themed party is to know someone in a band and let them play! But if you don’t know anyone that fits the bill then a decent playlist is a must. Start with chilled out songs whilst everyone arrives, chats and mingles. Nothing too heavy at this stage as you want people to interact. As the festival goes on the music should develop to go with the vibe you want to create- dance floor fillers if you want people dancing, or some great bands that fit as a background noise whilst you play party games, or even hard dance raves if that’s your style! You can create your own, use ours or stream via Youtube or Spotify etc.
But this is key- have a couple of playlists ready, which can be changed quickly if it’s not working. You don’t want to worry about constantly changing the music when you’re having fun with your friends.
Food & Drink
Street food is the epitome of festival fare, and is generally easy to make for large groups. Depending on how many attendees you’re planning on hosting, a BBQ might be the best solution. If you haven’t used your BBQ since last summer, get it out before your festival to check it’s ready to go! Whether you decide to follow our street food recipes or have a BBQ, write a thorough shopping list and don’t forget the little additions like condiments and coal for the BBQ.
Make sure you’ve got plenty for everyone and ensure dietary requirements are met. It’s less stressful to make too much and have leftovers than worry about not having enough! Get plenty of snacks and salads for people to nibble on throughout the eve too. Top tip- keep a couple of cheap frozen pizzas in the freezer for an easy late night munch if people are getting hungry/too drunk!
Ensure you have enough cutlery, crockery and cups for everyone. Glassware is a no-no outside especially if you have children/drunk adults around! Paper plates and cups make for an easy clean up, but if you’re planning a few gatherings over the years a better long term solution is to invest in plastic plates/cups and reuse.
Decide beforehand if you are providing booze or if you want your guests to bring their own. With the latter, make sure they know by putting it clearly on the invite! If you’re going to provide booze, try and find out what people drink beforehand to avoid unnecessary spends. If you’re unsure, you can’t go wrong with beers, ciders, prosecco, gin, vodka, dark rum. However cocktails are always a winner at festivals and you can use our recipe cards to plan some great colourful and tasty drinks. You’ll need mixers for spirits, and a big bucket with water and ice to throw in all the beers, ciders etc. Don’t forget the garnishes like limes, and top off with cocktail sticks or umbrellas.
Have plenty of soft drinks/squash/water available for people to access easily without asking. A couple of plastic jugs with ice left in a shady place will be welcomed throughout the day.
Seating
At a traditional festival there wouldn’t be enough seating for everybody, as the estimate is that at any given point a percentage of people are dancing or walking about. In your own garden though, unless you’re planning a HUGE party, you should have a seat for everybody attending to ensure comfort and stamina for the day! A seat doesn’t necessarily mean a chair though. Scattered cushions on top of a rug or picnic blanket on the floor make a casual seating area for people to relax on. Likewise, hammocks, egg chairs, bean bags, low walls with cushions on, all count towards your seating spaces.
Decorations
How to plan a festival themed party that look good, hmm? Well it wouldn’t be festival themed without the festival decor! You can really go to town and cover the whole garden or use subtle pieces to highlight different spaces. We try and make this part as simple as possible for you with the decor we provide in our boxes. We have various articles on the best ways to make the most out of your decor, such as creating ribbon loops and how to hang your decor bits for maximum effect. A DIY tent makes a great feature (don’t forget the bamboo canes!) and we suggest some creative ideas to use the signs.
Planning some little social areas that are clearly defined will make your festival authentic. For example, a nice chill out area around the tent (away from the music) with rugs, cushions and lanterns will create a space for people to relax in. Perhaps you can leave the glitter and temp tattoos here for people to play around with. A clear, flat space kept free of decor/furniture can become the dance floor (such as a patio area or decking). A large table with drinks on and chairs scattered in the vicinity can be the bar. It doesn’t matter how big or small your space is, creating these defined areas will make your festival stand out for the right reasons!
What we do suggest is trying to pre-plan where you’re going to put everything beforehand as there’s infinite possibilities! Especially the bunting as you want to make sure it’s high enough that people don’t have to keep ducking to get under. We also recommend making the pom-poms up the day before with some helpers as they can take 4-5 minutes each. Preparing the decor beforehand as much as possible will save time and stress on the day of your party…
Don’t forget the decor for people too! Flower crowns, glitter, temporary tattoos, face gems, glow sticks, selfie frames and wristbands are all part of festival life so don’t forget to dish these out and encourage people to use them!
After Dark
Careful lighting needs considering if your festival is going on until the evening. Festivals after hours can be just as magical, if not more, than during the day. Festoon lighting is relatively bright so you may not want that in your chillout area or for your dance floor, but would look great lighting up your bar or a darker part of the garden. Fairy lights, candles and lanterns look fab in any area you want to keep for sitting and chatting as they provide a lovely bohemian feel. The disco balls and USB light we provide in some of the boxes work better in the dark so try and keep your dance floor as unlit as possible. A fire pit is the perfect accompaniment to your festival once the partying has quietened down and creates warmth as well as a fun place to sit around and create memories.
Things to Consider
There’s a couple of boring bits to think about before your festival that will reduce party planning stress!
- Have a couple of bins or bin bags in easy-to-find places so that rubbish isn’t left all over.
- Keep an eye out on the weather. Have a plan B ready for if it starts to rain! Our paper decorations aren’t waterproof so you may want to consider where you put them. Also think about where people can shelter if it’s wet, and maybe see if you can borrow a gazebo if you have the space.
- Make sure battery powered devices such as your music speaker are fully charged. Imagine your music dying as everyone’s up on the dance floor doing their thang… eek…
- The toilet situation. People need to be able to access the toilet easily which may mean trudging through your house. If you think carpets/floors may get dirty then lay some old rugs or towels down which will leave less mess and less stress. Have plenty of soap and loo roll!
But most of all, try not to overthink it and have fun! If there’s music, food and drink and good company you’ll have a great time and so will your guests! You’re not planning Fyre Festival after all…
Don’t forget to share your party pics with us @funboxedshop on social media!
By the way, we are event planners by trade 🙂 Hopefully you’ve found this guide on how to plan a festival themed party useful. Need further advice? Give us a shout at [email protected], we’re happy to help!
