Halloween party season is upon us! Halloween is one of the most fun times to throw a party! The costumes, snacks, drinks, games, and music are all that make Halloween one of the best holidays, so why not take advantage of this and throw a spooktacular party?
But throwing a party can be hard. As the host of a party, there’s a lot of pressure to make the Halloween party fun and entertaining so that everyone will be talking about how amazing it was instead of talking about how boring it was. Lucky for you, throwing a Halloween party is much easier than you might think! Here’s how to throw an awesome Halloween party that will have people calling you the Queen/King of Halloween for years to come!
The first step to throwing a killer party is to consider a theme! This them doesn’t have to be an immersive one, but it should at least have something to make the party look cohesive. For instance, you can do a gothic noir theme, a classic pumpkin theme, or a horror movie theme, but combining all three might look a little messy! So instead, try to stick to one theme!
While you don’t need to do a totally immersive theme, it might be a fun idea to combine your Halloween party’s theme and a costume theme. By having people dress up as a particular theme, you give some people direction as to how to dress up, and they might be more open to dressing up. Some fun Halloween themes to consider might be to dress up as something or something with the same first initial as you, dress up as your favorite Halloween movie icon, or dress up as your favorite old Hollywood celebrity!
Themes like these will allow people to get creative, the decorations can be cohesive with your costume theme, and it makes for a fantastic costume contest down the line! Not to mention drinks, food, entertainment, and music can also match your theme and can take your Halloween party to a whole new level!
Having a photo booth at your Halloween party is a great way to loosen people up and create memories at the same time! Parties will often have that awkward moment when no one knows what to do when they first arrive, and a photo booth is a great way to avoid that altogether! Having a photo booth doesn’t need to be anything fancy or expensive! All you really need is a backdrop and some lighting! This lighting can be natural or artificial, and if you’re looking for more professional lighting for quality photos, many photography stores will rent them out for a low price!
But you can’t just have a backdrop… you need props too! Lucky for you, Halloween is the holiday of accessories, and there’s no shortage of them. Visit your local costume store or Halloween store and pick up some inexpensive props such as masks and hats. You can even ask around to your friends if they have any old costume pieces laying around that they could donate for the night!
When it comes to the photos themselves, there’s a lot of ways to go about it! The perks of renting a professional photo booth are you might get better pictures, and you get printed versions in seconds. However, this isn’t necessary to have a great photo booth! You can use a phone camera or use an app like Mini Photobooth, Pocketbooth, or Simple Booth!
Having a costume contest is a great way to get people excited about dressing up! We all have those friends that plan their Halloween costume for months and the other friends who would rather Halloween didn’t exist at all. But having a costume contest is a great way to involve everyone and get people to dress up!
Having a costume contest is easy! All you have to do is make a ballot and have everyone fill it out at some point during the night. Having a poll with just more than “best costume” will make people more excited because they feel they will have a better chance of winning a category! Some ideas to add on your ballot along with the best costume are best couples costume, the best group costume, funniest costume, and the “what are you” costume. Send this ballot out along with the invite or in the group chat, so people have a chance to see the categories and have the opportunity to try to win one of the titles!
Make sure to remind people to vote before a given time, so everyone has the opportunity to vote. You can even do an online survey using Survey Monkey to make it even easier for your guests. You know everyone there has a phone on them, so there’s no excuse not to vote! Especially if it’s an online one. This will also make tallying up the votes a lot easier as Survey Monkey will do it all for you! When it’s time to crown the winners, have a little something to make their costume worth the win! Make trophies or ribbons with the winning category and hand them out Oscar-style! Everyone will love the added touch and will feel like they won the Stanley Cup!
Halloween themed cocktails are some of the most fun drinks of the year, so make sure to take advantage of this! There are hundreds of Halloween themed cocktails on Pinterest that you can copy or even stick to your favorite classic drinks and name them something a little more spooky!
If you aren’t one to bartend and would rather everyone just make their own drinks at a station, leave a “spellbook” of the Halloween cocktails so people can flip through it and make their own versions of it! You can even make a large batch of sangria for your guests before the party, so you have something for them right as they walk through the door! If you’re feeling a little extra, make the drinks an experience! Use dry ice to create a smoking cauldron effect or even put that sangria we mentioned in a cauldron! You can find fun accessories like these at almost any Halloween store or section in the decor isle!
Everyone gets hungry at parties, and if you don’t have food, people will leave! So it’s essential to have little snacks and finger foods conveniently placed around the party! You can have one station for all the food, but having them in different areas will make it easier for you and your guests as no one will be crowding around one table.
As for the snacks you choose, make them Halloween themed! Again, Pinterest is full of great Halloween food recipes. You can even just re-name basic foods like grapes into “eyeballs” and make it Halloween themed that way! Make sure to label the foods, so people know what they are and maybe add allergy warnings to keep the party fun-scary and not scary-scary!
One of the biggest worries a host or hostess will ever have is “what if no one has fun?” You could throw the party of the century, and that will still always be a concern! The easiest way to make sure everyone is having fun is to have constant activity opportunities for the guests, so there’s no excuse for that! Set out card games like Cards Against Humanity at different lounging areas so people can play if they want to. By having games like this around, people will start to play if they are growing bored and you don’t have to worry about constantly entertaining!
Another great idea is to have Halloween game competitions like Guess The Candy, Corn Hole, a scavenger hunt, or print-out games. Again, having these games available to everyone will allow people to have fun without you feeling like you can’t have fun because you’re too busy entertaining!
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