How to Plan an Epic Afterparty to Promote Your Business
Our local drink shop is often the hangout hub for high school students. I like to capitalize on that after football games by hosting afterparties. By the end of this blog post, I will teach you how to plan and put into action an afterparty that everyone’s raving about for weeks to come. It is a great and fun way to promote your business. By fun, I mean for everyone else. It probably won’t be fun for you, but knowing you pulled off a successful party is well worth it.
1) Plan
The first step is to plan well. I usually start planning this all out 3 weeks in advance. The high school likes to plan activities after the football games as well. The first step would be to make sure the high school isn’t doing anything after this upcoming game.
If they are you would have to be aware that there is a conflict and you most likely won’t get as many people there.
Then you would need to figure out what exactly you are going to have everyone do at this afterparty. What I would usually do is arrange for some sort of music. Most of the time the high school students enjoy being able to just pick their own music, so I just get nice speakers. I also get tickets so we can do a raffle. Then food. Do you want to keep it simple and order pizza or do you want to knock it out of the park and arrange for food trucks to come park outside? I’ve personally done both.
2) Organize
I start by arranging a time for either drop-off or pick up for the speakers. If I am going to have good trucks at the event I go and talk to them or give them a call to see if they are even available for that weekend. I also make sure that on the schedule I have a few extra people working that night. I also make sure we have extra inventory and gift cards to raffle off.
This event can either be a success or a major failure depending on how well you organize. You can make the coolest plans, but if you don’t contact people to make it happen then it doesn’t matter.
To keep track of everything I make sure I put everything in my notes and calendar so I don’t miss anything. I often promote someone I trust to the assistant manager for the event. This way there’s another person to bounce ideas off of and to keep track of everything.
3) Advertise
I would argue advertising is the most important step in pulling off a major event. It’s simple if nobody knows about it, then nobody will come. I always post on social media at least 3 times before the event.
My outline goes like this…
- A week before the event (video)
- 3 days before the event (a picture post)
- The morning of the event (a story)
Advertising like this allows for people to get excited and stay excited about your event. It makes sure they don’t forget about it. It also gives them enough time to not make any plans for this weekend. If you only post the day of then most of the time people have already made other plans.
4) Set-Up
This process for me usually starts the day of. This is just making sure everything ends up coming together. Making sure the food trucks come on time or making sure the pizza gets dropped off or picked up. I always make sure the fairy lights are turned on that are on the outside of the building. I close the drive-thru so nobody everyone can walk around and dance freely.
When it’s about 10 minutes before people start arriving, I start playing the music and start making it a fun atmosphere that feels welcoming. You want the party to start as soon as people step foot on the property. If they get there and nothing is happening they are more than likely to leave because they are bored.
Be ready for them to arrive and keep them occupied and having fun the whole time.
5) Manage
While the event is happening you still need to go around and manage it to make sure everything is going smoothly. I help the employees working the event if they are slammed. I go around and make sure everyone is having a positive experience. I take song suggestions and I go around making sure everyone that wants to be entered into the raffle is.
This part of pulling together an event is usually the easiest part, but still very necessary. The better you planned and executed the better the actual event will go. If people have a good time they are likely to come to the next event and even bring more people.
With these 5 simple steps, you’ll be throwing an awesome promotional event that you’re proud of in no time.
