I read this in anticipation of my housewarming, where I expected to host 50 people – twice the largest size I was accustomed to. The author talks more about weekend retreats, large conferences, or peace talks more than the smaller events I want to run to communitybuild. It’s fun to read about very structured events that try to carve out a different reality, but it didn’t help me much as a host. I’ve decided to dash this post off anyway, because deliberately designing events is so important that it’s valuable to summarize any major correct principle.
Know what the purpose of the gathering is
Make purpose your bouncer. Let it decide what goes into your gathering and what stays out. When in doubt about any element, even the smallest detail, hark back to that purpose and decide in accordance with it.
And know whom to exclude – the purpose guides the guest list.
When I began reading this book, I was about to host a neighborhood gathering while my inlaws were in town. My father in law talks a lot, and he would have changed the tone of an event where my purpose in gathering my neighbors was to set a precedent as a fixture in their physical community. By default I would have included him while feeling a little unhappy about it. I ended up including him after all, but more consciously aware of what I was trading away.
“Specific enough” purposes Parker gives:
company offsite “to focus on the year ahead”To build and practice a culture of candor with each other- to focus on the fractured relationship between two departments
back to school night “to help parents prepare for the year”to inspire parents to sustain certain values on the weekends- to help connect the parents to each other and make them a tribe
- to have a group that keeps us doing what we say we want to do
a small church group “to help everyone feel like they belong”to have a circle to share struggles with without worrying about appearancesa birthday party “to celebrate my birthday”to surround myself with the people who bring out the best in me- to set goals for the year ahead with people who will help me stay accountable
a family reunion “to get the family together”to have a chance for cousins to build as adults without spouses or children- to reconvene the next generation in the wake of a grandparent’s death, and create a younger family reunion
a book festival “to celebrate reading”to use books to build community across racial lines
Creating an alternate reality
I agree this is an important rule for festivals or high-effort parties. I don’t want to aim for this with a dinner party. (Parker might respond that even dinner parties constitute a subtly different reality and I should lean into that.)
Filling physical space correctly
I kept looking over my shoulder all night, waiting for the party to begin. It felt like the room was still empty even after all the guests had arrived. You had to physically walk over to another part of the room to meet new people because everyone was standing so far apart. I spent most of the night hanging out with a small group of friends I already knew and didn’t take any social risks. Even when the band came on, people congregated but hung back and didn’t dance. What went wrong? The space was too big. The room was gymnasium-sized.
She gives an area-per-person to aim for for different types of events, ranging 6-20 square feet per guest. This whole range feels too tight and noisy for me. I decided to ignore those figures because I host events for a subculture where auditory processing issues are common. A pleasant sense of crowdedness is much less important to me than ability to hear people.
Generous authority
Behind the ethic of chill hosting lies a simple fallacy: Hosts assume that leaving guests alone means that the guests will be left alone, when in fact they will be left to one another.
Benevolent dictators are good. Most hosts under-use their authority to protect their guests from each other, boredom, or distraction (having a hard rule of no phones is good for some events).
Other examples Parker gives are making sure the doors close soon after the start time (at events where latecomers would mess with the vibe), or enforcing the dress code.
Closing explicitly
Parker isn’t a fan of events that peter out, as is the default when guests leave at different times when tired. I am, though!
Cool formats
…special closing session called “If These Were My Last Remarks.” The session features approximately twenty participants, each of whom is given two minutes to tell the group what they would say if this were the end of their life.
Group conversation only:
…Jeffersonian Dinner, the invitation to which warned that “you cannot talk to the person next to you, you can only talk to the entire table.”
Two rings:
We agreed to let them come and, because the observers were going to outnumber the participants, we tweaked the physical format of the meeting accordingly. We decided to highlight the role of the observers and turn their size into an advantage. We organized the room into two circles of chairs, one within the other. In the inner circle, we placed twelve chairs for the experts, whom I would facilitate through mini-talks and lively debate. On the outside, in a larger circle with chairs facing toward the center, we placed all the clients and their guests, who would sit on the periphery, without phones, observing and listening deeply.
RSVPs:
There was even a Christmas party invitation that issued a rule about RSVPing: “We don’t care if you come or go, but you must RSVP. If you don’t RSVP, you won’t be invited next year.”
An all-day-walk hangout:
Among these rules, it became clear that the two most important ones were spending a full day together and no technology. And they were powerful because they forced a degree of presence rare in New York and the tech-addled modern world. People had to come on time, stay the entire time—no coming and going.
A family-only conference:
They are adamant about gathering people as equals, and they embed that value into the structure of their gathering by requiring that every participant over the age of six (yes, six!) participate in at least one panel and by doing away with keynote speeches.
Funeral:
…the funeral rituals of various cultures. And she ended up adopting one from the Jewish tradition. In it, the person presiding over the funeral asks everyone except for the immediate family to form two lines facing each other, making a kind of human hallway from the gravesite to the cars. Then the rabbi asks the immediate family to turn away from the grave and walk down that makeshift aisle, and as they do so, to look into the eyes of their friends, who “are now like pillars of constancy and love.” Cunningham described it as “a way to usher them into the next part of their journey, and the next stage of their grieving.”