Thank you Brad Kane, Kaveman, Chris Wisner, Dave Z, Robert & Mike Baranek, Toshi, Erika, Andrew, Kurt, Brad & Chad, Jay, Joe, Nadia and everyone else who helped make great parties happen.

Please run more good parties.

Every time we were at a con in the city, we couldn't get any parties going because the fucking hardass Baltimore hotels shut everything down, sometimes before it started. It was impossible to party there. So I talked to my roommates as they had parties and thus, after an insane 100mph charge from Jackonville, FL to Baltimore in 9 hours, and with me knowing nothing about running parties, Anime 54 was born. The name came from the 2002 Otakon party and it was only a theme. It turned out to be my ideal party so I kept the name and strived for the same sort of groove.
I'm very obsessive, as many of you have no doubt noticed, and when I do something I do it to the utmost of my ability. It's very powerful and I wish I could control it better. I'm getting there.
I loved the Big Fire parties. They became very much the center of my con experiences, which was the center of my life at the time. It was where I could let go absolutely and be myself. I was so repressed for so many years... It wasn't the intoxication, it was the friendship, the family feeling there. It's extremely addictive once you get a taste of it.
Right at the peak of it for me things conspired to make the parties not happen. Or happen only one night. Now I look back and think how rude I was to expect them to happen every time. It takes a massive amount of energy to throw a good party. Any party has the potential to be a great party but it has to be catalysed.
I wanted a party at Otakon so much that I did my own.
I was having weird coming out issues at that time. I had no idea where I was going or what to do. I was very much on my own concerning such things as there wasn't any real support in Baltimore that I could find or afford. So things got pretty weird sometimes.
I didn't know anything at all about alcohol. I just let people pour me drinks and I knew like 3 drinks for bars. (Tequila Sunrise, Cosmopolitan (which I hated but drank anyway) and Grasshopper.) Brad D. and crew brought a bunch of booze they had in a huge cooler. (They were unloading all the booze and Brad held up a bottle of grain alcohol and said, "This is to hurt people with." LOL). I had watched the guys bartending and had helped a bit. I was only bartender at one party until that time - the legendary Anime Cental 2 party in the 2 level Green Room. I went into the bar and barricaded the entrance. By the end of the party, I was the only person without someone's elses bodily fluids on me. I had the basic idea and I bought a book of drink recipes. We turned the (huge) kitchen into a bar and I discovered that a good bartender is key to a good party. I ended up going to bartending school (not because of the parties but because it seemed like a good alternative for someone like me.) (Couldn't find a job though.) (wooo! parentheses hell!)) and learned all about alcohol and mixing and such. It was so fun. I graduated top of my class (35 drinks in 5 minutes). The bartender is the chemical DJ of the party. You can change the mood of the party with different mixes. liqour quality, proportions, blending, brand of mixers, shape of ice and most importantly shot size (Anime 54 has a 1.5oz shot) are important if you're doing it right. (See the obsessive thing again?)
A big imporant rule is don't get everyone really drunk really fast. That's bad. It usually leads to messes. I did a slam drunk one time, at Ikasucon last year, and it was really insane. I have a scar...
If you overwhelm it with strong mixers and grenadine even cheap liquor will work after a few rounds. Use this only for mass parties where you have to maximize your budget. Cheap liquor makes parties wild too. Just don't get cheap gin. Remember: Gin makes a man mean. Cheap gin makes a mean man violent.
I don't believe in short pouring (or overpouring) for the ladies. They made me do that when I would make drinks at the restaurant I worked in when I went to animation school. The dining room guy would tell me to pour only half for the women. That really pissed me off and I'd always pour full when he wasn't looking. I will pour larger shots for people I know who like the fast lane and can handle it. (One friend's Jack & Coke has a shot of Coke in it. :)) Don't let people get too drunk. It's bad for them and for you in the end.
It's not a party until the cops come.
Having experienced this a few times with the Baltimore police (who I think are hired only if they are loathesome) I strongly suggest not doing anything to make the cops come. Sometimes you can bribe the cops too, depending on where you are. (Yet another route I do not suggest unless you have nothing in particular to live for or balls of steel.)
I was so happy when we had dancing.
I was very happy when people had sex at the parties.

Spin the Bottle
When planning the first Anime 54 jadefoxx gave me the idea to do it. She asked me about it at the party and I took the empty Malibu rum bottle and went downstairs. I had never played before. (I didn't even know what it was until I saw it in a movie in my early 20s.) It's not hard but you need to know the level of kiss you it involves. I spun and got Nikki Bennett, Steve's wife, and made out with her for 2 minutes. It was very interesting to see guys kissing guys. Everyone was really cool. It got HUGE and went out of control eventually but it was very fun. (Note to friend: If you are a boy and your brother is playing, you might not want to join.)
We keep it small and limit the time. 8 or 10. You have to be careful about people rushing the circle or squeezing in. You can let the circle vote on who gets in. Sometimes you will end up with a bunch of desperate guys hovering at the edges waiting to attack.
I like very simple games that you can play when you're totally smashed. Anything that requires real thought is going to divide people out of the party.
It was a very intense experience. After that party people told me that it changed their life. One guy told me it saved his marriage.People told me that it opened their eyes and minds.
That party was an amazing high for me. I went out on the road with my housemate and we counted 17 parked cars.
In all those parties we never broke anything upstairs or anything major in the basement. Never break things. Anything that looks like it can be broken needs to be put somewhere it can't. Same for things that are valuable and pocketable if you're having an open party. (I had my bag stolen in a party once and had to get the security guy up to open my door because I was dressed in a very odd way for the party and couldn't go downstairs in the lobby. He came around the corner and saw daifu and I and I think it broke his mind. He didn't even really look at my ID.)
Although themed parties can be fun the only one I do is Halloween. Anime 54 has sort of a standing theme - our dress code is "dress fun". (Our motto is live with wild abandon.) If you are going to have a theme, announce waaaaaaaay in advance. Do a simple theme.
Music: I am very happy that we had the amazing DJ Kid Amiga joeanon spin for us. It really helped make many of the parties. Downstairs and when he wasn't there I had a MP3 playlist that I would fiddle with. (I took all of the cool songs the arranged them so that it was like sex. There's a slow beginning and it builds up faster faster faster to a monster peak then goes down then comes back for another round after 30 minutes and a softer one after another 30.) Get something that can play MP3s and a decent sound system. (My computer has a ridiculously overpowered THX sound system so we could pretty much blow the doors off the house.) You have to be careful in a hotel because if it's too weak it will be drowned out and it it's too strong it will attract complaints.
Noise complaints: You must be a total noise control maniac in a hotel or you will get shut down fast. The attitude towards noise varies from place to place and sometimes you get 3 warnings and sometimes they leave you alone and sometimes they shut you down on warning #1. This is why a floor manager is very important. S/he can help you in keeping the noise down.
I am a total freak about leaving my space spotless after a party. There have been a few times when we have slipped but for the most part Anime 54 leaves a room cleaner than when we went in. It pays to have paper towels, regular towels, Formula 409, stain remover, heavy duty garbage bags, glass cleaner, some dishwashing soap, air freshener spray, Febreeze, rubber gloves and friends to help clean up.
If someone pukes in the lobby or a fountain or on the front desk during your party I feel that it is your responsbility to make sure it is taken care of. When your guests go out the door what condition are they in?

Door
"My girlfriend is in there!"
"A lot of guys' girfriends are in there."
This is the most controversial and troublesome and important to control aspect of a con party. We have a big problem with too little space and too many people who want to get in. People get upset if you tell them you can only invite 50 people and you're already through your invites. Nobody wants to be left out. I hate leaving people out.The options are to either have super-secret parties or for people to accept that it's not a judgement upon them to be turned away at the door.
You have limited resources for a party. If I have the choice of using my resources to have a great party with 10 people or to have a weak party with 30 I will choose the former.
In the end these are my parties and they're for my friends. As I said I don't like people with agendas and people who try to be friendly with me just to get into my parties upset me. Every so often people who I know dislike me will show up at Anime 54 because it's the place to be. I don't like people begging me to let them in whether by hunting me down or doing so at the door. I really hate saying "no" and the more someone tries, the more uncomfortable I get. I really don't like splitting people up and when someone asks me to let their friend(s) in and I say no and they keep pushing it makes me very uncomfortable.
Every party has a flow of energy. The flow is how people move around and how conversation and dancing and all such come and go. Most of the time it's best to leave the flow alone and just let the party happen. To get a really great party you need to stimulate it just right to manipulate the flow. It could be anything from starting a shots contest to pulling out a card game, to taking off your shirt, to bringing a huge penish shaped lollipop. You have to be very very very careful when manipulating the flow because you can blow it and stall the party or have it blow up in your face. Sometimes you have to move people around to get the flow right. I wander through parties trying to find spots I can make it better in.
Sometimes people who are detrimental to that flow of energy want to get in. There are people who can totally jam up that energy flow and ruin the party for other people. Guys who are on the prowl and don't like the word 'no" are the worst of them. One guy like that can totally ruin a party because they tend to treat women like objects and that's the antithesis of what my parties are about. People who can't carry on a decent conversation, have a need to inject themselves into the conversations of others uninvited, people who can't hold their liquor, aggressive people, hardcore otaku and people who just want to drink for free are bad for parties.
You have to mix a room depending on who is in it. If you have a bunch of voice actors there will always be people who want to schmooze with them and stalkers who will try to force their way into the party. Nobody has a good time then. Nobody should be smothered in your party and nobody should be ignored. As soon as somebody crosses the line BOUNCE THEM. It's very hard and can stir up trouble but in the long run it's a LOT better than letting that person ruin the party for others. I try not to let people in who are like that but sometimes it's unavoidable. Your friend's best friend's boyfriend is a drunken jackass but they naturally assume that he can come.
I try to make sure that every person in the room has a good time. If I see someone sitting on the sofa alone, watching the party happen, I will engage that person and try to draw them into the flow. Don't let your party stratify. If you have a little knot of cosplayers in one corner and a group of industry people in another and some staff people in another and they never mingle then you have a dead party. Mix them up. Good soup is a mixture of good ingredients that are simmered for hours together and rendered down until there is only flavor left and a party isn't any different.

Serious Control Issues: periodically there will be people who will do stupid things and piss other people off and friendships will change and all sorts of things will happen so you'll usually end up wanting to permanently exclude somebody (or sombodies) from your party. A Ban List is a very very very ugly thing. I hate them. I really hate the idea of excluding people and when I have to I do it on a temporary basis. Sometimes people change. The only reason I exclude people is because they act like imbeciles, is really creepy and won't leave other people alone or in a dangerous manner or people start refusing to go if they are there. I think 3 or 6 parties or months should do.

The fastest way to murder a party is to turn on the TV. As soon as the TV comes on there will be a flock of people who form a huge clot in the flow of the party. (There was only one time I turned the TV on and that was so that cabanaboy and I could rid ourselves of the evil of The Ring's cursed video by making other people watch it. :) ) People will have DVDs they want to watch and there will often be "let's watch this comedian" or "let's watch this movie" or "you have to see this anime show" or "let's watch X-Files bloopers" or what have you and there is a time and place for that but it's not Saturday night in a highly mixed con party. The same goes for video games with one exception - that karaoke game. That can totally add to a party. Don't play DDR in your party - put on good music and get everyone to dance.

One solution to limiting your potential audience is to charge a small cover or charge for drinks. ("Suggested donations") When I charged $2 for the Ohayocon 2003 party there were a good number of people who said they couldn't afford tickets but still wanted to come to the party. The alcohol and supplies cost money. Even if you're just drinking Coke it costs money. There are a good number of people who tip and that helps keep the parties alive. Someone who can't afford $2 to get in isn't going to tip anyway.

If too many people come in at once the bartender(s) will get overwhelmed and the noise will get out of control.

Nudity: I'm always happy if people want to get naked in my house but people outside the house tend to get upset abotu ti for some reason and call the cops. If you have a clothing optional party then you have to be careful about the people you let in. There are lots of guys at cons who have never seen real live boobs and some de-evolve when they do. This is also when many people will want to take pictures so cameras and cell phones need to be put in a drawer before this.

Sometimes you can't have fun in your own party. You should to be responsible and not get so messed up that you can't deal with problems. There are always problems. It might be ice or noise or creepy guys macking on the women or somebody who is too drunk or security or the cops or running low on something. If you can't pour drinks then you're too far gone to be managing the party.

House drinks: We always have a house drink at Anime 54. We have a lot of ingredients for this drink on hand and anyone who doens't know what they want or care what they get gets one. Our first was the Bahama Mama (coconut rum & conga mix). Rum is our base liquor because it's fun.
Vodka: makes people let loose
Rum: makes people fun
Gin: makes people mean
Tequila: makes people intense
Whiskey: makes people mellow or angry
Bourbon: makes people dangerous (Dave Attell is right that Jack Daniels should come with bail money.)
Scotch makes people mellow
I will be the first to admit that I know nothing about fine scotch. or cigars. You must seek that knowledge elsewhere.
Our second was the Tie Me to the Bedpost. :) Our current is the Hollywood Nights (coconut rum, melon, pineapple).
I used to think about doing pre-mixed drinks but it's very impersonal to pour someone's drink out of a 2 liter bottle or big jug. When I make you a drink, it's made just for you and unique to that particular moment in time. It's an expression of the connection between us right then. It looks better to mix someone a drink.

Things you need:
melon liqueur (Midori if you can afford it)
Amaretto (DiSaronno if you can afford it)
peach schnapps
blue curacao
triple sec (although curacao will do in a pinch)

grenadine is the great equalizer and extremely important.

I don't like beer so I don't buy it for the parties. Beer has a way of always showing up because someone will always bring some.
Smirnoff Ice and other "alkypop" (as Brad likes to say) has to be kept cold and it goes like crazy. You can never have enough of it. You end up with bottles in various states of emptiness everywhere. Take off the lid before you give one to someone.

I like Minute Maid orange juice and 7-up as mixers. All pineapple is pretty much the same. I don't like grapefruit juice so I never buy it. Mountain Dew can be used as a mixer and there will always be lots of people who want to drink it straight.
When we lived across from the 7-11 I used to make people go get their own Coke and such over there. Draining the mixers will end the party or pause it while someone runs out, which can take forever. You must be careful to both bring extra and keep a close eye on what your levels are.
Pour half & half if you can afford it otherwise use whole milk.

Bar tools: go online or to a restaurant supply house and get:
100 slow pourers (those little spouts that go in the bottle)
4 store n pours (sour mix, pineapple, orange, cranberry)
a bar knife tool
4 can punches (you will lose them easily)
a corkscrew
bar mops

other stuff you need: a flashlight, 3 lighters, a tip jar or glass or something, clothes for cleaning in and

when we drove out to cons or had house parties we had those little stirrer sticks. You can get them at party stores.

Don't buy mixers at the liquor store. When you go to a con always print out maps from the hotel to the closest supermarket and liquor stores.

I used tubs to carry the bar in because they don't draw the hotel's attention when you bring them through the lobby. Put your bar mops in there so the battles don't clank against each other.

Cream drinks: I only pour cream drinks (Grasshopper, mudslide, Kahlua & cream, etc.) at house parties. They're a pain in the ass. The half & half or milk needs to be kept cold, if they spill they will reek if not cleaned up quickly and once someone starts on cream drinks they can't switch to anything with any bubbles or with harsh liquor in it or the cream will curdle in their stomach leaving you cleaning puke off your walls. Cream drinks are the same as frozen drinks - as soon as you start pouring them, a lot of people will want one.

Jell-O shots: Regardless of how easy it makes bartending, I do not make Jell-O shots because they can very easily lead to vomit-covered disaster.
No everclear either. There is ALWAYS some clown who wants it and can't handle it.
I've never had a good Absinthe experience. it's never done anything at all for me.

Drugs: Drugs are bad. You shouldn't do drugs.
I don't care what people do outside of the party but they're sure not doing drugs in it. That can lead to a lot of very bad things. I feel the same way about drugs as with booze - if someone can't handle their high they're out. When they eventually legalize stuff I want to go out to Vegas and have the craziest most debaucherous drug party of all time. Until then we will just have to go to Amsterdam if we want that. :)

Pictures: We have a relatively strick camera rule because some people felt the need to spill stuff out onto the Internet. I will ask that people put their cameras away and there have been times when I took all the cameras and locked them in a drawer. Whenever weird things happen there will always be someone there with a camera. This may be good or bad. Memories are fine but only the people who were there should see the photos if they're of an even slightly embarrassing or compromising nature or there is any skin showing. I suggest having one camera - the house camera - and being very judicious about who you send the photos to.

The darker the alcohol the worse the hangover will be. This has to do with the amount of impurities in the liquor. Needless to say the cheaper the booze the worse the hangover as well.

Do not advertize hotel parties with flyers or posters. This will attract the hotel's attention.

We only do food at house parties because hotels are just too small for it and it's messy.

Decorations: I either do decorations full out or just use the 54 logo or do nothing. The best decoration we ever had was done by Andrew for Christmas last year. photos!.
Use simple materials and lights. lights make the biggest difference of any decoration. Make sure that the combination of normal and decorative lights allows people to see enough of what they're doing and where they're going so they don't fall down or break things.

Fun people: Any party benefits from having some people who are wild and spontaneous and they can make a decent party into a great one. Find some and make them happy so they stay at your party. Try to keep the mood light and avoid having people who do nothing but run on and on about how their lives suck or how everything at cons sucks or just plain want to be morose all the time.

A final caution: running parties is very demanding both physically and emotionally and financially. It will put strain on your relationships with friends and family sometimes. (It's driven me to 2 nervous breakdowns.) I wouldn't trade it for anything though.
People will start expecting you to do parties everywhere and when you tell them you're not they think that you're having a secret party and want to get into that. (One would think that if they were told that there was not a party that would be an indication that even if there was that they aren't invited...)
And then there will be times when you really want to do it but can't. That sucks really bad.
And then there are the times they bust it early or it just plain fails.

Anime 54 will return, albeit in a different form than before.

And you better invite me to your parties.

Commentary from A Friend

This is a cool message. I too, have thrown several large alcohol related convention parties. I am inspired by your post, and copied it. You have a lot more drink mixing experience than I do. We made a house drink in the Yellow Peril Barrel, by which name is my big multi-gallon yellow drink dispensing cooler known, which has travelled coast to coast to parties. And we had a limited bar of stuff with mixers, Jack Daniels, Vodka, some Scotch, beer in the bathtub. People would just give us bottles. Rum is my basic party choice, too. We make Yellow Peril (natch) which is kind of a rum based fuzzy navel, made with dark and light rum, orange juice, ginger ale, sprite (or other lemon lime), and a little peach schnapps for flavor. Another punch is apple pie punch, which has apple juice, ginger ale, cinnamon schnapps, dark rum, mixed to taste with sprite. I have made another punch, Slum Rhymes (long story), which had dark rum, frozen limeade, ginger ale and cream soda, which was surprisingly TASTY, but man, was it ugly. So I don't make that anymore. We would mix mad science style in the barrel (before the barrel I used brand new plastic trash cans), and add a little ice per glass just before we handed the cup off.

I make it a point not to allow Everclear to enter my punches. I want people tipsy but not smashed. We can't handle the fallout- party crew is too busy.
One long running party I had, at an early AnimeFEST (my parties were called the Green Pig Party), we had two bread machines making bread all day, and fresh butter we whipped up in the room. Fresh bread smell everywhere. People would pile off the elevator and just snort until they came to our door. It was very memorable, but we couldn't make the bread fast enough. Maybe with more machines.

One of the most effective party punches I ever saw was at a room party in Oklahoma (Oklahoma was famous for convention parties), where the punch was put through feet of transparent aquarium tubing with a pump, from a vat steaming with dry ice. It was purple. It was strong. Everyone wanted some.

I recommend stickers to put on the badges of party entrants. You know how many stickers you have to start with, so you can make a final head count with some accuracy later by counting how many you have left. People want to know where other people got the stickers, so they will come to your party just to get the sticker, even if they don't stay. You can tailor the stickers to help with carding the underage. It makes a great souvenir later. Some parties I would make rubberstamped tags with strings to dangle from the badge as favors. People would fight for them. Occasional ticket drawings for freebies can liven up a party.

Make sure no one locks themselves in the bathroom with all the beer for very long.

You need a party crew of at least 3, 5 is good, 7 is great. You need a door greeter to welcome everyone personally, preferably introduce them to the room by name- I found out that helps a lot, if you talk to everyone, tell them about the food and drink choices, point them out. It prevents people from slinking in and feeling abandoned or isolated, not sure of their welcome. A whole level of angst is hereby eliminated. A bar tender is important, also someone to watch out for trouble. Someone needs to keep an eye on the chip level, and replenish from stores, without putting everything out at the same time. We had someone to introduce random people to other random people. We had a ten minute cup rule during heavy traffic-- every ten minutes people had to grab their own cups and plates, party crew would toss the unclaimed cups and plates. Cleanliness is essential. A certain level of grossness encourages poor behaviour, too. I only had a dj a couple of times, so we'd use mixed tapes we made in advance. I have strange musical tastes, so we made tapes of dance music combined with spy soundtrack music. It worked out pretty well.

We never played spin the bottle, great idea, but we did play the one, where everyone has to name the name of everyone else in a circle.

A bagpiper came to our WorldCon room party at 4 am and played several tunes for us before the police came. We were happy enough to shut down after that.

The carbonation can stay for awhile, but it does go flat eventually. I usually mix myself, and there's not quite a whole bottle of rum per batch (usually make 2 or 3 batches over the course of 4-5 hrs), a gallon of orange juice, usually minute maid, a 2 liter bottle of ginger ale, and probably 3 liters of sprite. I don't have an exact recipe, but it's pretty consistent. Probably 2/3 cup of Peach Schnapps. We didn't generally have a problem with flatness per se, because hordes of people would drink up the punch first, then we'd make a new batch. But the drink wasn't so much about the carbonation as it was about the orange juice + ginger flavor + peach + rum and then after a moment, "HELLO! That's stronger than I thought!" I do remember occasionally opening up a bottle of sprite or ginger ale (or club soda) to top people off with, but most were happy as is. The apple pie thing works best for holiday cons, thanksgiving- xmas period. Walmart has a new fruit juice I'm experimenting with-- peach + white cranberry. Mellow but slightly astringent. It's cheap (<$2/bottle), and great with rum, vodka or crown as a mixer. There's a strawberry + white cranberry one too, but not as versatile. I don't think I'd make a punch with it, though.

I always wanted to try a wine based sangria, but never wanted to deal with the fruit in a hotel. I have a vitamix now, so I'd like to have a smaller private party with constant margaritas, pina coladas, and daquiris in 3 oz cups. My original party crew has split up, though, so it's harder. Maybe when Con D/FW http://www.condfw.org/index.php grows up a little more. It's an older, smoffier crowd. I can only throw parties when I'm not working the show, unless I want to die. I had a pretty big one for Conjure at AnimeFEST last year, a proposed cosplay and masquerade convention that has never come together despite great ideas, but the party was a blast. But it was very tiring-- too many newer crew were just decorative. Or not competent. In any case, I would have preferred a smaller, more private party.

I never had the problems with hotel staff that you guys seem to encounter in Baltimore. I tipped heavily for them to carry all the stuff up there, and they let us use their giant ice machines. I had my own huge tubs and dolly. We made sure Con Security knew all about us in advance, and we always tried for a party floor when available. We would make up a few hundred business card size invites on astro brite paper (8 per 8 1/2 x 11 sheet), and pass them out to anyone who looked interesting, and strew them from the elevator to the door on our floor. Several of these parties were to promote different new conventions, so we were prepared for all ages. We shut the door at 2:30am. We had the parties on Friday, usually, sometimes Thursday at a really big show. The off nights drew bored people looking for activity, and we would finish off the leftovers on Sunday, and give whatever cookies etc. were left to consuite or dead dog. I'm a great believer in party schills, cool people who promise to drop by and be "on" for a little bit. I usually arrange that before the convention. I also need some relief staff for long parties so the crew can rest up periodically and don't feel trapped. It's hard work.

I'd also like to throw a day party on Saturday, like 3-8 or so, before masquerade. For fellow vegetarians, anyone welcome, with eats, and a plastic cup, tub, and kazoo drumming circle. I bet that would be a hoot.

I've thrown room parties in the past and also been on helmine's party crew before. Jello shots are doable and the multicolored wall renovation can be avoided as well. Most people make shots using Everclear (Instant Puke, just add People!) or really, really cheap vodka. Both are bad. I use Schnapps and coordinate the flavors. Margarita Schnapps/Lime Jello, All the Pucker flavors are good, especially Grape Pucker/Grape or Lemon Jello. Also as I'm a lightweight I tend to make the shots a little on the weak side. Two cups of liquid is needed for one small box of jello, I use 1 1/4 cups water and 3/4 cup booze. It's enough to let you know that there is alcohol in it but not enough for you and guests having to go do something secret and embarassing. ;)