After a long hard year, New Year’s Eve is a fantastic day to let loose and to celebrate the start of the next year. While it is truly only a calendar date, New Year represents a beginning of something fresh and new. Many celebrate these new beginnings by deciding on a resolution to complete in the new year, such as taking more walks, learning a new skill or even just resolving to go to bed earlier in the evening.
New Year’s parties can be a lot of fun to organise as unlike events such as Christmas, Easter and Halloween there aren’t as many traditions or colour themes to follow, leaving you a blank slate for your party planning. Whether you are organising a more glamourous event with formal dress or a more casual get together, it is important to select a theme to help you organise your event.
Why Select a Theme?
Once you have selected a theme for your New Year’s Eve party it can help you to plan what you want your party to look like and you can set out to achieve that goal. The main factors to consider when organising your event are:
- Décor – Each theme you choose will feed into how you decorate your function room, from a minimalist black and white theme to a luxurious roaring twenties theme with feathers and sparkle. Creating a fantastic atmosphere using your décor can be a lot of fun and can allow you to get really creative with homemade table centre pieces. Make sure that the theme you choose is within you budget or crafting abilities when you select it for your New Year’s Eve party.
- Menu – If you are serving a full meal at your New Year’s party, most venues will have a set menu already in place for you to enjoy. However, if you wanted to create something special, ordering a themed cake or dessert to enjoy can be an excellent way to finish your evening. If you are not serving a full meal, then creating a menu of nibbles for your guests to enjoy can actually accentuate a casino or champagne theme.
- Drinks – Selecting drinks that fit your theme can be great fun, especially with themes like disco which fit brightly coloured and decorated cocktails. Parties with casino themes are often best paired with sparkling wine or champagne. Whether you are arranging an open bar or are leaving arranging drinks up to your guests, it is important to consider your budget and how many guests are arriving.
- Entertainment – Selecting a band or DJ to keep the mood high can be a great way to introduce your theme, with a soundtrack of upbeat jazz songs for a twenties theme, or a fantastic disco playlist so your guests can have a groove to the sound of Staying Alive and Dancing Queen. Other entertainment for guests, such as a red carpet for a Hollywood theme or a set of tables for playing cards for a casino theme, can be great fun and can allow you to organise a New Year’s event unlike any other.
Themes
There is a wide variety of themes that you could choose for a New Year’s Eve party, from a Harry Potter themed event to one that is centred around a chocolate theme. A lot of what will work at your event depends on the interests and preferences of the friends and family members you are inviting. The best advice for organising a really great party event is often just to have fun with your theme. Think about what you would enjoy as a guest at the party and do your best to bring it to life.
Disco
A disco theme is great fun for a New Year’s Eve party as it gives everyone in the room a chance to let loose. With bright colours and psychedelic patterns, this theme is an opportunity to have fun with your clothes as well as your décor. There are some fantastic soundtracks within this genre, which most people will already know and remember fondly from their childhood. This is a fantastic opportunity to get everyone dancing and having fun – after all who can possibly sit still when Le Freak is playing on the dance floor?
Black and White
A classic theme, this is a great one to go with for a more adult party; with its elegance and beautifully constructed décor it is often the theme of choice for a ball or formal event. While it can require that people get a little creative with their wardrobe, almost everyone will have at least one outfit in black and white so it is less likely that people will feel pressured to buy a completely new outfit to fit the theme. Taking black and white photographs of the event can be a fantastic way to preserve the theme, while creating an old-school Hollywood glamour at the event.
Casino
A casino theme is a fantastic way to celebrate the New Year, especially if you have guests who may not know each other very well. If you arrange different casino games set up around the venue, you can create fantastic opportunities for friends old and new to meet and chat as they play. With tables set up for different games, such as poker, blackjack or roulette, then handing out fake money chips to everyone in attendance is an opportunity for fun, as you can give the guest with the most chips at the end of the night a prize such as a bottle of champagne.
Tropical
With Christmas behind you, New Year is all about celebrating a new season. With warmer summer days on everyone’s mind, a tropical theme is fantastic fun. With lockdown preventing holidays abroad, bringing in the holiday atmosphere instead with Hawaiian shirts, pina coladas and inflatable palm trees will give you some hope for sunshine in the year ahead. This theme is a great one for parties where kids are invited, as the bright colours and games such as coconut shy and limbo are perfectly suited for younger guests.
Here at Salomons Estate we offer function rooms that will suit a range of New Year’s Eve events. If you are planning to hold a New Year’s event, please contact us here to learn more about what our venue has to offer.