The office Christmas party can often be one of the most fun events of the year and leave everybody with some fun stories to tell! It can be your chance to make new friends in different departments, celebrate what you have all achieved together over the year, to let your hair down and have some fun.
However, Christmas parties can take a surprising amount of planning, and if you leave things until the festive season is just around the corner, you may struggle to throw a party that really does justice to what you and your team wanted to achieve.
There are certainly some benefits to organising your Christmas party early, and here are just a few of them.
Get the Best Venues on the Date You Want
One of the most important reasons to start planning this year’s office Christmas party as soon as you can is that many other people have the same idea, and this means that nearer the time, the best venues are usually booked up on the most popular dates.
Whether you are looking for a restaurant or to hire a private room at a hotel or bar, you’ll find this gets quite difficult as we get closer to Christmas, and those who book in September or early October definitely get the best pickings when it comes to places to hold their events. We’ve all heard of someone who has had their office Christmas party in January or even February because they just couldn’t get a decent venue for the popular period of the two weeks before Christmas, and this isn’t half as much fun! This would also allow you time to find deals or specials to lower the cost of renting the space, like this Holiday Inn discount code.
More Time for Planning
Once you have a venue and date set, you still may want to do some other planning for entertainment at the party, and for gathering up everybody’s orders from Christmas menus from your venue. If you try doing all this a few days before the party it becomes stressful and basically takes up all of at least one person’s time. This is especially true in unexpected circumstances like needing to put up lights or disco balls you got from https://musiccritic.com/
There is also overnight accommodation to consider if some people are required to travel long distance. Again, this needs to be booked well in advance.
More Input from the Team
Another good reason to start early when planning an office Christmas do is that you have more time to get ideas and input from the team as to what kind of party they’d most enjoy, making it a better experience for everyone. Would they prefer a lunch time or evening event, a sit-down meal or a party with a dance floor and drinks? When you start planning early, you can poll people by email (for instance) and get ideas from the team to plan a much more team-pleasing event.
So When Should You Start?
Most party planning experts agree the best time to start planning is in September, once everyone is back from their summer holidays. Most venues have already prepared their Christmas menus and pricing at this point and are ready to take bookings.
As you can see, now is really the ideal time to start thinking about your office Christmas party and making some plans, especially when it comes to things you will need to book such as venue and any entertainment such as DJs or bands. Ideally, the party planning should start no later than the start of October if you want to put on a really great event with minimal stress.
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