The organiser’s checklist: a week before, a day before, an hour before

Every group has one person the evening lands on. He books, he messages, he opens the door, and he is the only one who knows what is meant to happen and when.

The list below is for him. It splits into three stages, and each takes less than you would think. Work through it as written and nothing is left for the last minute.

A week before: four items

This is the only stage that needs decisions. The rest is execution.

1. Settle the venue

Not the city — the venue. Someone’s flat, a rented house, a cabin or a hotel room. If the answer is a house or a cabin, settle it first: in season they go weeks ahead, and without it everything else is guesswork.

The full comparison of the three options is on the shows page, but the short rule is: up to ten people a flat, above that a house.

2. Settle the headcount

A number, not an estimate. Fifteen people in a three-room flat is a different decision from ten, and it changes what is possible in the evening.

It is also worth knowing who is definitely coming and who is a “maybe”. An organiser counting heads at seven in the evening discovers two things too late: that there are not enough chairs and that there is not enough food.

3. Settle one central event

One thing everybody is waiting for: a game, a drive, a show, a surprise. One, not three — two central events in one evening cancel each other out.

If you chose a show, this is also when to message us: a day ahead is nearly always enough, and for a particular dancer on a Thursday or Friday, two.

4. Set a realistic hour

Not the hour on the invitation, but the hour the group will actually be complete. The gap is usually forty minutes, and anyone planning to the optimistic figure starts the evening irritated.

A day before: five minutes

This whole stage is messages rather than work.

• Confirm with the venue. For a house or a cabin, confirm the arrival time, until what hour music is allowed and how many guests were agreed
• Confirm the central event. One message, and check that you remember the hour you booked
• Order the food. And make sure it arrives before your hour rather than exactly on it
• Send the group one clear hour. Not “in the evening”, not “around”. An hour
• Check who is bringing what. If somebody is supposed to bring something, this is the moment to make sure he remembers

And if the evening includes a surprise, this is also when to make sure the group knows what is happening and the guest of honour does not.

An hour before: twenty minutes of work

All the physical work of the evening lives here, and it genuinely is twenty minutes.

The room

• Clear a space in the middle and roll the rug aside
• Switch off the ceiling light, leave two lamps to the side
• Move the glass table, the beanbag and any cables
• A stable armless chair, if part of the evening happens around one person
• Check the speaker is charged and paired to one phone

The full detail, including how much space each style needs, is in our separate article on setting up the room.

The logistics

• Make sure there is parking, or at least know where to look
• If there is a gate or a code, send it in advance rather than when somebody is already at the door
• Agree who opens, and check his phone is not on silent
• Cold water within reach

If this is your first time organising

There are things an experienced organiser does automatically and a first-timer never considers.

Count the chairs. It sounds trivial until fifteen people are standing in a living room with eight seats. Not everyone needs one, but you need to know there are not enough.

Make sure there is somewhere to put things. Coats, bags, keys. A group that dumps everything on the sofa has just removed the sofa, and then there is nowhere to sit.

Decide who owns the music. If there is no show, one person rather than everyone. Five phones pairing to the same speaker is an evening with a break every three minutes.

Know where the second bathroom is, if there is one. In an evening of fifteen people that becomes relevant quickly.

What happens when something shifts

Something always shifts. The only question is when you say so.

A delay of fifteen to twenty minutes is nearly always absorbed and nobody notices. Beyond that it depends on the diary, so the principle is simple: tell people the moment it is clear things have moved, not at the moment they were meant to start. A message at ten about an hour that was supposed to be ten is a wasted message.

The same rule runs both ways. If we are running late, you hear it before you ask, with an updated hour rather than “shortly”.

Money: who pays, and how not to argue about it

The least pleasant part of organising, and it can be closed with one message at the start of the week.

What works is naming a clear figure before anything is booked. “It comes to about two hundred each, who is in” beats “we will split it at the end” — because splitting at the end always ends with the organiser covering the difference himself.

It is also worth deciding in advance what happens with someone who confirmed and did not turn up. In a group of ten that is small change; in a group of twenty it is not.

As for the show itself: the price is given in the first message and does not change at the end of the evening, there is no deposit and no late-hour supplement. So that figure can be divided up in advance with confidence.

Three organiser mistakes

Organising by committee. A nine-person group chat settles nothing: everyone suggests, nobody decides. One person decides and the rest turn up.

Telling nobody the plan. The surprise is kept from the guest of honour, not from the group. If nobody knows what is happening, nobody helps either, and the organiser carries all of it alone.

Arriving last. Whoever organises should be there first. If you arrive after everyone else, the hour you set is already meaningless.

What you do not need to do at all

Worth saying, because organisers tend to overwork the job.

You do not need a written timetable for the group, you do not need decorations, you do not need a playlist of your own if there is a show, and you do not need to order more food than people eat. A good evening is the right venue, the right hour and one event that happens properly.

The short version

A week before: venue, headcount, one central event, a realistic hour.

A day before: confirm the venue, confirm the event, order food, send the group an hour.

An hour before: clear the floor, kill the ceiling light, chair, speaker, parking, who opens.

That is the whole job. If your evening includes a show, send us the hour, the headcount and the kind of venue — the price and an exact time come back in the first message.