New Year’s Eve can be stressful. There is no doubt about that. It is the biggest night for most businesses and the thought of failing at an attempt to throw a great New Year’s Eve party can be crippling. Deciding to just not have one may seem like the best and easiest decision to stay in the safe zone. Do not fall into that frame of mind! New Year’s Eve can be stressful, yes. However, it is only stressful if you let it be that way. Deciding to not take advantage of a night like New Year’s Eve is only placing your business farther away from reaching its full potential.
Plan Ahead
The most important thing to remember when planning for a New Year’s Eve party is to start early! This cannot be stressed enough. Think of New Year’s Eve as a fierce competition. You and your business are competing against all the other business in your area to throw the most desirable NYE party around. Greatness does not happen overnight. Not allowing yourself to have an ample amount of time for planning is giving yourself a loss from the start. The more time you give yourself, the more time you have to strategize your party options. Giving yourself plenty of time to plan is also in a way, affording yourself some insurance. Mistakes happen and in an intense situation, most of the time things don’t always go smoothly. That package you ordered full of party supplies could be damaged in the mail. The DJ you hired to mix at your event decided to back out. Open your mind to knowing that anything and everything could go wrong. Having extra time on your hands gives you the opportunity to get those mistakes and mess-ups under control before anyone even notices.
Stay Organized
Along with planning ahead, being organized is another big step in keeping the stress 
low. The best way to do this is to keep several lists updated through the whole planning process. Make a master list of every task that will need to be completed. Keep a shopping list of the items your party is going to need such as party decorations, custom invitations, tableware, food, and more. If you plan on inviting a certain number of guests, you are going to need to keep a guest list as well. Stay on top of this and keep your lists updated as the party progress plays out. There is no point in having a set of lists if they get pushed to the side and only touched sporadically. There are multitudes of party planning platforms and apps out there that can help you stay organized as well. If you are someone who is constantly on the go and toting around a bunch of paperwork is not your style, these platforms may be the route for you! Use them to easily log information, make updates, and show tasks completed on your handheld device.
Make a Budget
Making a budget for New Year’s Eve is defiantly something that cannot be skipped on. The whole point of having a New Year’s Eve party is to host a great time for party guests but it is also to make a profit. You want to spend enough to throw a great party but you don’t want to spend too much that you sink the profits you are going to make on having the party. Set aside a certain amount of money to be spent on the party. Then, from that amount, decide on how much is going to go towards each purchase. Set money aside for things like food, decorations, tableware, a DJ, etc. The budget at the end of the day does not get broken. When there is no guideline on what the budget is, money starts being spent on just about anything and before you know it, the spending is out of control.
Build a Team
Building a great planning team can also take away some of the stress that is brought on by New Year’s Eve. Once you have your team, plan your course of action. Plot out your time frame to get tasks completed as well as assign duties and responsibilities. Your New Year’s planning team not only works together, but they are also a support system.
Time Management
Thinking about a major undertaking all at once is daunting. This is where time management comes into play. Chunk your planning. Meaning, the first time you sit down to think about New Year’s Eve is not going to be the time to plan every fine detail. Start with an overview of what you hope to achieve in throwing a New Year’s Eve party and what party theme you are looking at going with. Plot out a base outline of what needs to be accomplished in the end of the planning process. If you are working with a team of people, make a set time to meet each week that works with everyone’s schedule to make progress on the planning. Failing to make a set time to meet may result in the planning process being pushed off and delayed.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Use social media and technology to your advantage! If this is going to be a party anyone can attend, advertise on every social media platform possible. Social media can do a good portion of the work for your while you continue to plan. If someone sees your post about your party and is interested, they will pass that along to their friends and so on. Before your know it, your party info is circulating and being viewed by more and more people every second.
If this is going to be more of a closed party, and entrance is only available to a certain set of people, do not underestimate the power of a great custom invitation. It’s a breeze to get invitations customized with all your party info saving you from having to create the invitations on your own.
The thought process behind planning for a party is usually associated with much stress and long hours of work. It’s no lie that there most likely will be long hours put into planning for New Year’s Eve, but the stress can be taken out of it. The best thing you can do is give yourself and your team ample amount of planning time as well as being committed to seeing through the task at hand all the way to the end. The last thing that you want to have happen is burnout from you or your team members that leaves your party crashing and burning.