I’ve heard from a lot of people that they’ve got a lot of value from this book. I’ll be honest, I started it but didn’t finish it. It didn’t sit right with me at the time.
I found The 2-Hour Cocktail Party to be far more valuable. I’d recommend it to anyone organising events, particularly social meet-ups.
Pros:
Short and to the point
Gives you a clear (and very detailed) algorithm to follow
I used it to host a gathering and it was a success
Despite it being tailored to a very specific scenario, I’ve used the advice in other scenarios and it’s worked well
Cons:
The author makes a big thing out of the importance of icebreakers and name tags. I didn’t follow that advice and it was absolutely fine. His advice is unusual for a US party but I think even more unusual for an EU party, so I didn’t want to risk it (people were already weirded out by relatively small things, e.g., a weeknight party for no reason and an RSVP page)
The advice is tailored to a very specific scenario (~15-person weeknight social gathering)
Ha yes that would have been helpful of me, I agree! Unfortunately, I can’t remember much, it was a couple of years ago. I remember experiencing a significant vibes mismatch in the section on excluding people (but maybe I was just being close-minded) and frustration with its wordiness.
I’ve heard from a lot of people that they’ve got a lot of value from this book. I’ll be honest, I started it but didn’t finish it. It didn’t sit right with me at the time.
I found The 2-Hour Cocktail Party to be far more valuable. I’d recommend it to anyone organising events, particularly social meet-ups.
Pros:
Short and to the point
Gives you a clear (and very detailed) algorithm to follow
I used it to host a gathering and it was a success
Despite it being tailored to a very specific scenario, I’ve used the advice in other scenarios and it’s worked well
Cons:
The author makes a big thing out of the importance of icebreakers and name tags. I didn’t follow that advice and it was absolutely fine. His advice is unusual for a US party but I think even more unusual for an EU party, so I didn’t want to risk it (people were already weirded out by relatively small things, e.g., a weeknight party for no reason and an RSVP page)
The advice is tailored to a very specific scenario (~15-person weeknight social gathering)
Thanks for writing up this concise summary, Tristan!
I second the advice from the 2-hour cocktail party :)
Thanks Mel :)
Would love to hear more about what you didn’t like, but the other piece sounds like it’s worth checking out, I’ll try to give it a read soon!
Ha yes that would have been helpful of me, I agree! Unfortunately, I can’t remember much, it was a couple of years ago. I remember experiencing a significant vibes mismatch in the section on excluding people (but maybe I was just being close-minded) and frustration with its wordiness.