Seasons Greetings Party People!

It’s now 1 month until we all close up shop for a few days, crack open the booze, eat way too much food and celebrate Christmas with our nearest and dearest.
It’s a great time of year and the Xmas spirit is infectious – especially if you’re like our office and hound the local the radio station to play more and more Xmas carols every hour.

Now by this time in late November, a majority of you working folk have either already been to your works Christmas soiree or you’ll be looking forward to it occurring within the next couple of weeks – but for some of you, the Xmas party seems like a distant and complicated task that you’ve drawn the short straw on and now have very little time and resources to plan.

For those of you who started the planning months ago – we applaud you. For those of you who are only just now starting to piece something together… all hope is not yet lost.
So if you need to put something together quick smart – here’s a few tips to make your life (and ours) infinitely easier:

1. Be flexible – this late in the game you can’t come expecting to book exactly what you want at the exact date or time that you want it for, being open to what the activity supplier or venue has available means we can lock something in much faster.
2. Have your budget and RSVP list set – before you try to book in somewhere it’s best if you know exactly how many people you have coming and exactly how much money you can spend, it’s very difficult to get anything finalized when you’re still pending your final numbers or waiting on money from people. Having this sorted as early as possible means we have a much better chance of everything going as planned.
3. Be prepared to pay up front – in most cases venues for Christmas parties require full and final payment 1 month out – so if you’re coming in after that cut off date expect that you’ll have to pay out most if not all of the outstanding balance straight away. This point is especially important to take note of if you need to put anything pass accounts first.
4. Don’t confuse the situation – once you’ve taken that first step and locked something in with a booking agent (e.g GoBananas) don’t contact the venue or activity provider direct to sort out this or that, miscommunication is a sure fire way to make sure something goes awry. Trust your party rep to relay all your questions and concerns and you’ll find that come the day your party will be all set and good to go with minimum fuss on your part.
5. Don’t hate the messenger – your party rep will do all they can to try and secure your preferred date, activity or venue, but unfortunately they don’t have control over what’s available. So if they pass on that it’s fully booked please be open to the other fantastic ideas that they’ll offer as alternates – remember – flexibility is key when it comes to last  minute parties.

Take this advice into consideration and you’ll find that getting your party plans sorted quick smart won’t be such a disaster after all. Then you can drink, relax and be merry as all your work mates congratulate you on pulling off such an awesome Xmas do,  and you can be like this guy….

Happy, carefree and ready to GOBANANAS……