The officially unofficial room party thread!

I might look you up then buddy. I tend to Bring my own booze, but I would love to party with you.

Interesting question for ya all.

Are there room parties w/o alcohol, for those furs that don't drink? Or is it kinda a staple of said parties?

Tiger kitty ready for AC, at your service,
Verdauga

im curious about he no-beer parties too. I want to give furry partying a try, but im underage. It would be nice to know where the parties would be beforehand. ^^

"The pack is everything! I live for my family.."

Room parties are easier to give when one has a mini-suite, an arrangement where the first room is a small parlor, and the beds are in a small room just off of the parlor. But this isn't a necessity.

Many conventions - certainly the SciFi ones, anyway - have an arrangement with the hotel for a "party Floor", where all the merry-making and sampling takes place on one floor. This usually requires a staffer to coordinate with the hotel. Any person or group wishing to give a party contacts the appropriate staffer beforehand, who liaisons with the hotel to get you a room on the "party Floor".

Who throws these room parties? Usually someone representing a group, such as a publisher or printer, or a representative of a society which shares goals with the convention, and wishes to recruit new members. "Bid Parties" are put on by people trying to get support for a regional convention, such as a bid to host a WorldCon or WesterCon or similar, non-fixed event. And of course there are parties put on to publicise, and gain resgistrations for, future conventions already planned, such as FC or MFM or LosCon or BayCon and such.

Almost all of these organised parties are publicised by flyers, posted on prominent bulletin boards and listed in the daily convention news-sheet. People wander in and out of parties, as though they are bar-hopping. Often someone at the door will put a little sticker on your badge, to show that you were actually there, and some folks like to attend every party just to cover their badges with the stickers.

Parties do NOT need alcohol to attract attention, but almost all will have some sort of fingerfood snacks, canapes, chips, swedish meatballs, _small_ styrofoam bowls of chili or cocktail weinies or peeled, chilled shrimp, or slices of Lox and cream cheese with bagels or crackers, or a cheese and meat platter. And there is a tradition of filling the bathtub with cans or bottles of soft-drinks, and then filling the tub with ice. There is a certain art to doing this, in such a way as to keep the drinks chilled, but not needing to empty the ice-machine while doing it. Usually this involves placing the cans or bottles upright, putting a couple of _blocks_ of ice at each end of the tub, and slowlyrunning enough cold water into the tub to cover the cans. You still need a couple of buckets of ice to chill the drinks, but once chilled the blocks will keep the drinks cold all night.

If your party lacks such hospitality as Cheese or Meat Platters, Crackers, hotwings, chili, meatballs et.al., or you can't russle up chilled drinks, soft- or otherwise, usually all can be forgiven, and a party salvaged, with Lots and Lots and Lots and Lots of CHOCOLATE. Any sort of party with adequate supplies of Chocolate is, by definition, a success. Chocolate is Sacred.

Again, this is the model of party where all of them are on the same floor, and people sort of promenade down the hall from party to party, nibbling as they go, perhaps listening to music or a presentation or seeing a video of something.

The other model is individual parties, scattered through the hotel. These are more private, and may consist of folks sprawled around a room and on the beds, looking through sketchbook collections, or adding to them. This was, believe it or not, the genesis for stand-alone furry conventions, these room "furry parties" at Sci-Fi cons. But because they ARE more private, and scattered about, they also had to be more quiet, and less rowdy - and more often than not, "dry". But no less salvageable with enough Chocolate.

Just _don't_ get any food, drink, OR Sacred Chocolate on the sketchbooks!

I just need to slip in a small reminder about Anthrocon's party policy:

1) The party must remain inside the room, and the door must be kept closed. It causes a lot of bother to other guests to have loud partygoers congregating in the hallways.

2) The noise must also remain in the room. This is especially true if you happen to be on the same floor as the chairman.

3) The legal responsibility for what happens at the party lies upon the person whose name is on the hotel registration for that room.

4) If you serve alcohol at the party, you are obliged to check the ID's of everyone present and to ensure that anyone under the age of 21 is not permitted to have alcohol. Anthrocon has both a moral and a legal responsibility to summon the authorities if we find that this rule is not being followed.

In sum: Keep it small, keep it quiet, and don't wake the chairman!

The Unicorn & Gryphon group, headed up by Heavy Horse, Zervon, and Stauros (and of which I am also a member) has a tradition of holding a group party on Friday night and we won't shoo you away if you happen to pop in...though we tend to pack it in pretty well by ourselves. We practice a high moral standard, so no booze...only red-hot ginger beer! We do have other soft drinks for the less adventurous. We also carry-in our own snacks. It never fails to be a good time, and I'm looking forward to it.

For any fur that wants to have alcohol at their party but at the same time be prepared, I thought I'd pass on a couple of suggestions.

- Check I.D.

If the fur looks like he or she is under 25 years of age, ask them for photo I.D. (and I don't mean the Sigmund Frued kind). If they don't have it then just politely advise them that because there is alcohol here, they can't be served and it's the policy of the party that anyone who looks under 25 and doesn't have I.D. can't come in as it's the policy of the room party.

- Monitor your guests

If a guest appears drunk, then politely advise them that they appear drunk and let them know that if they want to keep partying, they can do so but no more booze for them. You don't have to be a jerk or feel like you're being a jerk by telling them they're cut off, just speak to them the same way you'd talk to your friends. You could say something like "Hey man. You're start'n to look pretty smashed. If you wanna keep partying, hey it's cool but you can't be hitting the sauce anymore tonight. It's all good but if you still wanna drink, go check out Kage's room, he's got like five times the booze I got and he's throwing another one of those "No Limit" parties but they won't be ready until 3:30 am, but it's cool if you line up outside his door though until he's ready, that way he'll know just how many furs are going to be there before hand. Oh yeah, you can't knock, you have to howl in order to be let in, that's the only rule I know"

If a guest shows up at your party, and you think they're already drunk, just tell him/her/them that they're looking intoxicated and they can't come in. If they think that's just plain silly, just tell them it's not a personal thing and that hey you'd love it if they came in, but unfortunately it's the room party's policy. If you want to avoid feeling like a jerk, just tell them it's cool if they want to come to the next one but just that tonight there's nothing you can do to help them.

- Monitor your guests II

You can also keep a little jar by the door and some sticky notes for guests to write their name and which room they're staying in. That way if something happens that you weren't expecting involving the guest, you can call down to their room. Some examples just off the top of my head would be if there's a hotel fire and everyone has to evacuate, they just started on some new kind of medication that doesn't mix well with alcohol, or something happens and they go missing etc. you'll be able to tell their friends/hotel/con staff that they were at your party, or that they are at your party incase someone's looking for them.

- Provide non alcohol alternatives and munchies

I think this was brought up in an earlier post but yeah. Keep in mind that since you'll have alcohol at your party, munchies and non alcohol alternatives should be provided too. Just 'cause there's alcohol there, doesn't mean everyone's gonna want to get their drunk on, or even drink; so pop (being from Canada, I refuse to call it soda ) and munchies should be a must, not to mention not everyone drinks straight, so it's good to have mixers too for the ones that don't.

- Suggestion to party attendees/guests

It's a good idea to keep in mind that when you go to a party, there will most likely be some rules that the people hosting the party will want everyone to abide by. So just remember that if you're asked by the hosts to do/not do something, or told to do/not do something, then be polite about it. Just think of it as if you were going to someone's house. There are going to be rules and ways to conduct yourself in that person's house, so if you break or infringe on them, the owner will tell you and react accordingly.

Always remember that if you aren't having a good time, your two best friends are A) other parties in the hotel going on at the same time and B) whichever blog of choice you use.

Hmm... that's all I can think of for now. And no... Kage doesn't have "No Limit" parties, so I suggest not bugging the head chair of the con at 3:30 a.m.

See you all at AC!

- Dobe