> The biggest problem at many parties is an endless escalation of volume. If you know how to fix this, let me know.

If there’s a band: if you’re the host or the person paying, just ask them politely to turn the volume down every ten minutes or however long it takes for the volume to drift up. And it will drift back up, because very few bands are able to keep their hands off the mixer.

For conversational volume, either go outside or use serious acoustic treatment. The latter may be challenging.

I throw a 200+ persons party every year at halloween, and I concur with every points on this list.

I'll add: if you need money but don't want to ask for it upfront, you will need to have someone to ask for it individually to each person mid party.

Just having a box to collect it somewhere, or a sign with a qr code, doesn't work nearly as well.

It's annoying to do, but if your party is good people react surprisingly well to this.

Tip for #21 (increasing noise)

1. Use multiple speakers in different locations. Single speakers tend to be turned louder, people then talk louder...

2. Breaks for toasts / games. If everyone has to listen, the talking noise level resets a bit.

3. No Alcohol. Yeah, this is a game changer. Some people even won't come if they know there is no alcohol and some will go early. The other ones have a better sense for noise.

Over the years I've thrown many parties, from house parties, surprise parties, keggers, to corporate events, concerts and DJ events that are ticketed, underground, invite-only in cities like Hong Kong, Paris, Toronto and Miami and can 100% stand behind every one of these rules. There is an art and a science to hosting good events and this post breaks it down really well.

As an occasional organiser of techno parties point 21) made me gently laugh. After decades of experience I’ve resorted to:

1) get the best quality, ultra high headroom, system money can rent

2) get a high quality monitoring system for the DJs

3) find a venue as remote as I can

4) go turn down the master volume on the main desk every now and then :)

My first instinct here is that "New York Socialite" != "Hacker News Reader" shall we say almost always.

> Once an event crosses a threshold (maybe 70%?) of male-or-female dominance, most people of the other gender are likely to decline (or just not-come to your next party) as a result.

I’m not sure that this one is true. Once, as a single guy, I got invited to a party that turned out to be 80% women, and I would definitely have gone to that guy’s parties again.

I fully agree that most people won't be comfortable if they're the "only" man or woman at the party.

How do you suggest evening genders out? Inviting couples is fine by definition; but I only really know single men. It seems odd for me to randomly invite single women I don't really know.

"Prioritize your ease of being over any other consideration: parties are like babies, if you’re stressed while holding them they’ll get stressed too"

Depends. I stopped throwing big parties, after people enjoyed them too much and I too little, especially the cleanup part.

Sounds like the knee-jerk rules of some socialite circle in a top floor Manhatten apartment.

Please let me have some of your cocaine.