A guide to arranging New Year's Eve events or parties

We all know planning a party can be stressful, never mind a new year party that seems to have such expectation attached to it, and especially at this point of the year when Christmas is a busy time of year anyway. So if you find yourself hosting or organising a party for New Year’s Eve then we have a handy checklist to make sure the celebrations run smoothly … you never know, you might get to enjoy the party too! 

New Year’s Eve Party Ideas

Start at the beginning, choose an idea or theme to work around and then everything else should fall into place from there. Your food, drinks and decoration ideas will all begin to flood in once you have decided on your theme. If not, Google is always a good alternative to get the creative juices flowing. 

When you think of New Year you think of fireworks, glitter and glamour but you can pick any theme to suit you. Some of the more common ideas are:

• Masquerade 
• All that Glitters 
• Champagne and Canapes 

I know what you are thinking, all these ideas sound very expensive, which brings me to my next point …

How to plan a New Year’s eve Party 

Set your Budget - and stick to it! 

There is so much to think about when planning a new year party that cost can easily run away with you and, before you realise, it is going to be a hell of an expense to make sure everyone has a good time. If things seem to be getting too much, why not ask your friends and family to chip in and contribute? You should know by now that we can help you with that! It can be difficult to get your friends to pay you what they owe sometimes … Collctiv makes collecting money quicker and easier so they have no excuse!  

Collctiv makes it easy to collect money from friends whilst also making it as simple as possible for them to pay in. Simply download the app for free here, create a ‘pot’ for your New Year extravaganza and there you have it - your own unique payment link and QR code.

Share the payment link however you would normally communicate with your friends and family - Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, text, email - and with just a tap, they can contribute to the party. They don’t need to download the app, create an account or validate an email – they simply tap to pay - and done! AND if they have Apple or Google Pay it takes less than 5 seconds!

The most likely things you will need to have a think and budget for are:

• Food
• Venue
• Decorations
• Drinks
• Accommodation

 But if the thought is now filling you with dread, there are plenty of ‘cheap and cheerful’ ideas that can be budget friendly. How about a cheese and wine party where everyone brings their favourite cheese and wine for everyone else to try? You could rate or score each one to bring a little bit of competitiveness to the evening. Or maybe a midnight feast, each guest brings their favourite snack so you can ring in the near year with a grazing board that everyone has contributed to. 

Think about your venue 

Setting your budget will help you decide on your venue - are you going all out or reining in and hosting at home? There are good and bad points to both but perhaps your theme lends itself better to a blank canvas with room for a large dancefloor or maybe your own kitchen or living room will do the trick and keep unnecessary hiring costs down? It’s up to you and your budget.

Decide on your guestlist 

Your venue size will then mean you can decide on who are the lucky ones who get an invite to bring in the new year with you! If the venue is bigger you will want to fill it but if you are hosting at home, you won’t want hundreds of people crammed into your kitchen! If you are asking your guests to contribute then a pro organiser tip is to create your Collctiv pot and send out the link with the invite … thank us later! 

Music and Entertainment 

Don’t forget that you will need to keep your guests entertained - a good music playlist at the very least will help to set the atmosphere that you are trying to create! Think back to your theme for ideas but remember your budget .. that should keep you from getting carried away! 

Last minute prep 

Now you have everything in place to bring in the New Year you can get yourself ready, prepare the food and wait for your guests to arrive! Get your shopping list together and prepare everything you can ahead of time to ensure you can enjoy your party and mingle with your guests as much as possible - after all, you want to see your hard work pay off and enjoy New Year’s eve too! 

New Years Eve Party Decorations 

No matter where you are hosting your new years eve party you will want to add some decorations to accentuate your theme. Decorating for your party is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the party planning process and gets you in the celebratory mood before the event itself as you can see everything coming together. You might even be able to join forces with some of your guests a day or two before to give you one less thing to do on the day. 

New Year’s Eve Events

I hear you - you just don’t want the hassle this year so you are going to book an organised New Year event instead so that someone else can have all of the worries and work to do! Oh, but hang on, you are still responsible for researching the event and booking the tickets, sorting what time it starts and finishes and how your group will get there and back. Oh, and there’s the deposit…..and the final balance…..ARRRRRRGGGHHHH there’s no escaping the pitfalls as an organiser is there?! 

Well, I’m pleased to tell you that there actually is….

How to collect the deposits for a NYE Event 

New Year’s Eve is a global party. Everyone is off work for a few days, most people have been paid, everyone wants to post something on social media about how amazing their NYE is/was, a new year is upon us. Hope springs eternal and resolutions rule. The long and short of it is that demand is high. Really high! So get in early and get your bookings made. 

This poses something of a hurdle to overcome though - deposits, especially New Year’s Eve deposits require cold hard cash. They are often a sizeable chunk of the total amount because venues know that you have to book a long time in advance and so no-show and cancellation rates are very high.

Likewise for you as the organiser, trying to get commitment - and by commitment I mean money - out of people 2-3 months in advance is hard. This is exacerbated if it’s straight up difficult to pay. Bank transfers, getting actual cash, PayPal if they aren’t a PayPal user or bill splitting features on banking apps if they bank somewhere else other than you all require considerable effort from the person who is due to pay. 

Add to that the fact that most people at this early stage hedge bets….they hang fire so that they ideally have all options before them before committing to one. The only moment you have actual commitment is when they pay, and with all that we’ve said before at the forefront of our minds, let me introduce Collctiv as they way of getting this money.

Simply download the app, create a pool, share the link or QR code via any medium and your friends can pay in within 10 seconds. No app download needed, no account creation, no banking. Just tap to pay and it’s done. You see who has paid, when they’ve paid and the all-important overall amount so you know exactly when the deposit or final balance is reached. 

You can then use it again for the final balance (if the deposit wasn’t already it!) and if let-down Lenny chooses to cancel and you are feeling generous, you can get a refund to them super easily through the app. 

So, that’s the money side sorted, now let’s profile the top 5 events that might take your fancy….

Top NYE Events 

Edinburgh Hogmanay - Concert in the Gardens

Viennese Christmas Spectacular - St. George’s Hall, Liverpool 

The Whole Hogmanay V - Wylam Brewery, Newcastle upon Tyne 

New Year’s Eve at the Warehouse Project - Manchester, Mayfield Depot 

Cafe Mambo Ibiza Classics New Year's Eve - McQueen, London 

New Year’s Eve Comedy Special - The Hifi Club, Leeds

Seb Fontaine’s New Year’s Eve Boat Party - on the Thames, London

The Great Gatsby Soiree - The Grand Hall, Cardiff 

New Year’s Eve Ball - Coombe Abbey 

Theatre Impossible - Impossible, Manchester

Organisers bring people together

Since 2019 Collctiv has helped over 1 million people from 140 countries come together by making it simple for Organisers to collect money from groups. Whether it's wedding collections, group holidays or grassroots sports teams - download our free app today and start bringing people together!

Happy New Year from all of us at Collctiv!