How to Make Boring Business Cocktail Night Less Boring.

My first time. 

They always say that you never forget your first time, especially if you have waited so long to finally know what it feels like. So, when my mentor told me I was going to assist in the Mastering Taxation Cocktail Night, I was thrilled! FINALLY! My first event as a PR intern, I couldn’t wait to put my hands on it and start helping out my mentors. The event was a special one where all the attendees of the past Mastering Taxation sessions would be invited to a small cocktail party, held at Hennessy Park Hotel. With one of my mentors on vacation during that week, I was to help out even more in the preparation of the event as, as I have mentioned in my previous blog post the Marketing and Communication department I was interning in, is composed of only two members.

I’m sure you’ve all have been to at least one business cocktail party (otherwise lucky you!), there’s not much going on during the night, besides what feels like a hundred of ‘Hi, how are you? Please to meet you!’ You obviously find yourself bored after 15 minutes and pretending not to be for the rest of the night,  along with all those people around you feeling pretty much the same way.

In the business world, I have learnt, cocktail nights or other similar events are a duty-bound if you are working for a big, or even small, company. This is overtime work, where you get pay through free drinks and snacks only. Your duty is to do some networking and to promote your company. Obviously, you can’t under any circumstances attend such events without your business cards, otherwise it would be considered as a business faux pas!

So, as a future PR professional how do you leave a good impression on the businessmen and women attending your (not-so-boring) cocktail party? How do you make them tell their colleagues and friends, that your events are different from others and are worth attending? What does it take to entertain 30-50 invitees who would rather be home after work, rather than standing in the freezing weather surrounded by people they don’t know?

Well, here’s your answer: food, drinks, entertainment and a good MC.

They want a well-chosen menu composed of not only good-looking vegetarian and non-vegetarian food but excellent-tasty food, without forgetting to include more than one dessert because some people (like me) melt at the sight of chocolate; around the clock non-alcoholic as well as alcoholic drinks, we all know there’s no good party without a glass of wine!; entertainment and, this is where it gets all tricky and you have to be the most creative (for my event we borrowed a mini golf and a kicking ball game from an event agency, and a fun quiz, both made the night extremely fun and enjoyable said the feedbacks) and not to forget some surprise gifts or souvenirs as no one likes to get back home empty-handed; and last, but most important of all, you need a good MC, one with the right sense of humour and who knows how to encourage people to participate in the activities. I was pretty impressed by how the MC, one of the Senior Tax Managers, was handling the night and the people. I knew that without the right words coming from him and without his enthusiasm, most of the attendees would have left at the first opportunity and would never have embraced the mini-games as they had.

I wish my textbooks would have taught me that sort of things, but then I guess those insights can only be understood when you are on the job, when you get to organise and see the event from an organizer's point of view. And,  you fellow interns, what did your internship teach you than no textbook ever did?

Elizabeth.