Last year, Splash threw a party centered around our favorite part of Halloween—candy. Not only was it one of the most fun parties we’ve organized, it produced an everlasting gobstopper that lived on past the event: Awesome party mixtapes.
Here's how the event came to be, and why you should steal my mixtape idea for your next event:
Halloween in New York is a hurricane of activity. And for the hoards that aren’t delighted by dressing up, all the wigs and wings can be really irritating. But the one element of Halloween that is awesome across the board is easily the sweets.
So, our idea was to throw a party where candy was the focal point. No one was going to show up in costume anyway, and with this idea, no one was expected to. I wanted shift the spotlight to something universally loved.
We called it “F@%! costumes. Straight candy.”
What better place to throw a candy party than a candy store? It’s Sugar agreed to house the event and we couldn’t have found a better venue. The walls were lined with every candy imaginable—from giant swirly lollipops to oversized boxes of Nerds—and we struck a deal with the “scoop your own” section so that guests could curate a box of their favorite sweets as a souvenir.
We built a Splash step-and-repeat, branded the candy boxes, and (of course) brought in a bar to serve candy-inspired drinks, too.
Some might just see this as a candy shop. Splash saw it as a kick-ass Halloween party venue. | Image source: It's Candy
We had the idea for the everlasting mixtapes immediately, but we needed to find the right DJs to help our idea come to life. The final lineup included Noumenon and Tim Martell, Brendan Fallis, Penguin Prison, and Plastic Plates. Two of the DJs were amazing musical artists that we already knew of, and we filled the other two spots with super-talented stars from social media.
We had each artist prep the material ahead of time so that playlists could be approved prior to signing the contracts with the DJs. This small (but crucial!) step ensured the music could be appropriately shared post-event.
We created a simple Splash page that housed all the important information, including the lineup of DJS, and got to work curating our guest list. We extended the invitation far and wide because, generally speaking, the attendees were mostly eye candy. (See what I did there?)
The important goal of the event was to pack the house, put on a fun show, and create content that could live well beyond the party.
We asked each DJ to choose a candy that represented them and named each of their mixes respectively. We set up a video system that not only recorded each set, but live-streamed the whole show.
Afterwards, the DJs could easily share their Soundcloud links or the videos across their networks. And thus, we created a super-unique series of interesting and useable content that extends the story of Splash to a whole new community of users. Feel free to play these mixtapes or show these videos at your own Halloween parties. That's what we made 'em for.
As with any piece of swag our party souvenir, the goal is for passersby to say, “Hey where’d you get that?”
For our recent event called Barks & Baristas, our eye-catching piece of swag was a mug. For our Lunar Kaleidoscope event at South by Southwest 2015, it was holograms.
But our favorite souvenir are our mixtapes. They've lived on well past the lifecycle of our party and by doing so, it continues to broadcast the Splash platform to new users everyday.
What’s your everlasting gobstopper of a party idea?
Ben Hindman is co-founder and CEO of Splash, the country's fastest-growing event marketing platform that helps businesses and brands more effectively market through their events. An event planner turned tech entrepreneur, events are in Ben’s DNA. Prior to starting Splash, Ben was the Director of Events at Thrillist, where he produced large-scale events from concerts to mystery fly-aways. He also co-founded the invite-only Summit Series, a premier event which attracts the world's leading entrepreneurs. Before that, Ben founded and sold DC By Foot, DC's only free walking tour company. In another life, Ben goes by Benny Beatbox, and has performed at the White House and on stage with Naughty by Nature – but not at the same time.