Ideas for a Company Christmas Party People Will Actually Attend

Ideas for a Company Christmas Party People Will Actually Attend

It's late October and the invitation has just landed in your colleague's inbox.

Watch what happens in the next four seconds. He opens it. Date, venue, the words festive celebration. He pictures himself standing in a room holding a drink, having the same conversation about Christmas plans eleven times in a row, working out when it's acceptable to leave.

Then he pictures Thursday at home.

He doesn't reply. He isn't annoyed, he doesn't dislike anybody, he just quietly decides and moves on to the next email. Multiply him by forty and that's your RSVP problem.

I'm Magical Katrina, an award winning magician and mentalist, and I've performed at a lot of parties where the organiser was quietly disappointed by the numbers. The good news is that the best ideas for company Christmas party attendance have almost nothing to do with persuasion. There's also one particular guest I look for every single time, and I'll come back to him at the end, because he's the whole answer.

Nobody Is Refusing Your Party

Here's the diagnosis, and most organisers get it wrong.

Low attendance is almost never a verdict on your company. The people declining aren't disappointed in you. They're running a comparison between an evening of unstructured socialising with colleagues and an evening at home in December, and for plenty of them home simply wins.

That changes everything about your approach. You're not persuading critics, you're competing with a genuinely attractive alternative, and all the useful ideas for company Christmas party planning start from there. Nobody ever attended an event because the third reminder email said it would be great.

So every idea below is aimed at the trade rather than at the argument. Make the evening worth more than the sofa and the replies look after themselves.

It's the Standing Around They're Avoiding

Let me be specific about what's actually putting people off, because it's narrower than you'd think.

Think about the quietest person on your team. For her, three hours of open ended mingling isn't relaxing. It's work, and the tiring kind. She has to find a group, join it without interrupting, hold up her end, and then do the whole thing again when it breaks up. She knows precisely how that will feel before she replies, which is why she doesn't.

Now give the evening a shape. Something happens, everybody watches the same thing, and for a few minutes nobody has to generate anything at all. The people who most dread your party are the exact people that helps most, and that's the single most useful principle behind good ideas for company Christmas party turnout.

Your Invitation Is Doing Nothing

This is the cheapest fix available and almost everyone wastes it.

Read your last invitation again. Date, venue, festive celebration, please RSVP. What is anybody meant to picture? They default to last year, and if last year was a room and a bar, that's what they're declining.

Now imagine it said: drinks from five, food at six, and a magician working the room from half past. Same party. Completely different decision, because now there's something to picture. If you've booked something good, the invitation is where that becomes attendance, and among all the ideas for company Christmas party planning this is the one that costs nothing and takes ten minutes.

Start Straight After Work and Say When It Ends

Picture the colleague who lives forty minutes out.

A seven o'clock start means going home, changing, and coming back into town. She's lost before she's decided anything. A five o'clock start means she's already here, and the whole thing just happens.

Then tell people when it finishes. Nine, say so in the invitation, and hold to it. People who want to carry on can carry on, and the person who wanted to show her face has done exactly that without giving up her evening. A stated finish time does more for your RSVPs than any amount of encouragement, and it's one of the few ideas for company Christmas party attendance that works instantly.

Decide the Partners Question, Then Say So

This cuts both ways and there's no universal answer.

For your colleague with somebody at home, a party he can bring her to turns an obligation into a night out, and that group's attendance rises noticeably. For somebody else, partners make the whole thing more formal and less fun.

What matters is deciding deliberately rather than by default, and putting it plainly on the invitation so nobody has to ask the awkward question. Ambiguity costs you people who assume the answer is no, which makes this one of the quietest ideas for company Christmas party attendance on the list.

The Date Matters More Than Anything You Add

If attendance is your main worry, this is where to spend your effort, and it's free.

Everybody's December fills up with other parties, school nativities, family commitments and their partner's work do. The second and third weeks are the most contested fortnight of the year, and you're competing with all of it.

Move to the first week, or any weekday, and you're competing with almost nothing. Of all the ideas for company Christmas party turnout I could give you, changing the date is the one with the biggest effect and the smallest price tag.

Go and Ask Last Year's Absentees

Hardly anybody does this and it works beautifully.

The people who skipped last year have a reason, it's usually practical and unglamorous, and they'll tell you if you ask privately. Childcare. The start time. The venue being across town. An activity they really didn't want to be made to do.

Every one of those is fixable, and fixing one recovers a group rather than a person. Three quiet conversations in October are worth more than four reminder emails in December, and they'll hand you better ideas for company Christmas party planning than any article will, including this one.

Please Don't Make It a Loyalty Test

I'd rather say this plainly, because I've seen the effect.

Tracking who came, mentioning absences afterwards, or hinting that turning up is part of being a good colleague will get you attendance and resentment in the same package. The person who came because they felt obliged isn't enjoying themselves and isn't improving anybody else's evening either.

Make it genuinely optional, make it worth coming to, and accept that some people will always decline for reasons entirely their own. That's not a failure. The best ideas for company Christmas party planning assume people are adults.

Why Book Me

I'm a member of the Magic Circle in London and the Academy of Magical Arts in Hollywood, I've won multiple magic awards, and I've performed for Formula 1, the Olympics, Porsche, Prada, Zapier and the Ritz Carlton, with appearances on Penn & Teller: Fool Us and Masters of Illusion.

What matters for your attendance problem: as one of the ideas for company Christmas party turnout you're weighing up, I give you something specific to name in the invitation, which is where the decision actually happens. Nobody has to participate or perform to enjoy it, which protects the people who were dreading it. I need no stage, power or sound, so your office or venue works exactly as it is. And I finish when you said you'd finish.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is attendance falling?

Rarely because of your company. People are weighing unstructured socialising against an evening at home in December, and home often wins without any hostility involved, so you're competing rather than persuading.

What exactly puts people off?

The standing around. Three hours of open ended mingling is tiring work for plenty of colleagues, and they know how it will feel before they reply, whereas an evening with a shape asks far less of them.

What's the quickest thing I can change?

The invitation. Most say date, venue and festive celebration, which lets people assume it's last year again. Naming something specific is the highest return of all the ideas for company Christmas party fixes because people decide on what they can picture.

Does the start time really matter?

Considerably. Seven o'clock means going home and coming back out, which loses people before they decide, while straight after work with a stated nine o'clock finish is a much easier yes.

Should we invite partners?

Decide deliberately and say so clearly on the invitation. It turns an obligation into a night out for some colleagues and makes the evening more formal for others, so the answer is less important than the clarity.

How much does the date affect it?

More than anything you could add to the evening. The second and third weeks of December compete with everything, the first week and weekdays compete with almost nothing, and moving it costs you nothing at all.

How do I find out the real reasons?

Ask last year's absentees privately. It's usually childcare, the start time or the venue, all fixable, and three conversations in October beat four reminders in December.

Should we track attendance?

No. It produces turnout and resentment together, and among the ideas for company Christmas party planning that quietly backfire, this is the most common one.

The Guest I Watch For

So, the one I promised you.

At every party there's somebody standing slightly apart near the door. Arms folded, drink held like a prop, came because it would have been noticed if he hadn't, and has already worked out his exit.

I don't go to him first. I work the group next to him, close enough that he can see, far enough that nothing is being asked of him. He watches. He edges half a step closer. Then something happens that he genuinely cannot account for, and his arms come down.

Twenty minutes later he's the one dragging somebody over by the elbow saying you have to see this. Every one of the ideas for company Christmas party attendance above exists to produce that single moment.

That's the whole thing. He didn't need persuading, a reminder email, or a rousing word about team spirit. He needed the evening to be worth the trade, and once it was, he stopped being your attendance problem and started being your best advert for next year.

The most effective ideas for company Christmas party attendance are all aimed at him: move the date, start early and finish on time, settle the partners question, say what's actually happening, and ask the people who stayed away what would have changed their minds.

Get that right and next year's replies come back faster. He'll tell them.