I don't think it should be anything too formal, really. I don't think it's ever been implied that it'll be a formal occasion. I imagine that we'll all be standing around with paper plates with legs of chicken and sausage rolls on them, chatting and whatnot.
No Shaunas.
This is a m-effing black tie event. Men must be in suits and the girls must wear dresses and things.
We will have a cocktail hour with a couple of signature drinks that're made with fancy crap like elderberry and jamaica (I have no idea what jamaica is in English. lol- no not the country either) followed by a sit down 5 course meal.
Unless you have a bank account that we can put down to cover it, we can't afford a limitless open bar.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
I think everyone is maybe overestimating how many people will be coming. We don't know what will happen in a year's time. I think planning an event area and open bar and food is going to be ludicrously expensive and risky if people drop out. Find a few activities to do with places nearby for food and then pub in the evening for a couple nights. This doesn't need to be a massive event paid for by anyone in particular. Having some weird ciddies award ceremony will be awkward as hell. Lets just all hang out and get drunk and eat food and party and go on IRC/skype and laugh at those who couldn't make it.
In the other thread almost 50 people have expressed interest in going - yes, people may drop out, but working on the assumption that the full amount of people will actually show up, what exactly do we do with 50 people? Let's travel hundred of miles to all mingle together! loljk we can't because there's not a pub that will be able to deal with such a big number of people randomly showing up on a Saturday night. Instead let's split off into groups and then not actually get to do anything with all the people who've shown up.
The cost of a function suite + a medium buffet won't be anything hugely extravangant (in my experience). xD
But regardless of all the thought experiments - we won't be needing to plan any of this for like a year. So yes we are all getting ahead of ourselves in this thread.
Often? I've never heard of this being done.Originally Posted by Loony BoB
Where have you seen people saying this?
Catering will not be a couple grand for the number we will probably have coming. Even so, with people purchasing dinner tickets, that should cover the cost of it. Room rentals for a couple of hours are not very expensive - the food will be the biggest part of that, and if we can pay for it with the dinner ticket, everything will be fine budget-wise if we are relying on donations.
I think people are hearing "venue" and "hotel" and thinking it will be a red carpet party or something like that... I don't want people to be put off by how formal or otherwise this thing is, but I did intend for it to be a little dressy because I think that's fun, and we have some guys and gals here who look awesome in dresses and suits (not that those would be required or anything). If people don't like the sound of semi-formal, though, then I'm sure we can figure something else out. We're geeks from a Final Fantasy site the age of a high school kid. Something about us getting a little dressed up to have a meal at a hotel and present awards to ourselves seems fun and ridiculous to me.
After doing some thinking about the open bar, it doesn't seem feasible and it seems like it's most fair to let everyone just purchase you own drinks. I think it's unfair to insist for other people to want to pay for that if they have no interest in alcohol. And to say "no cash limit" is ridiculous. Whose credit card would we put it on? Yours?
It isn't full catering and open bar or nothing. Food is generally expected to be provided. Alcohol is not a requirement, and if you want to drink, figure out a way to put some money in your pocket for it.
No matter how informal it ends up being, I'm probably going to have to wear my tux. I need to look classy while giving my Ciddies speech or whatever.
I think you are overestimating how much other people care about what other people are doing or eating or drinking.
Also, remember what I said about bringing your own alcohol - more than likely not an option because places either restrict it or charge you an outrageous fee for it. There is no one in the area with the size of a house to match John Travolta's suites, so we can't just hole up in someone's family room to purchase a bunch of beer and liquor and set up shop there. One way or another, we are going to be paying to drink.
We'll also be in London, so your drink expectations might need to be lowered on that account as well.
I really hope you guys can move past this alcohol thing. This isn't the time or place to get smashed off our asses or to focus on alcohol - if we book a string of hotel rooms, we can all have fun with booze that way, or at happy hour the next day, or literally at any other time when drinking will be cheaper. Pre-game before the event, sneak it in your purse in a flask or a water bottle, dude bring it in with your jackets, I don't care what you do. If you want to drink via the venue wherever we are, you will need to pay for them.
Then you are welcome to engage in any of the suggestions I mentioned or creatively come up with your own! Or just pay for drinks!
It's common practice over here at a lot of places, although probably not all of them (I can only go by my own experience). If you say "I want to book for 50 people" then they will say "No problem. Here are the meals we can provide, pick two options and a vegetarian option." This was how pretty much every wedding meal ended up and it was the same for all the award events I've been to for work up and down the country. The largest group I've been able to get into one area and have everyone order their own thing was the meal you, Rantz and many others had just after you arrived in Edinburgh. Paying for that meal was awkward as hell and we didn't actually end up paying for everything going by the "honour" system, so I think someone ended up having to pay extra... which is a real shame. I wouldn't want this kind of situation to happen at an EoFF meetup.
Still, not every venue will work this way and the best way to get around it is to have a buffet which should cater for everyone but probably won't be anywhere near as "serious" a meal. Pizza, bacon rolls, stuff like that. Which is fine by me.
In this thread. >_> I think people have hinted at it in another thread too but it's not a big deal right now. Still loads of time and to be honest, whenever people say they'll do this they often end up just staying put so long as they have neatly priced drinks and good company. Hopefully it turns out that way.
Depending on the venue, a good "alternative" would be to have pre-purchase a few bottles of wine and/or beer. Loads of venues will do this for you at a set cost and bottles of wine are always cheaper than glasses, so it'll probably work out well that way. Of course, I'm not sure if, given our grouping, wine would be the best choice or not. I know no matter what I'll end up having to pay for all of my drinks because of my specific tastes (ie, not being fond of wine/vodka/gin/beer), but I'm used to this and have no issue with it at all.It isn't full catering and open bar or nothing. Food is generally expected to be provided. Alcohol is not a requirement, and if you want to drink, figure out a way to put some money in your pocket for it.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
It's hard to say how I feel about catering until I actually have a price and know how it's being paid. Is it pre-pay? Each person pays for what they consume or is the bill split evenly? Maybe we should "shop around" and get some actual quotes. This is another reason why I like the take-out idea, calculating the price of pizza or whatever for x amount of people is super easy.
And we don't really need alcohol at the event. We can just go bar hopping later, get our drink on in a hotel room, or skip the alcohol altogether. As others have said before me
Let's just wait a year and go from there. xD
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
Uh, regarding sneaking alcohol in? Be super super careful with that sort of thing. If you get caught we can be expected to pay extra to cover the amount the venue has lost by that alcohol not being bought at the bar, and at worst we may be asked to leave the premises. I would not encourage this sort of behaviour. xD
Seems like everyone has different sorts of ideas for this thing. I think we should determine how fancy or not fancy we want it by posting in the wonder square poll, and that can help determine what food we want.
The event can be fancy. Doesn't mean the catering has to be, and I don't think we should look to anything too fancy food-wise. x}
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