Scared to throw your first party because you have no idea how many people will actually show up... Everybody feels that. Every single person who has ever thrown a great event started right there. So you are in good company. Here is the part nobody tells you. You are not supposed to fill that room alone. Guess what, I have never filled one alone in 22 years. Nail your first party and you set yourself up for every one after it. Here is exactly how I would do it. Step 1. Never fill it alone. Start with your right few. Do not CALL the whole city. CALL the handful of friends who are close to you, who know you, and who actually love partying with you. That last part matters more than you think. Those first few people set the energy and the standard for everyone who walks in after them. So pick them on purpose, not by accident. Then let them do the heavy lifting….. Each one brings their own friends, a whole group you do not have access to yourself. That is how a real friends of friends room gets built. …YOU…, YOU, just have to get really good at staying in touch with them and “keeping them excited” AND informed about your upcoming party…right… Step 2. Give them a real reason to show up. Announce it as your first one and own it. Something like, hey, I am starting to throw events and this one is going to be fun, friends of friends only. People love being early to something. Then hit them with the hook. Tell them exactly why they should be excited... The DJ. The venue. The food. The theme. Maybe a salsa or bachata class before the music kicks in if that is your crowd. Make it something they would feel dumb missing. And make sure the hook fits your people, not just any people….tell them about some Drink Specials that a Sponsor of yours is providing…for the Early Birds, only… that will want them to get there early…. Capich ;-) Keep the room right sized while you are at it. Start with one room you can pack. 100 people in a space that holds 120 feels electric. 100 people in a space that holds 500 feels like a funeral.

You know that friend who walks into a room and immediately introduces 3 people to each other? That’s someone I’d want at my party. Not just because they know people. Because they make other people feel included. After 22+ years throwing social events, I’ve learned that building a great crowd isn’t simply about collecting names. It’s about bringing together people who add something. The friend who welcomes newcomers. The person who gets on the dance floor early. The one who brings 4 good friends and makes sure they meet everyone else. That’s how friends-of-friends promotion becomes more than asking people to share a flyer. Start with a few people who genuinely fit the event. Tell them why you thought of them, and ask who they’d enjoy bringing. Be personal. “Who would love this?” is a much better question than “Can you send this to everyone?” You’re not trying to reach everybody. You’re trying to bring the right people together. Want to turn your social circle into the starting point for a paid event? Book a 15-minute discovery call: https://tidycal.com/alfmarcussen/party-promoter-discovery-call

“Sounds amazing!” “I’m definitely in!” “I’ll bring some friends!”... Great. But none of those pays the venue.....right? One of the easiest mistakes when throwing your first paid party is confusing enthusiasm with commitment. People can genuinely love your idea and still forget to buy a ticket. Before you commit to big expenses, give people a clear way to book. A date, a venue, a price, and a reason to come...right? Then pay attention to what happens. If people are buying, you’ve got something to build on. If they’re only complimenting the idea, find out what’s stopping them. Is the date awkward? Is the event unclear? Have you made buying a ticket harder than it needs to be? Don’t take a quiet response personally. Use it! And don’t promise a venue 200 people because 20 friends said, “We should do something sometime.” Start with a room you can realistically fill. A packed smaller party beats an empty big one. Want to talk through your first event? ....and HOW you can actually KNOW that you will pack it.... That is what I use my 22+ years of experience in packing places and making sure they were at capacity or over many times, and the energy was flying off the hook. Book a 15-minute discovery call: https://tidycal.com/alfmarcussen/party-promoter-discovery-call

Here's something strange about your life that you've probably never noticed. The skill that pays your rent is a skill you're pretty good at. The skill you're GREAT at, world-class at, the one people would follow you into any room for.... pays you nothing. Let that sink in. At your job you're competent. Reliable. Fine. There are a hundred people who could do your role. But getting people together? Turning a random Tuesday into the night everyone talks about for months? Walking into a room and making strangers feel like old friends? Almost nobody can do that. You do it without trying. And it's the one talent you refuse to charge for. I've seen this over and over in 22 plus years. People chase money in the thing they're average at, and give away for free the thing they're a natural at. Completely backwards. Here's why it happens. The day job feels like "real work" because it's hard for you. The people thing feels like cheating because it's EASY for you. But easy for you is exactly the point. That's the definition of a rare skill. Hard for everyone else, easy for you. The market doesn't pay for effort. It pays for RESULTS other people can't get on their own. And a packed room full of the right people, buzzing, connecting, coming back.... that is a result 99 percent of people cannot produce. You can. In your sleep. I built a 20,000 person community in San Francisco from zero. No internet in the beginning. No ads. Just the right people and the willingness to keep making the plan. None of it came from a spreadsheet. It came from the exact skill you're sitting on right now and calling "just being social." So here's your move, and it's smaller than you think. Take the thing you're best at in the world. Put ONE real price on it. One event. One wristband. One paid night. Stop letting the thing you're best at be the only thing you do for free. Question for the group: what's the skill people always come to YOU for.... and have you ever once let them pay for it?

Most organizers spend all their energy chasing. Chasing attention. Chasing numbers. Chasing people to please come to their thing. I did it too, early on. It is exhausting and it does not work. Then I flipped it. Here is the shift. You do not chase the bacteria around trying to catch it. You build the environment it wants to live in, and it comes to you. It grows right where you set the conditions. People are the same. Build the kind of room people actually want to be in, and you stop chasing. They start coming. And not just coming... bringing their friends, telling other people, asking you when the next one is. The sign you got it right is when OTHER people start telling YOU about your own party. That has happened to me. The whole town talking about a night I threw, to the point where other promoters stayed off my date because they did not want to compete. I was not chasing anybody by then. The environment was pulling people in on its own. So how do you build a place people chase instead of chasing them? You start with the right 20. You take care of them. You make your room the one place in town where the right people are, where they feel welcome, where they feel connected. You make it about THEM, not about you filling a room. Get that right and the whole thing reverses. You go from begging people to show up... to being the person everybody wants an invite from. One of those is a grind. The other one is a business. The full method for building that pull is inside the program. Come get it at skool.com/party/about