Hosting 101: The Picnic

how to host a picnic

So you want to start hosting: I recommend starting with a picnic!

I’m going to assume you either have people you want to invite or access to a community you want to engage.

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How to host a picnic

1. Planning (2-3 weeks out)

   1. I recommend hosting with at least one co-host/friend. You don’t have to, but it makes things a lot easier from the get go. Text friend “hey do you want to host a picnic end of month”.

   2. Try to get at least 1.5 weeks ahead. If you don’t let people know until the week of they will often be busy.

   3. Decide on time duration— typically 3-4 hours is plenty for a picnic, 2-5pm or so.

   4. Decide on location

      1. Check out a park or get a recommendation

      2. Check for easy parking and bathrooms

2. Outreach (1.5 weeks out)

   1. Ideally you have a core group of 3-5 friends who know each other and will bring cohesion & social lubrication to your picnic. You can message these friends individually and make sure they’re down before you spread the word to a larger audience. Once you have your core group, even if no one else shows up, you know you will have a good time.

   2. Make an invitation— this can be a twitter post, partiful, luma, email, or whatever form you want it to take.

      1. Twitter post example

         

      2. Partiful example

         

   3. Ideally people know at least 2-3 other people at the picnic besides you. This will massively help with mingling. This doesn’t apply if the people you are inviting are highly extroverted/socially skilled.

   4. If you did a twitter post, you could make a group chat to easily text everyone at once, but I often don’t do this (I just respond in the twitter thread instead). Partiful also takes care of this as a part of their event platform.

   5. You can specify in your post if you want people to bring their own drinks, snacks, blankets, etc, or if you are providing everything. Usually I say I’m bringing some food/snacks but more is welcome.

3. Set Up (Days before/day of)

   1. Check on weather

   2. Grab picnic blankets

   3. Grab any other fun activity things— watercolor/drawing materials, frisbee, chess, etc

   4. Stop by grocery to buy snacks and drinks

      1. Drinks are especially great at events to help people feel more welcome and relaxed. I usually get some sparkling water, kombucha/ciders, and beers.

   5. Drive to park and set up blanket ~30min before.

   6. Take a picture of your blanket set up and send it in your event chat/twitter thread. Try to get some easily identifiable landmark in the pic. You can add GPS coordinates if you are in a particularly large or confusing park.

4. During the event

   1. Ideally your co-host and core friends show up first to get the picnic going. Open the snacks and drinks.

   2. Chat with people as they show up, offer them a drink, and introduce them to other people.

5. Transition

   1. Usually near the end of the event there is transition moment where things start winding down. You need to decide if you want to keep hanging out somewhere else or go home. You or your cohost can let everyone know to either head to a second location/bar/restaurant, or thanks for coming by and they’re welcome to keep hanging out but you guys are heading out.

      1. If you decide on a bar/second location: Consider a bar that can handle large groups. Ideally there are other locations nearby so people can split off if needed.

      2. Some of my friends are great at loudly announcing this transition to the entire group, but I tend to go from group to group to let them know.

6. After event

   1. Clean up trash, snack wrappers, etc. People are usually very willing to help.

   2. Thank everyone for coming out & post any final notes about lost items/logistics.

That’s about it! Besides picnics, some other easy ways to host include getting drinks/office hours at a local pub, getting a group dinner, or organizing a book club.

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you have any questions/suggestions/feedback.