Throwing a cool Roaring ’20s New Year’s Eve Party takes a little planning, but is easy to do. Success is all in the small details. Serve easy-to-prepare finger foods to leave your time and finance budgets available for those details. Whether it is in your home or a rented location, you’ll want to make sure the party location has the look and feel of the 1920s.
To create the most authentic experience for your guests, turn your home into a speakeasy. Open up a small area for dancing, and if you can afford to hire a jazz or swing band, put them over into one corner of the dance floor. The rest of the place should be close, cozy and intimate. Speakeasys were hideaways and generally small and cramped. Use low lighting to give the place a nightclub feel.
Use card tables and cover them with white cloth. The use of candles on all the tables and throughout the place will be all the lighting you need for this party. A cool idea would be to use strands of pearls as your napkin rings. You can “reserve” a few tables for infamous individuals such as Capone and Luciano.
Replace all the photos in your home with Art Deco images and either leave them in their normal spot, or scatter them around the room.
Fill metal tubs with ice and drinks such as beer and ginger ale. To keep things authentic speakeasy, serve alcohol and soft drinks in paper coffee cups. Not the Styrofoam cups, but the cardboard coffee cups.
When your guests come in, have them give “the password” through the peephole at your front door in order to enter the party. You can send the password with the party invitation. Not only offer a coat check with receipt, but also a gun check. As guests arrive, take their photos with an instant Polaroid camera.
Have a few metal tubs near the front door so your guest can pick up their party accessories before joining in the fun. Have things like feather boas, gangster hats, long pearl necklaces and sequin headbands.
When choosing colors for balloons, napkins and other party supplies, only use black, white and silver.
After a traditional New Years moment, with the noisemakers and kissing, have a midnight showing of a silent film you rented just for this occasion.
Online Party Supply Resources:
Music:
Roaring Twenties Music CDs, all under $20 and ships within 24 hours: HERE
Dancing:
How to do the Charleston: HERE
Game Ideas:
Downloadable games: HERE
Costumes & Accessories:
Annie’s Costumes: HERE
Annie’s has cigarette girls, flappers, zoot suits, bonnie & clyde and Mae West, as well as, costume accessories.
Anytime Costumes: HERE
They have some very cool accessories such as tommy guns, long cigarette holders and money clips.
Makes Parties: HERE
This party supply company has flapper and gangster costumes.
Party Theme Shop: HERE
This is another party supply company that carries flapper and gangster costumes.
Party Supplies & Decorations:
New Years Favors: HERE
They have a pack of 50 feathered tiaras for $39.50.
Makes Parties: HERE
They carry all the basics such as sequin headbands, gangster hats, feather boas and long pearl necklaces.
Party Theme Shop: HERE
This shop has all the basics as well as blow up band instruments and music CDs.
All Posters : HERE
Decorate with Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Jazz and other related posters.
Stumps Prom and Party: HERE
If you can afford to spend a little bit more on decor, this is a very cool place to look. Stumps has 1920s era lampposts, fringe chandeliers, murals, cardboard standing figures, mylar balloons and they also offer a custom printed 1920s banner. The banner’s production time is five business days, so you need to take that into consideration when placing an order just before the holidays.
