I’ve taken part in outdoor Halloween decorating nearly as long as I’ve been alive, but it’s only over the last five years or so that I’ve been having Halloween parties with friends and family. Every year, it gets a little more elaborate, and I’ve learned a lot about what to do (and what not to do) along the way. Here are my tips and tricks for your upcoming Halloween party:
Pick a Theme
No matter what your budget is, pick a theme for your party, even if it’s only loosely followed. This will help with your playlist, food, and drinks. It can also be a great way to help invited guests pick a costume. As an added bonus, send out invites that match your theme to get your guests into the spirit of your party ahead of time. There are countless themes to choose from, but here are a few of my favorite ideas to help get you started:
Select Your Playlist
Music is essential to a successful party. Play something too slow, and you risk placing a sleep spell on your guests. Play something too loud, and no one can hear each other... even if they scream. Looking up Halloween party suggestions on music streaming services like Pandora or Spotify can provide hours of songs that are perfect for the haunting season, but here are a few standbys that I enjoy around this time of year:
Themed Food & Drinks
A great way to tie your theme together is to have matching food and drinks. If it’s a mad scientist’s laboratory, make eyeball cookies and serve drinks in lab beakers. If you're hosting a Scooby-Doo-themed gathering, then, like, zoinks, you'll want to make sure you have plenty of Scooby Snacks on hand. Great examples of Halloween food and drinks have already been covered by Heather, so make sure to check them out at:
Props
Whether you have fake limbs strewn about your living room or cobwebs in your kitchen large enough to suit Shelob from The Lord of the Rings, it's really important for your indoor props and decorations to match your party's theme. What your guests initially see when they first walk through your doorway will set the tone for the rest of their night.
So, if you're going for the gore factor, gross them out with buckets of blood and fake body parts. Or, if you want to take a more lighthearted approach, get festive with less graphic yet equally effective skeletons, witch cauldrons, or even fog machines around indoor animatronics (just be careful not to obscure steps to avoid starting a real murder mystery party with your friends). Whatever types of props you decide to use, have fun with them and make sure that you still leave enough lounging room for your guests to be comfortable throughout the night. After all, you don't want them elbowing for space with a horde of zombie statues.
Lighting
The key to transforming your entire home or apartment into a location straight out of a horror movie is to not use ANY of your standard lighting colors. Unless you have smart lights, turn off or swap out all of your white lights. The extra effort will go a long way towards turning your familiar living area into something unrecognizable (and hopefully scary) to your guests.
Begin by setting the mood for your Halloween party. Ambient light is the key, so start looking for places that you can set up lights where the guests can’t see the source. The less equipment they see, the more open their imaginations will be. With so many available lighting choices, it can be difficult to decide where to begin, but Philips provided us with products from their Hue line to test out, and I was very pleased with the results:
Hue Go: If you're looking for a light that can be placed in almost any nightmarish nook and creepy cranny in your home, then you can't go wrong with the Philips Hue Go. While it does come with a cord (and features up to 16 million color variations when it is plugged in), the Hue Go can be detached from its plug to become a portable part of your indoor hauntings. Its rechargeable battery allows it to survive cord-free for up to three hours, and you can choose from seven different light effects to fit the unique personality of your spooky confines. The most impressive feature of the Hue Go, though, is that it can be utilized through a Hue app on your smartphone or tablet. If you're sneaky enough, it will look like the lighting of your Halloween party is being altered through supernatural intervention, immersing your guests in an atmospheric haunted house vibe.
Hue Lightstrip Plus: Perfect for outlining pre-existing structures or spooky decoration additions in your home, the Hue Lightstrip Plus features enhanced flexibility that allows you to snake it through your home to add that extra eerie touch to your layout. Use the lightstrips to draw your guests' eyes to specific attractions that you want to highlight. Think of the lightstrips as key tools to terrify and thrill during your festivities. The Lightstrip Plus can also serve an important practical purpose when it is laid out to show where steps and other obstacles might be lurking within your party. And, like the Hue Go, the Hue Lightstrip Plus can also be controlled on your smartphone or tablet.
While the Hue Go and Hue Lightstrip Plus are programmable on your phone from the Hue app, there are also quite a few other great apps that can take it to another level:
In areas where you won’t necessarily have the party, such as the second floor or the basement, you can set your lights to flicker or strobe to provide a great accent that will compliment the creepy aesthetics on the main floor. And if you want to add some festive flavors to your strategically placed ambient lights, add plug-in pumpkins or small light-up Halloween props as additional eerie accents.
If you’re planning for more of a dance or karaoke party vibe, I’d suggest swapping out all of your lights for smart lights that are tied to a music visualizer. Taking advantage of this type of technology can make it feel like your house has a living, breathing personality akin to the cabin from Evil Dead II. Here’s an example of what you can do when you have this third-party Hue app running in conjunction with your Halloween music:
Lastly, here's a look at lighting tests we set up with the Philips Hue system, showing off the Hue Go, Lightstrip Plus, and the White and Color Ambiance Starter Kit. Note: the Hue Bridge is needed to interface with various lights from their product line, so you couldn't run the Hue Go without the Starter Kit, for example.
Things To Do
I’ve learned the hard way... the larger the party, the less you’ll be able to just sit there and watch movies, even if that’s a great time in itself. If you have 10+ people, make sure you have enough going on to keep everyone busy, and expect that not everyone may want to do the same thing at the same time. Thankfully, there are many activities to keep folks entertained during the witching season. Here are just a few different ideas to get you on the terror track to frights and fun:
Halloween Games: Whether you do something as elaborate as bobbing for apples or you just sit at the table to play board games like Clue or Betrayal at House on the Hill, Halloween games are a great way to get people to mingle at your get-together.
Movies: Running Halloween movies is a must for me, even if it’s only on in the background for most people. That's okay, though, because playing classic black-and-white horror films or fun slashers from the ’80s adds an extra layer of entertainment to your party, and can also be a great conversation starter for folks keeping an eye onscreen.
Karaoke: I know it’s not everyone’s forte, but setting your place up more like a karaoke room and less like a performance bar is a great way to keep people engaged, let them have fun, and take away a lot of pressure for those brave enough to step up and sing at your monster mash.
[Special thanks to Derek Anderson for additional content and editing, Jordan Smith for photos, and Philips for providing the Hue samples for testing!]
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