Somebody said your name in a meeting and now you own the holiday party. The venue is handled, the dietary requirements are a spreadsheet, and photos are the thing nobody mentioned and everybody will ask about afterwards. Specifically: the group shot the boss wants for the intranet, the awards moment, and the two hundred candids that will otherwise live on two hundred phones forever.
Here is the whole job, in three passes. It takes about ten minutes of your attention, total.
One week out
Create the event and get the code printed while you still have a calm week. Naming it is the only required decision: "Holiday Party" and the year is fine, and everything else can change later. Create your first event walks the screens if you have not done it before.
Then make the one real call: whether guests confirm an email before they can upload. New events ship with Require accounts to upload turned on, which is usually right for a work party. Colleagues have work email, the confirmation is a single tap rather than a password, and every photo carries a name, which matters when a shot ends up in the internal newsletter. Turn it off only if you are including partners, contractors and the venue's staff and you would rather nobody had to type anything at all.
Print more codes than feels sensible. Table cards, a sign by the bar, one taped near the coat check. They cost nothing and the ones on the tables get scanned most, because that is where people sit down.
Scan your own code before the print run
Once, on your own phone, from the printed proof. It takes five seconds and it is the only mistake in this whole list that cannot be fixed on the day.
The day itself, in three moves
Get the code in front of people while they still have both hands free, which means the first thirty minutes, not after dinner. The three places that work: on the tables, by the bar or the queue for it, and on any screen the room already has. The guest upload kit has the table card line and the exact sentence for whoever is holding the microphone.
Then put the album on a screen. If the venue has a TV or a projector, open the album on it and leave it there. It fills live as people upload, and it does two useful things at once: it entertains the room and it is the best possible advertisement for the code, because everyone watches their own photo appear.
Three moments to nudge, since they are the ones people remember and the ones your official photographer, if you have one, will miss:
- The gift exchange table. The unwrapping faces are the best photos of the whole party and they happen in ten seconds each.
- The awards. Whoever is presenting should say the code line once before the first award, not after the last one.
- The group photo. Get one taken on somebody else's phone as well as yours, so the person organizing it is in a picture for once.
The morning after
Give it an hour before you touch anything, because the late uploads arrive when people wake up and go through their camera rolls.
Then, in one sitting: skim the album and hide anything nobody needs to see again. Hiding takes it out of the guest album and is reversible, so you are not making a permanent decision about your colleague's dance move. If you turned review on, clear the queue with Approve all and pick out the exceptions.
Next, the download. Download all packages the album as a zip of the originals, filtered to photos only if the newsletter is all you need. As the host you can choose Include hidden items if you want the full archive rather than the public cut.
Last, share it. Send the album link, not a folder of attachments: one link, everyone can browse and download at full quality, and the people who took the photos can grab their own. If your company runs an all-hands, a highlight reel from the album is a good way to open it, which is the same trick that works for a company offsite.
The list to screenshot
Screenshot this part.
One week out
- Create the event and name it.
- Decide accounts or anonymous. Leave Require accounts to upload on for a colleagues-only party.
- Print table cards, a bar sign, and one for the coat check.
- Scan a printed proof yourself.
- Post the link in the party channel with the date.
On the day
- Codes out before guests arrive, not after dinner.
- Album on the screen, if the room has one.
- Say the line once, early, on the microphone.
- Nudge at the gift exchange, the awards, the group photo.
The morning after
- Skim and hide anything that should not be in a work album.
- Download all for the newsletter.
- Send the album link to everyone who came.
That is the entire job. If you get handed the summer party too, the same list works with different weather; if you get handed the customer conference, the no-app playbook is the bigger version of it; and the list for birthdays and family celebrations is collecting every party photo before anyone leaves. For what Partyreel does with a room full of phones generally, see parties.
Start with step one this week, while the calm week is still calm.
