Good Weekend: Saturday

(Before I begin: Matt has put in the final word on The Whisky. Includes good descriptions of the whiskies what was drunk, if you have an interest in that.)
After a most welcome breakfast of sweet, sweet crepes prepared by dutiful and beloved Jarratt, I proceeded back to Damon’s, and got stuck into final Rumpus 06 preparations. There was a lot of stuff to do, we were being quite unashamedly ambitious and the day had come. We were still putting things in place as the first guests were arriving – in fact, Leon and I went home to change and get ready when there were already a dozen people arrived, and by the time we got back the place was packed. So we kinda missed the start of our own party. Very classy 🙂
THE RUMPLETRON REVEALED!
We wanted the Rumpus to get people dancing and get people mingling. Key to this whole process was the Rumpletron, our 1980 ex-military party computer. The Rumpletron sat in a side room, waiting for input. It asked for your name, then it asked you three questions. Based on your answers, it would guess whether you were a boy or girl, then assign you a tribe and give you a party name. You scribble the name on a nametag sticker and you’re ready to rumpus!
Everyone was into it. People loved the Rumpletron. New arrivals were dragged into the room pretty fast. Some people got extra Rumpletron names for their shoes, their shoulders or their breasts. Everyone wanted to know what tribe people were in and what questions people had been asked.
This was cool. So we ended up with lots of people wandering around with silly nametags. In its ineffable electronic wisdom, the Rumpletron put almost everyone into Tribe Voltron, so the two or three people in Tribe Miami Vice had extra talking point status all night. It broke down a lot of barriers, and there was plenty of mingling. Everyone had a name to call other people by, and everyone had a conversation opener, and it was so stupid it wrapped all the way around to awesome again.
Good job, Rumpletron. (Shout outs to Toby and Damon for the hard yards in getting the Rumpletron 2006-compliant!)
THE DANCEFLOOR!
Apa (aided and abetted by his lovely partner Gemma) and Brent were our two DJs, and they got a dancefloor going sure enough. I saw healthy crowds dancing for both of them, even though they were playing quite different stuff. I didn’t spend much time in the dance room, but it seemed there was a good vibe coming from there all night, which is great. A dancefloor with people dancing is the heart of a party.
The smoke machine helped.
OTHER STUFF
Other things the Rumpus had:
* a graffiti wall with coloured felt-tip pens, which became covered with all sorts of scribble and nonsense as the night went on
* a freaky blacklight bulb in the toilet, and other coloured bulbs in every other room
* a make-out room, mostly taken over by chill-out people
* a chapel, complete with patron saint, at the bottom of the garden, but still linked into the soundsystem
* an outdoorsy bit that people actually used
* only two cases of overindulgence
* mannequins
Oh, and last but not least,
* free beer
IT WAS GOOD
It may, in fact, have been the best party I’ve ever helped throw. It’s up there. People liked it. There were disappointments assuaged. There were amusing pirates (one , two). There was a glowstick thief. There was a terrifying extrovert-to-extrovert positive feedback loop. There was microwave Jesus and the surprising truth about President Reagan. There were random kisses. There was at least one instance of crowd-surfing.
It was fantastic, and I was sad when it ended.
So. A mighty thank you to Damon, who volunteered to provide a venue for my long-mooted party, didn’t freak out when I said I wanted to invite ‘everyone’, and then not only became full and righteous co-host but became way more ambitious than I could ever have dreamed. You are the awesome, my friend.
(Read his writeup of the Rumpus here.)
And a second one to Leon, who was really the third host of the party, and who rocked my personal kasbah with his excellent handiwork and smart ideas about making things happen. Not to mention his fearsome hard work at the eleventh hour. Thanks bro. (All y’all should go and worship him a bit on the ‘Leon is a God’ website, here.)
And a third one to all the others who stepped in and stepped up, making contributions large or small – Toby, Apa, Gemma, Brent, Karlene, Clare, Anton, Nick, Lucas, Dave Stewart… umm… I must have forgotten someone.
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Rumpus 07, anyone?