every word of it.

I’ve been meaning to write this entry for a long time. Anyways…

So, how /do/ you throw a successful BBQ for 55 people? The same way you get to Carnegie Hall – practice.

The BBQ I had on Memorial Day was #3. BBQ #1 was a small affair – 10 people at the most. And to be honest was just a BLC Happening. BBQ #2 doubled in size, but there were still mistakes. We overestimated the food and probably could have fed 50 people easy.

BBQ #3

People

You need guests at your BBQ. You have to invite people and give them enough notice so it doesn’t seem you sprung something on them last minute. But then you can’t invite people months in advance, because no one knows what they’re doing a month from now. I ended up inviting people 2 weeks before. I figured that would be a good balance. Not too far, not too soon.

But don’t forget, people are bums. The invited will take their time responding, and you’ll be wondering – is no one going to show/is this going to get out of control/does everyone hate me? And it’ll drive you crazy. Because if you don’t have an accurate guest list, how are you going to know how much food to buy? How much drinks? How much plates? How much chairs? All these things and more depend on an accurate guest list. And don’t forget to account for extra. People will bring friends.

So for BBQ #3, 91 people were invited. (Wow, that is a lot!)

Let’s go to the breakdown

Confirmed	52
Maybe	20
No Response	2
Declined	17
Invited	91

So I could’ve theoretically had (52 + 20) 72 people showing up plus any additions. But the actual count was 55.

Confirmed + Maybes	72
Attended	50
No Shows	(22)
Late Additions	5
Actual Attendance	55

Food

So how do you feed all these people? With lots of meat

20 lbs of Chicken (Drumsticks + Wings)
20 lbs of Lamb
6 lbs of Ground Turkey
4 packs of Turkey Bratwurst
2 packs of Turkey Dogs (24/pack)

Also on my receipts

1 Bag of Rolls
2 Bags (Costco) of Hamburger Buns
2 Bags (Costco) of Hot Dog Buns
1 Bag of Chips
Ketchup
Mustard
BBQ Sauce

People also brought

Cheese & Crackers
Eggrolls
Corn
Bratwurst
Salad
Lemon Bar Cake (Extra Delicious)
Cookies
Pies

And I had my mom make

Fried Rice
Potato Salad

Drink

To wash all that down, you need lots of beer. Surren and I decided it might be more cost effective to just get a keg. And you also need beer for beer pong. In addition you need coke.

So all together, we had

1 Keg of Shiner
1 Case of Keystone
3 Cases of Coke
3 Bottles of Wine

People also brought more beer and coke.

But, sadly we didn’t finish the keg. We did come close, but in the end I did have to empty it out down the drain. I think if we used the Keg for the beer pong, it would’ve finished.

Entertainment

If you put people together with food and drink, they’ll find a way to entertain themselves. But to get that started, you need music. It’s there to fill the silence.

For BBQ #1, I ended up buying an iPod boom box. I’m really happy with it. It’s able to produce a nice sound at a loud volume without too much distortion. I could’ve just stuck my iPod in there and considered ‘music’ taken care of, but I wanted to try something different.

Apple has a program for the iPhone – Remote. It allows you to use your iPhone as a remote for iTunes. Apple also has a router/print server called an AirPort Express that has a speaker jack on it. It’ll let you remotely connect speakers to your computer. So if you add all these things together, you can wirelessly stream music from your pc to a remote pair of speakers and let your guests control/vote for music. It’s a great idea.

And my execution was almost perfect. I had a spare AirPort Express that I decided to use. It would create a network, and I would have people connect to that – isolated from my main network. Well, the AirPort Express ended up choking. It couldn’t handle the number of clients. So I had to have it connect to my main network, and have everyone connect to my main network as well.

I also had this bright idea of outdoor Wii/movies. I bought a projector. I made a screen. And I was ready to impress. But, by the time it was dark enough to use the projector, I was too drunk/tired to be bothered to set it up. And I think that if I did, it would have detracted from the atmosphere.

Post Mortem

So what did I learn from BBQ #3?

I should stop worrying so much. I freaked out about chairs. I had 18 chairs, and I ended up borrowing a few. And I think it was the perfect amount.

Do as much setup as possible before. I should’ve put the tiki torches up beforehand.

I needed one more table. The food table kept on running out of space.

Bugs are everywhere, and there is nothing you can do about it. Buy a can of Off and put it out.

It’s a lot of work.

It’s also a lot of fun.