# Help me do a post-mortem on our party... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 30, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570 "2012-05-30T18:49:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/1 "2012-05-30T18:49:35Z")
So my daughter’s sweet sixteen party was last weekend. I can’t really describe it as a resounding success. All of the preparations went fine. A friend volunteered the use of his back yard. I found a rental place that was able to hook us up with tables and chairs. My S-i-L brought Michaela to Party City the week before and got the decorations. We had a caterer provide enough food for 30-40 guests. Michaela created an event on Facebook for 70 invitees and got back a couple of dozen saying they would go and another sixteen saying “maybe.” She handed out thirty-five physical invitations at school to those people (although she didn’t think to ask for on-the-spot feedback from them). Eight kids showed up. WTH did we do wrong? ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/2 "2012-05-30T18:56:49Z")
Ugh, that’s too bad. Reminds me of an episode of Party Down with a very similar storyline (girl throws a lavish Sweet Sixteen party and only the nerds from school showed up, the popular kids all boycotted her party for some reason I can’t remember.) Is she well-liked, generally? Popular? Could there be some drama within her class that might cause them to all bail on her? ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/3 "2012-05-30T18:59:20Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > WTH did we do wrong? Nothing. Teenagers are flakes. Or perhaps the answer is ‘You assumed teenagers wouldn’t flake.’ :smack: ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/4 "2012-05-30T19:04:54Z")
You should have secured some hip DJ and implied that there would be no adult supervision - instant hordes of teens looking for a place to get up to the kind of things that they \*actually \*like to do. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/5 "2012-05-30T19:08:59Z")
It was Memorial Day weekend, correct? Lots of people out of town, lots of people with other plans, so…I’d guess just bad timing. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/6 "2012-05-30T19:09:02Z")
That’s heartbreaking. What a shame. Could there have been a competing event? Maybe it was one of those things where people weren’t going because other people weren’t going. Had a few more people been planning to really go, maybe that would have been the necessary tipping point. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/7 "2012-05-30T19:18:14Z")
Kids are flakes, yes. It’s also possible that your daughter thinks she’s better friends with her classmates than they think she is–but for any given kid, there’s nothing parents can do about that. Also also, it was Memorial Day weekend, meaning \*lots \*of people going to the beach and throwing parties and opening swimming pools and visiting graveyards. There’s also the point that responses to Facebook events aren’t RSVPs–they’re too casual. If you put on another event this lavish in the future, I’d vote to do an official mail-in (or at least a phone call) RSVP–not for a graduation party, though, those are more like open houses. Anyway, if you’re going to shell out big bucks on catering and furniture rental, you need to get a very accurate head count ahead of time–that means _no maybes_. Just yes or no (and any non-response is automatically a no). A birthday party isn’t a wedding, obviously, but a formal RSVP gives the impression of a real promise that can’t be blown off like a Facebook invite. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Woo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7c8e57/32.png) [@Dr.Woo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Woo)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/8 "2012-05-30T19:18:47Z")
Did the invitations indicate that there would be parents present? ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/9 "2012-05-30T19:34:33Z")
+1 for teenagers are flakes. I have a similar story: On my sixteenth birthday, my mother and my aunt rented a condo in Daytona Beach and let me invite some friends to spend the weekend with us. I invited my two current best buds…who seemed to be all excited about the trip, but both mysteriously fell out of contact a few days beforehand. I still expected them to show up, but they just didn’t. When my mom came to pick me up, she had a surprise for me…she had brought along a friend of mine from school the previous year! If she hadn’t, I would have been one sad little girl riding the amusement park rides on the boardwalk with just my Aunt Debbie and my mama. I never did get an explanation for why those bitches stood me up either. ---
**Author:** ![FuriousGeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecae2f/32.png) [@FuriousGeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuriousGeorge)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/10 "2012-05-30T19:35:52Z")
This sorta happened to me this weekend. Step-daughter’s graduation pool party/barbecue. We asked her for “definite show”'s because we were paying admission to the pool based on who was “on the list” ahead of time. We got a list of over two dozen “definite show”'s. Maybe half a dozen showed. Asked her what happened, she said she called the no-shows and got lots of “Oh, that was today?”. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/11 "2012-05-30T19:39:00Z")
Another thought… A kid clicking on the “will attend” button on Facebook is far different than a parent allowing the kid to go and making the necessary arrangements. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/12 "2012-05-30T19:46:44Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > back yard. Food in a backyard, is not enough to attract today’s teenagers in mass. I’d be willing to guess that the 8 that attended were probably the really close friends of your daughter’s. To entice a larger group, you needed to have something for them to do which would be unique. Sorry for your daughter. Hope she wasn’t too disappointed. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/13 "2012-05-30T20:29:33Z")
Thanks for the responses. She didn’t mention the planned presence of adults (although the FB Event feature does allow one to see who else has been invited and how the responses have been going. Anyone checking that could see aunts and uncles and grandparents). She did mention that it would be catered by L&L Hawaiian BBQ, and they were planning to dance around, listen to music, and could have a jam session with anyone who wanted to bring an instrument. She tells us that a couple of friends had mentioned a few days in advance that they remembered prior commitments. One girl was going to provide transportation for two other girls, and decided at the last minute that it was too far (it was about seven miles from the high school, and two miles from the school where they had their choir concert five days earlier :rolleyes:). She did kind of freak out early on, but the kids who showed up were terrific and bucked up her spirits. A couple of hours in, she asked our host to bring out the microphones and fire up his karaoke system which had already been set up as the sound system for the night. He was only too happy to comply. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/14 "2012-05-30T20:35:24Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > She did kind of freak out early on, but the kids who showed up were terrific and bucked up her spirits… This speaks highly of your daughter’s character, as there are far too many kids her age who would have let a disappointing turnout to their party throw them into the depths of self-pity and endless Woe-Is-Me drama, while ignoring the true friends who actually showed up. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/15 "2012-05-30T20:51:45Z")
This is probably more of a cultural thing but…are sweet sixteen parties common and popular where you are? They aren’t at all popular in my circle of friends and throwing a catered backyard party with the relatives would have been perceived as very weird indeed - and also a bit of a gift grab, to be honest. If they are culturally common for you, then it’s obviously not part of what went wrong, but it might play a role if this is unusual. For my sixteenth, a few friends bought me a beer and we hung out and watched movies - same as any weekend, except for the free beer for me (note: drinking age is 18 here, and most people start around 14-15 or so, usually with parents knowing about it!) ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/16 "2012-05-30T21:06:11Z")
You forgot to include the words **“Free beer”** at the bottom of the invites. Ducks and runs. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/17 "2012-05-30T21:12:02Z")
Memorial Day Weekend ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/18 "2012-05-30T22:16:58Z")
Hey, at least 8 people showed up. That’s better than zero. ---
**Author:** ![dngnb8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@dngnb8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dngnb8)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/19 "2012-05-30T22:22:51Z")
Then there are possibilities that arent positive ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570/20 "2012-05-31T00:05:22Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > and also a bit of a gift grab, to be honest. AIUI, people don’t give birthday gifts as a rule any more. The honor of your presence at the party **is** a gift. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-do-a-post-mortem-on-our-party/623570.md?page=2)